As I was setting off to research Minakami Village, I borrowed something from an old friend. That friend is Kunihiko Asou. He is a scholar who researches the spirit world, and was treated as a heretic by everyone, but we felt a strange connection. He was researching a queer device called the "Camera Obscura". He was attempting to use a camera to capture a world that only mediums can see, but rather than simply capturing them it also produces an effect comparable to exorcism. At the same time, I also borrowed something called the Spirit Stone Radio, which, by equipping special crystals called spirit stones, the residual thoughts inside the stones can be listened to. Using these objects, I hope to be able to create a record of the Gate to Hell and the things surrounding it. My succeeding in this research would also mean that people would accept Asou's research, too. No matter what it takes, I will do my utmost.
Editor's note:
The Camera Obscura given to Mr. Seijiro Makabe by Dr. Asou appears to have been a prototype, and records speak of the existence of several others. Dr. Asou's research progressed as far as looking for a way to use the Camera Obscura to completely seal away spirits, and, after having wandered the country, it appears as though he learned that a medium with immense spiritual power would be necessary to create a seal. Learning that this was the Holy Mirror of the old house of Himuro in one certain region, he wrote in his diary that he was heading there, but this was to be his final journey. After Dr. Asou's death, the location of several prototypes recovered from the house is unknown. They must be silently sleeping somewhere - perhaps, for example, at a secondhand store, or maybe an abandoned house somewhere...