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VIDEO: Tsumihoroboshi-hen | TIP 14: The Demons’ Script
BGM: Silence
SFX: Cars
The cry of the cicadas seeped through the tightly shut windows.
Most people would open their car windows and let the natural air in along with the sounds of the cicadas.
But people are also spoiled.
He'd rather keep himself cool with the air conditioning turned to max than listen to the sounds of nature.
But this June, the summer had already come without any rain.
...Just like how the weather was on that day, twenty years ago.
"But thanks to that, there are no irritating tourists around here. See, that makes it much better. ...Why do tourists forget about pedestrian traffic laws when they're in rural areas? They walk in the middle of the road, you know?"
"Ah ha ha ha. Akasaka-senpai, do you still do stuff outdoors?"
"Not as much as I used to. My job doesn't give me much free time."
"Ah ha ha ha ha. Same here. .........Oh, hey, there he is."
SFX: Higurashi
The man was a young fellow on a motorcycle with a big backpack on his shoulders. He looked like he was ready to go camping.
Akasaka and his partners stepped out of the car and shook hands with the young man.
"Yo! How have you been doing lately? Well, I hope? You can take it easy today. This is Akasaka-senpai. He took care of me back in college."
"Hello, my name is Akasaka. Ooishi was supposed to come today, but he had to go for a medical check-up at the last minute. Anyway, it's a pleasure to meet you."
"It's an honor, sir!"
"So, Akasaka-senpai, where shall we go first?"
He was a veteran detective from the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department.
Despite the fact that he was close to his retirement, he hadn't lost his clear instinct and sharp eyes at all.
Those eyes showed the confidence he'd built through many risky experiences, and he had a well-built muscular body and a fearless aura. He must have fought against many violent criminals.
He was in the Public Safety Division in the Metropolitan Police Department. He came to Hinamizawa to investigate the kidnapping case of the grandson of Inugai, the then-Minister of Construction.
There, he met Ooishi... and Rika Furude.
Rika Furude predicted her own death.
...Akasaka regretted for the rest of his life that he couldn't save that little girl from her fate.
He saw the news of the Great Hinamizawa Disaster on TV and met up again with Ooishi.
They pledged to uncover the mystery of both the cruel fate that fell upon the little girl and the series of mysterious deaths in Hinamizawa.
As a result, all Akasaka and Ooishi could do for the past twenty years was publish the little information they'd gathered, and ask for their readers to send their tips and clues.
But, recently, the seal on Hinamizawa had finally been lifted...
However, they couldn't come to Hinamizawa until today due to Akasaka's busy work schedule and Ooishi's poor health.
In fact, Ooishi was supposed to come with Akasaka, but he was called in for an emergency health check-up.
The other two who came along were Akasaka's juniors from university. One worked at the Ground SDF, and the other was his subordinate. They were assigned the mission of sealing off Hinamizawa, so they were quite knowledgeable about the village.
The corners of the scrapbook were all dented, making it look very old.
Akasaka flipped through the pages, thought for a second, and let them know his first destination.
"Alright, please take me to Onigafuchi Swamp."
"No problem. Right this way, sir!"
The young man got on his bike and waited for the others to get back to their car.
They honked at each other to signal that they were ready, and the young man led the car to the swamp…
BGM: Ancient Times (Inishie)
There wasn't even a single drop of water in sight.
All the water of the swamp had been replaced by concrete.
...That was what Onigafuchi Swamp looked like now.
"Hahahaha. There isn't even a single drop of water, let alone a swamp."
"I was told that they sealed the swamp right after the Disaster. This place was already encased in concrete by the time I arrived here for my mission."
"Let's go down there and take a closer look."
Akasaka got out of the car and walked to the center of the concrete-filled swamp.
It wasn't a parking lot or a heliport.
...It was just a huge empty concrete space right in the middle of the forest.
"...So, this is the place people say was a landing spot for UFOs."
"Well, that's what they write on occult websites. They say that this is the place where our government met with aliens. I can't blame them for such rumors, though because an empty concrete space in the middle of a forest sure does look weird."
"Wa ha ha ha ha ha."
The deadly mixture of hydrogen sulfide and carbon dioxide engulfed and destroyed Hinamizawa in a single night.
The village was sealed off and the SDF covered the swamp with concrete.
"But the people who write those rumors on the Internet actually have a point. Any geologist could tell you that covering a source of volcanic gas with concrete is absolutely useless."
"Hmm... that's true. I've never heard of anyone trying to prevent a volcano from erupting by pouring concrete into its crater. On the other hand, our country is known for wasteful construction using the taxpayer's money."
It's well known by now that the cause of the Disaster was an eruption of deadly volcanic gas from a magma chamber.
In 1986, a similar natural disaster occurred at Lake Nyos in Cameroon, Africa. So, people easily believed that such a rare natural disaster could occur anywhere on Earth, and that was what happened in Hinamizawa as well.
However, a rumor about another possible explanation had begun to fly around on the Internet recently.
BGM: Soak
They say that the Disaster was a cover-up by the government, and that it was actually a biochemical terrorist attack by aliens.
They claim to back up their theory with a secret document known as File No. 34.
Someone online named it File No. 34 for descriptive purposes, but the name spread and stuck since then because it sounded like a government conspiracy. People loved it.
It's unknown how or from where they obtained those documents, but they posted scans and pictures, which were all ridiculous.
Plus, more fake evidence was produced over time, so now even the existence of such documents are in doubt.
However, since it started on the Internet, truths and lies were all mixed together, and it has become more like an urban legend. So, this is what is believed to mostly be true.
File No. 34 was a notebook written by a nurse named Miyo Takano who worked at a local clinic in Hinamizawa.
File No. 34 was most likely named after her.
3 and 4 can be read in Japanese as ‘mi’ and ‘yo’ respectively.
This woman was a researcher who studied the demon myth of Hinamizawa and tried to solve what it meant.
According to her research, a UFO crash-landed in Hinamizawa a long time ago and sunk into Onigafuchi Swamp.
The UFO carried parasitic bacteria from space, and they began to infect the locals.
The infected villagers began to behave extremely violently, so much so that they were fit for the word "demon".
Miyo Takano insisted that this was the explanation for the myth about demons pouring out of the swamp.
An alien who survived the crash realized that the earthlings had gone crazy because of the bacteria he brought in, and he decided to show himself to the villagers to help them out.
...This is how Oyashiro-sama was born.
Since the villagers looked up to the alien as some sort of deity, the alien utilized its status to hand down specific rules to the villagers in order to stabilize the disease.
The bacteria took a liking to Hinamizawa's habitat. So, when a carrier of the disease left Hinamizawa, their symptoms would reemerge.
Therefore, the alien made it a rule not to leave the village.
This leads to the legend of the transcendants of Onigafuchi.
The weird practices and miracles that the villagers performed were realized by means of the advanced technology that they received from the alien.
“Do you remember Nostradamus' prophecies? People said that the world was going to end in 1999, but nothing happened in July and people acted like they didn't even know about it. Those TV shows made people as scared as they could be and then ignored the fact that it didn't happen."
"But Miyo Takano did predict the Great Hinamizawa Disaster. It's not a lie. Look at this page in this scrapbook."
"You must be joking. Aha ha ha ha......... ...Akasaka-senpai, is this for real...?"
The alien and the bacteria began to fade away from people's minds...
However, the alien has lived on for hundreds of years with the protection of the Three Families.
It still lives on as the spirit of a deity in the secret temple of the Furude Shrine.
The alien manipulated the bacteria living inside of the villagers and maintained control over them for hundreds of years.
The alien wanted to regain its power, and started researching how to bring back the lost powers of the bacteria... etcetera etcetera...
Things get much stranger from there. People say that the Disaster was actually part of the alien's plan to conquer the entire Earth by spreading the reawakened bacteria.
The Japanese government has a secret division that fights against alien invasions, and they trained at Area 51 in the US... etcetera etcetera...
And they moved in to stop the invasion by sealing off the entire village, and they killed all of the residents by using toxic gas.
"Yeah, I know. It's too crazy to be real. But, the writer of this bunch of bull, Miyo Takano, was mysteriously murdered in June 1983. Right before her death, she gave this scrapbook to a girl as if she knew she was going to die very soon."
That girl is known as "Girl A".
Reina Ryuugu inherited Miyo Takano's will by means of the scrapbooks. She tried to fight against the planned invasion by holding a school hostage and demanding the local police uncover the alien's plot.
Of course, no one believed her and they assumed she was in a state of paranoia.
Back then, people assumed that Reina Ryuugu took Miyo Takano's delusions seriously and was motivated to commit a poorly executed crime.
‘When she held the school hostage, Reina Ryuugu told local police that the alien was controlling the Three Families, and that it was plotting bioterrorism on a massive scale. And the very next day, the Great Hinamizawa Disaster occurred.’
"I don't know. According to people who believe it's not just a coincidence, there are many inconsistencies in the SDF's immediate sealing-off operation. Filling this swamp with concrete is one example.”
“Several of the SDF soldiers on duty at the time testified that some people were conducting secret investigations outside the usual geological survey before the area was closed off. Of course, those who think it's just a coincidence say that the researchers simply took precautionary measures to keep unauthorized people out of the area."
"I'd have to agree with the latter people."
"People also question why they sealed off the village for such a long time. After its volcanic gas eruption, Miyake Island was only sealed off for four to five years. What happened in Hinamizawa was an exceptionally rare natural disaster, yet it was sealed for over twenty years."
”I heard that the residents of Miyake Island returned to their home island faster than was originally intended, because they had requested it so strongly. But, in the case of Hinamizawa, there were no residents alive who wished to return in the first place. Perhaps the government took their time until they were absolutely certain that it was safe."
"Hmm. How about this one? The SDF members who were on the mission to seal off Hinamizawa had their blood samples taken periodically. Some of them were discharged from the mission without any explanation after the results came back. Some believe that they were using the members of the SDF as human test subjects to see if they got infected or not."
"I think they were just checking up on the members' health condition, since they were in the area where the gas disaster occurred. Besides, normal businessmen also take annual physical check-ups, and they have their blood samples taken there as well."
"No volcanic gas? What does that mean?"
"Basically what they're saying is that there was no volcanic gas and it was a sort of government cover-up. It's like in the Spielberg movie. You know, the one where humans make contact with UFOs?"
"See, that's exactly how maniacs always explain things. What kind of basis do they have to say that there was no volcanic gas emission?"
"Well, a bunch of those maniacs came to Hinamizawa as soon as the seal was lifted. According to them, the hydrogen sulfide in the volcanic gas should've caused some corrosion to metallic objects and major damage to the wildlife. However, they found no such signs of disruption, which led them to claim that there was no volcanic gas to begin with. ...But this village was abandoned for twenty years. I doubt that they could find anything anyway."
"Ha ha ha. Well, that's the thing with the Internet. You can't believe everything you read on it! ...Akasaka-senpai, please don't tell me you're buying these stories."
"At first, I didn't. But lately, I'm beginning to think that there might be some truth to them."
"You believe in UFOs? Oh, come on!"
"Huh?"
"This scrapbook is the one that Reina Ryuugu possessed when she took the school hostage on June 25th, 1983. It was assumed to be lost during the confusion of the Disaster. But, Ooishi-san's old friend was able to locate it in an evidence storage at the prefectural police headquarters."
Back then, Ooishi thought Reina Ryuugu was delusional. But after reading this again after the Great Hinamizawa Disaster, some of the contents seem to hold vital clues.
It's not the alien part that he was interested in, but her theory that an endemic disease of parasitic microbes in Hinamizawa was responsible for the "curse of Oyashiro-sama".
Of course, there's no proof that such microbes existed, so it still remains at a theoretical level.
This theory is also based on the theories and myths he found on the Internet.
The village clinic's chief doctor died mysteriously right before the Great Hinamizawa Disaster.
A girl, Rika Furude, was brutally murdered on the night Reina Ryuugu took the school hostage...
There could have been an underground research lab beneath the village clinic, and Dr. Irie could have been forced to do micro-biological research, but he couldn't live with his own sins, and committed suicide.
...Rika Furude could have been brutally murdered in a sacrifice for some sort of ritual ceremony in the name of Oyashiro-sama's revival...
...Instead of the microbes being parasitic in the villagers, they became a killer virus.
And they exterminated the entire village in one night...
“including Miyo Takano herself, who wrote about all that in the scrapbook. It doesn't sound right to say that the Great Hinamizawa Disaster was an unpredicted and coincidental natural disaster. When you read this File No. 34, it's obvious."
"So... you're saying that the Great Hinamizawa Disaster wasn't a rare natural disaster, but that it was in fact an act of bioterrorism by some cultists?"
In the modern era, everyone in Japan knows about the shocking incident where a doomsday cult created a nerve gas, Sarin, and unleashed it for the purposes of mass murder.
But in the 80s, the idea of a single cult being able to carry out such an act of terrorism didn't even cross our minds.
"Ha ha ha ha. At least this story sounds more convincing than the one with aliens in UFOs. The idea of cultists and domestic terrorism sounds more rational."
"Maybe there really was an UFO that crash-landed. ...When Reina Ryuugu took the school hostage, one of her demands to the police was to have them pull out the wreckage of the UFO from the Onigafuchi Swamp."
"That's ridiculous..."
"Well, even if I wanted to make sure if it's ridiculous or not, look at it. The swamp is filled with concrete several meters thick and there's no way we can check. This is all because of that ridiculous construction that doesn't even do anything to prevent the volcanic gas."
"Well then, the only way to prove Akasaka-senpai's theory would be to find a survivor of Hinamizawa and try to find that microbe in him or her."
"Sadly, that's almost impossible. After the Great Hinamizawa Disaster, some survivors were subject to a witch hunt. So, even if there are any survivors, they won't tell you that they're from this area."
When they started dying mysteriously and committing suicide in strange ways, people got scared of them and chased them out of their neighborhoods.
The government was practically useless in protecting their privacy at the time, so the former residents of Hinamizawa lied about where they were from and have kept it that way since.
"In that case, it's a dead end."
"But it's my duty as a cop to keep trying. ...There's enough circumstantial evidence to say that the Great Hinamizawa Disaster wasn't a natural one. If I could grab ahold of one piece of concrete proof, I think I could start reeling in the truth behind all of this."
"Yeah, but it's been over twenty years. The truth might be lying somewhere very deep in the darkness."
"That's true... I might not find any answers. It's already the 21st century."
The only factual evidence that I had was that Miyo Takano mysteriously died and left her scrapbook predicting a bioterrorist attack.
A young girl took a school hostage to make people listen to this prediction, but no one took it seriously.
The chief doctor of the village clinic committed suicide. People believed that a little girl, Rika Furude, was a reincarnation of Oyashiro-sama, and she was brutally murdered.
What was the truth behind this scrapbook?
Was it written to reveal a huge conspiracy?
Or was it just a bunch of delusions written by an occult maniac?
If the contents of this scrapbook were true, the disaster could've been avoided if we had heeded the warnings of one girl.
If they weren't true, then who created the disaster to follow the scenario of the scrapbook?
In contrast to "brainwashing," which can easily force a person to commit certain acts in the short term, "mind control" takes a long time to gradually make a person believe that what he or she must do is the right thing to do, and to act upon it as if it were his or her own idea. It's a form of character alteration, which is far more serious than brainwashing.
The cult behind the Sarin gas incident induced fear and anxiety into its members through its revelations of doomsday. At the same time, they ordered them to do certain things as means of salvation, and had them do so voluntarily.
The formula was quite similar to how Reina Ryuugu became a puppet of File No. 34.
So, does that mean that Reina Ryuugu was "mind-controlled" by someone?
Does that mean that the cult that mind-controlled her tried to cause the end of the world in order to increase the credibility of their teachings, just like the other cult did?
Would that make File No. 34 some sort of religious textbook for them?
When I lose my grip on what's true and what's not, it sometimes makes me feel that someone might be laughing in amusement at this disaster.
It was a script for a tragedy that takes the lives of thousands of villagers in one night.
It was a script for demons who laugh at that loss of human life.
Damn it...!!
...What the hell happened in Hinamizawa in June 1983?!!!
