The time is Taisho era, and the stage is the "Otherworld" where the gods reside.... more>>

The cursed Fire God, Hoozuki, and the girl, Sayo, who became a "cleaner" and a "contract bride" serving in Hoozuki's mansion, set out one night under the full moon to receive the tears of the moon. Hoozuki, who took in the mistreated Sayo, dotes on her to his heart's content, and this story unfolds over the course of a single night as Sayo gradually accepts his affection. <<less

A prince Who can Only be happy because of a curse.

Orphan April picks up Bernard the teddy bear. However, Bernard began to say, "Actually, I am a prince cursed by a witch." Every day, he... more>> annoys the girl with his selfishness. One day, Bernard steals cookies from a candy store. April explodes in anger at Bernard who can't say sorry. But when Bernard leaves the house, April panics. Surprisingly, he is heading to a sweets shop that he was told not to go near again... A little story of a selfish and naive prince who is said to be strange and lonely Girl with a Happy ending. <<less

“If it means suffering, I don’t need to be loved.”... more>>

An explosive journey of the Meta Detective Tsukumojuuku’s soul threading its way on the dance floor scourged by the trumpets sounded by God/Seiryouin Ryuusui, the maestro to serial mitate mu*ders based on Genesis and Revelation to John from the Bible. <<less

Cannibal Bouquet. That is rumored to be the curse of the witch Boojum.... more>>

After the passing of his foster parent, a youth named Seth moves to the royal capital, Alba, reputed to be a city of radiant colors, with the help of a friend.

He has a mysterious taste for roses and meets a craftsman on the train on his way to the royal capital. The craftsman, who cannot be identified as either he or she, clad in a bold crimson color, is obsessed with Cannibal Bouquet.

Lured by a dark-haired girl who lingers in his memory, Seth and the crimson craftsman are swept up with the Cannibal Bouquet.

This is a gothic horror mystery featuring a sweet fragrance in the city of radiant colors, where distorted roses bloom and sneer. <<less

There exist in this world a set of six daggers that carry a terrible curse: the ability to inflict a death beyond time. Those under the daggers' curse shall reincarnate without end, never able to know happiness and always drawn to die once more by the dagger. This is the story of "Raine" and "Marie", two souls bound by the daggers' curse to kill one another, over and over again.... more>>

France, 1243. Lapis Lazuli Castle is the name of an insignificant relay fort nestled away in a forest east of Carcassonne. Its ruler, Count Geoffroy, and his only daughter, Marie, are both believed to be insane. The root cause of their shared madness is the mysterious disappearance of Geoffroy's wife three years ago, which caused Geoffroy to grow detached from humanity and cast Marie into a deep depression. After three years of wandering in a state halfway to nonexistence, Marie works up the nerve to ask her chief bodyguard, Sir Raine, to investigate her mother's death, confiding that on the night of her mother's disappearance, she had witnessed something impossible. However, her investigation only prompts a new tragedy.

The French-German border, 1916. As World War I rages on, Raine and Marie's latest reincarnations live the life of a sub-lieutenant in the French army and a medic with the Red Cross, respectively. The two lovers are reunited at the site of the Battle of Verdun, but no sooner have they met then Raine finds himself faced with a barrage of impossible circumstances. An enemy soldier's head suddenly vanishes, right before his eyes. One of his subordinates reports the same thing happening to an ally. Four more headless bodies vanish from a flooded bunker in the minute he looks away. These baffling events are a prelude to the return of their old tragedy.

Northern Hokkaido, 1989. Kimiyo, age eighteen, is already dying, an inoperable tumor in her hypothalamus leaving her with less than a year to live. Refusing to despair in the face of her tragic circumstances, she spends her remaining days with her friends at "The Library at the End of the World", a private library so called due to its isolated nature. One day, a man named Kito approaches her out of the blue, regaling her with a story about a set of cursed daggers, knights in the 13th century, and the two of them being cursed, fated lovers. Naturally, Kimiyo is intensely skeptical, but the events that come next don't require her to believe in them.

Arriving at the scene of these three tragedies is Snowy, an enigmatic figure of indeterminate gender who claims to be "a detective charged with managing the world's chaos". <<less

The once wealthy and powerful Ryuuzen clan has been all but destroyed. Their misfortune began in 1960, when a majority of the family was wiped out when their vacation villa was buried under a landslide. However, search and rescue teams discovered something even more shocking: A majority of the bodies they discovered showed obvious signs of having been mu*dered before the landslide.... more>>

As though it were a trigger, what came to be known as "The Curse of the Ryuuzen Clan" spread throughout the descendants of the family's only survivor. By mu*der, by su*cide, by accident... it seemed none who held the name "Ryuuzen" could live to see the age of 35, and now, the family has been reduced to a single woman, lying in a hospital bed, days away from death.

Kamo Touma was once just another of the endless parade of sleazy tabloid journalists looking to exploit a prominent family's tragedy to sell magazines, but Ryuuzen Rena's kindness melted his frozen heart, driving him to quit his old job and become an investigative journalist specializing in overturning cases of false arrest. Eventually, he and Rena were married, but now, the curse threatens to steal away their happiness.

Kamo prays for a miracle, and his prayers are answered by the Hourglass of Miracles, an artifact spoken of in rumors and urban legends, said to grant one wish to anyone who obtains it.

"Meister Hora", a guide for those who obtain the hourglass, tells Kamo there is only one way to break the curse and save Rena: He must travel back in time to the year 1960 and catch the culprit of the original Ryuuzen Family massacre.

Who was the culprit of the mu*ders that took place almost 60 years ago? Why did they steal away the lives of the Ryuuzen clan? What is the true nature of the "Curse of the Ryuuzen Clan?" And perhaps most mysteriously of all... What is Meister Hora's goal in all this?

Winner of the 29th annual Ayukawa Tetsuya Award. <<less