Crisis in the High Skies

High above central Japan.

Above the thick, heavy cloud layer, the massive passenger plane roared forward. Though it appeared to fly steadily from the outside, the crisis within had reached a critical stage. The Ghost Unit, having been secretly delivered by an Inari jet, had infiltrated the plane’s belly and lay in wait beneath the cabin floor. Each ghostly spirit had selected its target. At the moment Hayakawa Rin was about to be shot, they finally made their move.

Cold, ethereal green figures emerged abruptly behind each man in black. Chilling blades pierced through their bodies, and with expressions of disbelief and shock, they slowly collapsed. The last thing they saw in their fading vision were terrifying skeletal faces beneath steel helmets.

Terrified, the passengers curled away from the ghosts. With the gathering of these black-clad men—who possessed demonic power—and a powerful yokai, combined with so many spirits, the space inside the aircraft had begun to transform into a ghostly domain. The things once hidden by the boundary were now revealed to everyone, causing an instinctual, deep-seated terror.

Sitting on the floor, Hayakawa Rin clutched her head from the impact. When she looked up, she saw the fallen hijackers and the Ghost Unit soldiers floating before her. Her heart nearly stopped, and her pupils dilated. Amidst the screams of the crowd, she let out a cry of her own. Driven by panic, Rin scrambled to her feet, snatched her fallen phone from the floor, and bolted down the center aisle away from the ghosts toward the front of the plane. Just as she reached the cockpit, the door swung open, and a shockwave of air burst forth, knocking her back onto the floor. It was clear—something inside the cockpit had forcibly repelled all the spirits!

"Hmph! So the Inari weren't willing to stand by after all?!" A burly figure walked slowly out of the cockpit. He had a powerful build, a bald head, and a face scarred with malice. He was the leader of the hijackers.

His sunglasses were gone, his suit was torn in several places, and the shirt beneath was soaked with blood. It was clear the Ghost Unit’s ambush had succeeded, yet the injuries were not fatal. He had even used his own power to repel the spirits that had attacked him. Watching from outside the plane, Kagura whispered in surprise. It was highly unusual for him to survive an attack by four spirits at once. His performance proved he was a yokai with immense resistance to spiritual attacks.

"Hmph! Since you dare to act, then let this plane crash! Not a single person on board will survive! This is your fault!" As he roared, his body began to twist and warp. Thousands of worms seemed to squirm beneath his skin as his frame expanded. Suddenly, his skin burst open. What erupted from within was not flesh and blood, but patches of dark red feathers. His bald head transformed into a monstrous bird’s head with an eerie human face—complete with a nose, eyes, and ears. His transformation sent the passengers into another round of hysteria.

"This is bad. It’s an Onmora-gaki. No wonder he has such high resistance to spiritual attacks!" Aboard the jet, Kagura sensed the situation inside and spoke with urgency. An Onmora-gaki was a bird yokai born from mass graves and charnel pits where the newly dead gathered. As a creature of the underworld, it thrived on devouring human souls and the ghost fires of graves. To spiritual entities, it was almost a natural predator.

Kagura hadn't expected the Ghost Unit to run into an Onmora-gaki. Was this a coincidence, or a deliberate plan by the enemy? If it was a plan, did it mean the enemy understood the Inari perfectly? Did they know exactly what kind of unit the Inari would send in such a situation?

A series of doubts flashed through Kagura’s mind, but she had no time for them now. With the Onmora-gaki’s true form revealed, the Ghost Unit was essentially useless. The entire plane was in peril. Although she could deal with the yokai herself, she couldn't pass through the physical barrier into the cabin without causing damage. She had the power but no way to apply it.

"Things seem to be taking a turn for the worse," Kagura muttered gravely before immediately issuing an order. "Increase altitude! Fly level with the passenger plane. I need to see what’s happening inside!"

"Yes, Lady Kagura!" the fox pilot responded, pulling the jet out from beneath the airliner’s belly.

Back in the cabin, the Onmora-gaki’s half-transformed state triggered a new wave of panic. As the crowd screamed, the Ghost Unit locked their sights on their final enemy. The Onmora-gaki let out a sharp, piercing screech. The noise made everyone in the cabin feel lightheaded and nauseous. The spirits attacking it were frozen in place by the sonic waves. Their spiritual bodies were disrupted by the cry, becoming unstable and nearly dissipating. They were forced back, and some were even driven entirely out of the plane. Their forms dimmed as they lost their combat effectiveness.

It was clear the Onmora-gaki’s suppression of spiritual beings was absolute; ordinary spirits could barely muster a challenge. Looking at the suppressed Ghost Unit, the Onmora-gaki couldn't help but feel a surge of pride. 'What else can you do?!' it thought while continuing to suppress the ghosts. Just as it was about to shatter their spiritual forms completely, an unexpected bang rang out.

BANG!

The sound cut the Onmora-gaki’s screech short. It froze, eyes widening as it looked down at its own abdomen. A bloody hole had appeared there, and it slowly realized it had been shot.

Turning its head, the Onmora-gaki looked toward the source of the shot. Hayakawa Rin, the chestnut-haired girl, was leaning against the cabin wall. She was trembling as she held a handgun she had scavenged from a dead hijacker. After hearing the Onmora-gaki declare it would crash the plane, Rin had suddenly realized the gravity of the situation. She had picked up the gun for self-defense and aimed it at the monster. When it shrieked, she had pulled the trigger in sheer terror. To her surprise, the shot hit, but the monster showed no sign of falling.

"No... No way... It didn't die?! Aah!" Feeling the numbness in her hands from the recoil, Rin stared in horror. When she saw the monster turn its hideous, terrifying face toward her, her hands went limp, and the gun clattered to the floor.

"You little brat... drop dead!"

The Onmora-gaki roared, throwing a massive fist toward the head of the ignorant girl. In that moment of absolute panic, Rin instinctively threw herself into a deep, desperate bow of apology.

"I accidentally shot you! I'm so sorry! Please forgive me!"

As she bowed, the Onmora-gaki’s fist swung through empty air, missing her completely. The massive fist smashed through the cabin window behind her, punching straight through the glass and exposing the monster’s arm to the outside air.

With the window shattered, the pressure differential between the inside and outside of the cabin took hold. A massive torrent of air began to rush out of the cabin. The Onmora-gaki was suddenly sucked toward the window, pinned firmly against the frame by the immense force. It couldn't even pull its arm back in.

"W-What is this?!"

The Onmora-gaki shrieked. Seeing this, Rin immediately scrambled to her feet and ran for her life. Instinctively seeking safety, she ducked into the nearest room—the cockpit—and slammed the door shut without thinking. She leaned against the door and let out a long sigh of relief.

"Phew... I finally got away from that guy."

It was only when she looked up and saw the array of instruments that she realized she had accidentally run into the cockpit.

"This is the cockpit... wait, what’s this?" Rin stared blankly. The two people who were supposed to be there were slumped over, unconscious. No one was at the controls! The captain had been knocked out by an evil spirit, and the co-pilot—who had been possessed—was now incapacitated because the Ghost Unit had forcibly expelled the spirit from his body, damaging his soul in the process. This meant the plane was flying with no one at the helm!

"There’s... there’s no one flying the plane... What am I..." Rin muttered in shock. Just then, her phone rang again.

"The emblem on the chest~ is a shooting star~ confidently piloting a fighter jet~ striking the enemy~"

Rin froze, then pulled out her phone. The caller ID still showed the familiar name: Fushimi Inaba.

Outside, the Onmora-gaki trapped by the window began to struggle violently, trying to break free from the air pressure. However, its struggles only caused the glass frame to crack further. As more of the window gave way, the pressure increased. When the entire pane shattered, the Onmora-gaki’s upper body was sucked out of the cabin, leaving it to endure the biting, freezing winds of the high altitude.

"Damn it!" Trapped halfway out the window, the Onmora-gaki prepared to fully manifest its true form to escape its predicament. At that moment, it caught sight of a figure that filled it with dread.

"The Inari’s lackey... the Wind Messenger, Kagura!"

Kagura was standing on the wing of the Inari jet, flying level with the airliner. Looking at the half-sucked-out Onmora-gaki, she calmly raised her folding fan as if aiming. The Onmora-gaki knew exactly what she was doing—she wanted to slice off its upper body without harming the airliner itself!

"Damn you! I won't let you have your way!"

With a roar, the Onmora-gaki stopped resisting the air pressure. It pushed off with its hands, expanding the window frame as it threw its entire body out into the open air. With the obstruction gone, a massive vacuum began to pull loose objects from the cabin out through the hole. Passengers who had their seatbelts fastened screamed as the wind whipped around them. Oxygen masks dropped from the ceiling. Fortunately, due to the hijacking, the flight attendants had been forced into their seats and had habitually buckled up. The only ones not buckled in were the dead hijackers.

Because the broken window was at the front of the cabin, the ejected items were scattered toward the rear of the plane. Some of these objects were sucked into one of the wing-mounted engines. After a burst of sparks, the engine failed. Of the plane’s four engines, only three remained. Seeing this, Kagura immediately manipulated the wind fields to control the debris, ensuring the other engines weren't hit, while struggling to stabilize the plane's tilt.

But the trouble wasn't over. The Onmora-gaki continued to grow in the air, instantly shredding its clothes to reveal a human-faced bird with dark red feathers and a wingspan of over ten meters. The Onmora-gaki had fully manifested its true form! Its first move was to open its massive maw and spit out dozens of blue fireballs toward the passenger plane. Kagura frowned, waving her fan to unleash a flurry of wind blades that intercepted the fireballs. However, because she was multitasking, one fireball slipped through and struck the front belly of the plane. The explosion was small, but it caused the airliner to shudder violently.

"Aahhh!! What’s happening now?!"

Inside the cockpit, Rin felt the ominous vibration and heard the alarms of the instruments. She spun around in a panic. Just then, a calm and familiar voice came through her phone.

"Don't panic. It’s nothing major. Let's see... cabin decompression, one engine out, and the nose gear is damaged. It’s fine—small problems. You can still fly it back."

Inaba’s voice drifted from the phone. Hearing her classmate speak so calmly, Rin didn't even stop to wonder how Inaba knew what was happening. She cried out hysterically.

"What do you mean 'fly it back'?! Forget all those problems—the pilots are all unconscious! There's no one to fly the plane! How are we supposed to get back?! Mom... Mom, I'm going to die here..."

"No one to fly? How can you say that? Aren't you in the cockpit right now?"

"Me? Inaba, are you crazy?! I'm just an ordinary high schooler! How could I possibly fly a plane?! Especially one with this many mechanical failures! This is life and death, stop joking around! Just take down my last words and tell them to my mom! Tell her I love her, waaaah!"

"It’s fine. If you don't know how, I can teach you," Miketsu continued calmly. Rin froze upon hearing this.

"Inaba... you know how to fly a plane?"

"No. But I can learn right now, and then I'll teach you."

"...I think you should just write down my last words."