|| Next stop: Nowhere. ||
Ren barely had time to scream before the train lurched forward— straight off the tracks and into the abyss.
~~~
Ren woke up screaming.
It was all a dream.
He was still sprawled across the station bench.
The flickering overhead light buzzed faintly, casting long, eerie shadows across the cracked tiles of the near-empty platform. Distant chatter from half-asleep commuters drifted through the humid night air, mixing with the occasional screech of metal as another train howled past without stopping.
The scent of rain lingered—thick and heavy, clinging to the old wooden benches like a ghost of past storms.
...He hadn't boarded the damn train.
He hadn't been chased by a quasi-Gojo yokai.
He hadn't ma—
||Hey, kid.||
A voice, soft yet dripping with something ancient, slithered into his ears.
Ren blinked.
Standing before him was a spectral figure, draped in a tattered kimono, cradling a ghostly infant in her arms. Her beauty was haunting—too perfect, too sorrowful, like a cracked porcelain doll on the verge of shattering.
The child she held didn’t move. It barely seemed real, more like a weight anchoring her between the worlds of the living and the dead.
||Well, well. Fancy seeing you here.||
Ren sat up slowly, every muscle in his body tense.
"Oh hell no. Who are you?"
The ghastly woman chuckled.
||Name’s Ubume.||
Ren squinted.
"Aren’t you supposed to be some tragic ghost mom or whatever?"
Ubume’s grin twitched.
||Wow. Rude.||
Nurarihyon, who had been casually stealing a newspaper from a vending machine, looked up with a smirk.
||Ohhh, this is gonna be fun.||
Ren groaned.
"No. No ‘fun.’ I am done with fun. What do you want?"
Ubume stretched, looking entirely too amused.
||Just thought I’d help. You do need to get to Iwate, right?||
Ren glared.
"Without making another deal."
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
Ubume chuckled.
||Oh, don’t worry. No deals. Just a little... assistance.||
Ren’s instincts screamed at him to run.
But before he could even process what was happening, Ubume snapped her fingers.
~~~
Ren woke up to screaming.
Not his. (Yet.)
The first thing he noticed? He was falling.
The second thing he noticed? He was falling onto a goddamn train.
The third thing? The train was moving. Fast.
"WHAT THE HELL?!"
Wind tore past his ears as he plummeted onto the metal roof with a gut-wrenching thud, rolling like a discarded soda can. His hoodie nearly got ripped clean off, and his ribs screamed in protest.
Somewhere, Ubume’s voice echoed:
||Good luck!||
Ren barely had time to process that betrayal before he saw it.
A tunnel.
Rushing straight toward him.
"OH SH—"
One near-decapitation and a very painful landing later, Ren found himself inside the train, sprawled across the floor. He had somehow crashed through an open window like a badly thrown frisbee.
The other passengers just stared.
An old lady peered at him, eyes filled with suspicion. A salaryman clutched his briefcase like Ren was a terrorist. A high school girl blinked, bubblegum halfway to popping.
Ren forced a smile, still dizzy.
"Haha... good evening?"
The old lady immediately whacked him with her umbrella.
"OW—"
~~~
Somehow, Ren managed to escape without getting arrested. (Please don’t ask how.)
But things only got worse.
The next stop? A ghost-infested station.
Because of course it was.
The train screeched to a halt, doors hissing open to reveal a platform shrouded in mist. The station was old—too old.
Cracked tiles, faded banners from a festival that must have happened decades ago, and vending machines humming with static instead of advertisements.
The moment Ren stepped off, the air turned ice cold.
Every hair on his body stood on end.
"Oh, you have GOT to be kidding me."
Then he heard it.
A soft whisper.
||Return... the... TICKEEEEEET...||
Ren froze.
Aka Manto, lurking in the shadows like an unpaid intern, decided to join in for no damn reason.
||Red or blue?||
Ren didn't have a ticket.
He barely had functioning brain cells at this point.
But before he could even process his impending doom, the ghosts rushed him.
Fast-forward through an ungodly amount of running, screaming, and mild cardiac arrest, Ren finally escaped the cursed station.
He stumbled onto the next station, heart still hammering in his chest, sweat soaking through his clothes.
He collapsed onto a seat, gasping for breath.
Nurarihyon, who had been utterly useless this entire time, casually leaned against the window, reading the stolen newspaper.
||Rough night?||
Ren shot him a glare so venomous it could have melted steel.
"Shut. Up."
Nurarihyon just hummed, then glanced at the station sign outside before promptly eating it.
||Welcome to Osaka! Tokyo: 480 km||
Ren buried his face in his hands.
"...I hate everything."
Suddenly, all the yokai beamed.
Nurarihyon, ever the maniac, cackled:
||Finally! ||
Jorogumo, having finished webbing the whole station eight times over, said joyfully:
||Look Renny, there comes your salvation!||
Ren looked up.
He couldn't sense anything.
For a while.
And then...
An eerie train blasted in at a speed which would make Shinkansen look like a toy train.
However.....
No one except Ren seemed to be able to perceive it.
The train stopped right in front of Ren's nose, as if inviting him to sit.
However, Ren had decided that he'd be a good boy for the rest of the journey.
He didn't board the train.
He was so done getting his dignity in the hole and below.
He decided that he'd sleep at the station that night.
No more chaos.
No more humiliation.
No more—
||Oi, ain't you the idiot called Yagitsune Renji? Come in ASAP, we ain't got time for self-important anime protags. ||
The conductor's voice echoed.
Ren was a trillion percent sure that this was just another dream haunting him.
He ignored the outburst, turned to the opposite direction, and curled up.
He would sleep, no matter wh—
||DIDN'T YOU HEAR ME YA PUNK! I SAID GET. IN! ||
And with that, the conductor just yanked a sleepy Ren off the station bench, yeeted him into the train and slammed the doors.
~~~
Ren slept for ten straight hours.
When he woke up, he expected to see the familiar station.
He was met with the sight of a train compartment jammed with yokais.
Nurarihyon was partying hard with similiar looking yokais.
He rose up.
Ubume greeted him with a smile and said
||Well done kid!||
Ren, dead inside, responded:
"Yeah, whatever. You said you'd help me if I did your damn favor right? There, done! Rewards please."
Ubume grinned and announced in a loud voice:
||Aight y'all. I hope you know that this train is headed for Iwate....||
