The Old Radio

Vajdahunyad Castle Gardens, Budapest, Hungary..maybe?
7:05 PM

Walking alongside Tamamo on the path that should theoretically lead us to the hut where Maria was, since we were celebrating in another country, we ended up staying in the area for several days. Most of the family stayed in various hotels in the city, while those closest to my sister stayed here. Maria, on the other hand, was so excited about the Halloween atmosphere of terror and fantasy that she wanted to experience it even closer. She even went so far as to talk to my mother to get permission to stay in a cabin a little further north near the train station that looked like something out of a horror movie. It was a small house with just the bare essentials, supposedly built for the filming of a nineteenth-century witch movie a few years ago and left open for tourists like Maria. It was clear that the eighth-grade syndrome had hit her hard in her illusion of being a magician, but of course it was her birthday, so we kept quiet and continued with the plan, no matter how strange her requests were. Of course, we didn't let her stay alone because of her illness, so there was always someone with her besides her personal doctor, who had also made the whole trip here to take care of her. He even paid his share and the expenses of staying in the city, although it could have been his excuse to take a vacation from his wife, since he was always complaining about her.

"This place is extremely large, the gardens of this castle are larger than the Imperial Palace in Heian-kyō."
"It also gives a bit of fear with the appearance of the haunted forest."

"Well, you're not the only one, Maria's birthday is November 12th, ten days before mine."
"Halloween had passed with a big party in the park, and we asked the organizers not to clean up the place to keep the spooky appearance."
"Although the castle was in the middle of Budapest, so it wasn't a remote place to get lost in the woods."
"Of course I say that now, but in those days everyone got lost in Budapest at least once."
"The police were already annoyed by how often we ended up asking them for help."
"But still, something strange is happening here, there's no trace of the rest of the city."
"No matter how much we walk, there's nothing but forest; theoretically we should have crossed the train tracks by now."
"Why the hell did Maria decide to stay in such an ugly place?"

But after walking and complaining for a while, we finally arrived at our destination, that cursed witch's hut... I mean the house where Maria was. A small, unpainted, two-story wooden house filled with eerie details, still decorated with skeletons and pumpkins, a fence with what looked like cruel stakes and spears; the place looked like a graveyard, a completely different tone compared to the opulence of the abandoned castle, but receiving the same nightmarish treatment. Between the windows of the house, faint candles could be seen illuminating the house, barely giving a hint that it wasn't completely uninhabited. In one of them, a vague silhouette of a person could be seen passing by. With a little fear that whatever was in that house wasn't my sister, I went first and silently approached the window to get a better look at what was there. Carefully, I moved my face in front of the window to look carefully without being seen, only to see another face doing the same on the other side of the glass. When our eyes met and we both realized there was someone else, we both started screaming at the same time.

"AAAHH!!! A GHOST!!"
"STAY AWAY FROM ME!!!"

"AAAAHHH!! IT'S UGLY!!"
"SHE'S UGLY AND FLAT!"

"What the hell did you say about me, you white bitch?"
"No, wait a second... Cesar?"
"Is that you!? Thank God! I'm not alone in this nightmare!"

"Hello, my sister-in-law, how are you tonight?" said Tamamo cheerfully to calm the spirits.

After scaring each other, our sister let us into the house, and once we were in the living room, we began to discuss what had happened. Our sister looked exactly the same as she does today, a little taller, healthier and less thin. It was clear that she was the 15-year-old Maria and not the original version we had here when she was eight years old. Still, she was accompanied by her gothic princess dress from the party. It was clear that she must be my real sister Maria, since she recognized me even though I was now a girl and also knew Tamamo, although they had only recently met, ruling out the possibility that this was a one-to-one reenactment of a past party.

"Do either of you have any idea what kind of strange dream this is? Or why both of you are in my dream?"
"The goddess girl I could understand, but Caesar isn't supposed to have any superpowers, right?" Maria tried to analyze the situation.

"Well, that's the strange part, we don't know either."
"Actually, I thought this was my dream, but while I was near the castle entrance, everything seemed very strange, and I felt quite awake and aware that I began to suspect that this wasn't a dream."
"Tamamo's version is a bit different; she says she thought it was a dream until I talked to her and convinced her that something strange was going on.

"Well, I was the same; I thought it was a dream until time passed without anything happening, but the surroundings scared me too much to investigate."
"After that, the white girl who looks like a ghost appeared, and you know the rest," my sister said a little bored.

"Hey, it wasn't on purpose; I just wanted to make sure there was nothing dangerous around here."

"You said you killed dragons in a subway tunnel with your bare hands."
"What could be more dangerous than that? What could you be afraid of?"

"A giant dragon that kills with its gaze."

"Oh... yes... you have a point there..."

"Well, that's not the point."
"Somehow it feels like we're stuck two hundred years in the past while Maria's birthday party is happening, only it's like a period-appropriate version."
"Any idea why her exact party?"
"Did you do something before bed? Look at photos, a video?"

"Not much really, just stayed up and read a book for a bit before bed."
"Then I listened to music with headphones until I got sleepy."
"Then I woke up here, got a little nervous, so I came into the living room to watch TV, but instead I found this old weird radio."
"I managed to turn it on, but it just said weird things, so I turned it off."

My sister pointed her hand at a huge piece of furniture that I had mistaken for a closet, it was surprising to see such a large radio even for being vacuum tubes with a slightly raw wood that gave the feeling of how primitive it was. The label said that the manufacturer was the Interstellar Hardware Company, a rather conspicuous name, although I managed to turn it on after Maria told me how to do it, shortly after it started to sound like any radio should, with its quiet but slightly tetric music that accompanied the atmosphere of this place. Nothing seemed out of place until the first commercial, when I realized what my sister was referring to.

"The Communications Department of the Holy Church of Love of Nediadis sends you this message to remind all Noble Houses to send their offerings to the Red Love Project on time."
"The girls will be picked up at the southern outer gates of the Garden of Love. Girls who have had blood drained from them, women over the age of 18, or those who are missing extremities will not be accepted, as they must meet the minimum beauty standards set by Nediadis."
"As a sign of the Goddess' commitment to saving us from eternal darkness and the Night of the Dragon, she has taken ten bottles of ancestral blood from her personal collection, which will be raffled off to the houses that contribute the most to the cause."
"Please help save the known world that the Unknown Emperor fought so hard to exterminate in his crusade for freedom."
"Do not miss this opportunity to become immortal so easily."

And indeed, the message was strange; the host mentioned it as just another announcement, without the horror of the morbid motive behind it. They were looking for young girls for a strange but undoubtedly deadly project. It was easy to see the surprised faces of Tamamo and Maria; surely mine looked the same.

"Wow, that's such a strange and macabre message," I commented.

"That's exactly what I thought, they broadcast this message on the radio all the time, not just once," Maria said as she turned off the radio.

"Forgive my ignorance of the modern world, but are there any gods left on Earth?"
"I thought they were all retired after humans... went on their eternal quest for knowledge."
"Although it could be a detail I missed after being a stone for a thousand years."

"No, none of that, I assure you, there's no God walking around on Earth like the president of a country."
"People would lose their minds over something like that, yes, there are even doubts about the existence of anything that isn't scientific."
"....."
"To be honest, you're probably the only goddess on Earth that I know of."

"Ummm... So it's safe to assume that this place is definitely not the Earth we came from in any way."
"We also know nothing about this 'Red Love Project' they call it, and it seems they need young girls for some kind of sacrifice."
"Experiments, perhaps? Certainly with dark motives, including ancestral blood as a reward."

"Excuse me, but may I ask what ancestral blood is? What is it used for?" Maria asked.

"It's the cursed blood of the gods, a powerful magic that transforms its victims into creatures like the Nukekubi and Rokurokubi."
"People who leave their humanity behind in exchange for the power and essence of others," Tamamo tried to explain.

"Kubi what?" my confused sister said.

"Sorry, what Tamamo means is that ancestral blood is used to create vampires."
"Nukekubi and Rokurokubi are the Japanese equivalents, but they do the same thing: suck blood from their victims at night, pale, avoid the sun, long fangs."

"And how do you know this, brother? I didn't know you knew so much about Japanese legends."

"I mean, I live with a kitsune and a Japanese goddess, I've done a little research in my spare time."
"I do it while continuing to study Japanese, I still have problems especially with names."
"Somehow I keep referring to myself as a man every time I speak at school."
"Apparently, 'Atashi' is the same as saying 'I' but in the female gender, while I keep confusing it with 'Ore,' which is the same but for men."

"Well, I can understand that coming from you, and it will certainly cause problems at school."
"No, wait! That's not the point right now! We're in a weird place!"
"We have to go home, I don't like this place," Maria said nervously after learning more about the current world.

"Our circumstances in this place and our origin are quite strange."
"It's almost as if the world we inhabited before collided with another cruel and strange one, creating an amalgam of the familiar and the strange in reality."

"Brother, Tamamo is acting intelligently, I'm scared."
"She always acts with her head in a cotton candy world."
"Seeing her act rationally and intelligently makes me nervous."

"Hey, I can hear you!" said the annoyed goddess.

"See! That's exactly what I mean!"

"Well, it's no big deal, it's just that you're seeing the original Tamamo, and right now she's our best chance to get out of here."
"Right now, the most important thing is to get out of this place, go back home, and stay as far away as possible from whatever the radio said."

"Well, at the moment, since Maria's party seems to be the focal point of everything, I still think our best course of action is to proceed with her as we did the first time."
"We should also check on Okaa-san and the other guests."
"Maybe we'll find a clue or something interesting during the party."
"Although we can't rule out the possibility that this is some kind of magical attack by a sorcerer like that Xian Fang from Maria's book."
"It's best to proceed with caution and report immediately if you notice anything out of place," Tamamo said, trying to organize our next target.

"Is it even possible for a mage to cast cursed magic on a goddess like Tamamo?" Maria asked curiously.

"Well, if it was a magical attack, I could find traces of her mana everywhere, but what's happening here has traces of many different people, as if everyone here were a mage."
"Although it sounds strange, it's not unusual. It's something that could happen naturally on Earth, in places like the Shibuya Crossing we passed through."
"But a single mage wouldn't be able to do something like that; it's too complex for a human."

"What if it was another god in his place?" I asked.

"That would be much more realistic."
"But still, you know that by the orders of THE BOSS, the gods cannot directly interfere in the world of humans and their science."
"Allowing me to live with Goshujin-sama is already a great exception."
"So anyone would think twice before involving someone like Goshujin-sama in something like this."

"Alright, so to summarize,"
"The plan remains the same: Find out what's going on and then make a plan."
"We'll continue at the party, observe what's going on, look for clues, and discuss further."
"Maria, you'll take care of the main hall and talk to the others. I'll check the kitchen and taste the food; I can do that by myself. Tamamo, accompany Maria."

"Wait a minute, why are you the only one to check the kitchen? I want to eat the peach cake too!"

"Damn, she found out."

"Peach pie? Is it something important for the party?" asked the innocent Tamamo.

"Of course it is! That's what this is all about."
"Oh right, Tamamo wasn't here originally."
"Our mother made peach cakes for all the guests, with the best ingredients and care."
"She probably made the best peach cake in the world.
"If we manage to taste just a little bit of everything that happens tonight, it will have been worth it."
"We can't risk missing this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity," my sister explained.

"All right, we'll start investigating after we eat; we won't do anything before then."
"We'll see what happens after that. Is everyone satisfied with the plan?" I checked the plan one last time.

"Yes, it seems better than the previous one."

"Whatever my beloved Goshujin-sama says, we'll do it."

And with that lack of planning, we prepared to return to the palace and continue to try to clarify everything. We'll also enjoy some of the party on the way.