Onihunter Yuna 2

33 The Kotsuage (Past)

Yuna stood in front of the main entrance and looked out into the city. The sun in the sky promised another beautiful spring day. She was annoyed that she hadn't brought along her cell phone to check her messages. Maybe Yui was already awake and had written to her.

"Masuda-san." Shinji Shiba stepped beside her. "It's time for the Kotsuage."

The girl nodded, took another look at the city and then accompanied the oni back to the crematorium. They didn't say a word to each other during the way through the building. If he read her mind, he didn't let it show.

They reached the waiting room where Haruka and Kazuki were already present.

"Well ... then let us begin."

The undertaker gave a hand signal to his men, whereupon they advanced the steel stretcher, with ash and charred bits of bone on it. One of the employees made the round with a vessel in which long wooden chopsticks were set so that each of the participants could take a couple.

"Masuda-san. You make the beginning. At the bottom ..." Shinji pointed to the area, "with his feet. We start with them. You pick up a piece of bone and pass it on to Narusegawa-sama. She hands the piece to Chigusa-san, before I place it in the urn."

The girl frowned. "Okay." She had already done this at the funeral of her grandmother since she was old enough for her parents to trust her with this task. The blue-haired looked at the bones on the stretcher. "Good." Yuna clutched her chopsticks, lowered them to the pieces of bone and grabbed one of them. Cautiously, she turned her hand so that it lay stiffly on her chopsticks, then she lifted it up and held it to Haruka, who took it with her chopsticks. The other two followed their example and together they collected the bone remnants.

"Hey. Who stole my middle finger?" Kazuki whispered, grinning broadly.

The blue-haired gently chuckled and squinted at the red-scaled oni, who gave the financial adviser a gloomy look. Even Haruka couldn't help smiling.

"I never understood why funerals should be sad ..." Kazuki began.

"Chigusa-san." The undertaker looked angry.

"It's not like someone died, at least not right this instant."

The woman looked at him and shook her head. The high-school girl took the next piece, which slipped from the chopsticks, fell back on the metal and gave a clattering sound. Immediately, she blushed while she looked guiltily at Shinji.

"He is still resisting. Obviously, he doesn't want to be buried," Kazuki commented.

"I give up." The undertaker surely would have ripped out his hair, if he had any.

After they had finished, the remaining ash was divided equally into two more urns. The staff of the funeral home then closed the vessels.

"Why do we distribute his ashes to several urns?" Yuna asked.

"This is common." Shinji blinked at her confused, but then he saw in her mind that she really didn't have the slightest idea. At the same time, he remembered that the company for which her father had worked had not submitted an offer for a place in the corporate grave. Perhaps they had none at all. How poor. "It is a great honor, and honors someone as a very valuable member when his body is buried in several places. Both the Takagi group and the city administration," he glanced at Haruka, "have offered a place."