161: Anonymous Ghost Story Fan (2012/09/22 Sat 05:22:27 ID:sPPYs6WtP)
This happened twenty years ago, so I think it’s safe to tell it now—no one could trace it anymore.
At the time, I had joined a certain tokushu hōjin (a government-affiliated special corporation).
Right after I started working there, the reconstruction of the headquarters building began.
But during the construction of the new HQ, remains and ruins were unearthed.
The land where the headquarters stood was in one of the oldest historical areas in Tokyo,
so it wasn’t surprising that such things would come out of the ground.
The problem was that the discovery meant the construction would have to be suspended
for an archaeological investigation.
So… the upper management made a decision.
They decided to cover it up—to destroy the evidence.
All the ancient foundations and artifacts were filled in and buried again,
and construction continued without notifying the Board of Education (which supervises cultural-property protection in Japan).
I was working in the General Affairs Department,
and although I thought, “I’ve learned something I really shouldn’t know,”
there was nothing I could do except keep my mouth shut.
162: Anonymous Ghost Story Fan (2012/09/22 Sat 05:23:30 ID:sPPYs6WtP)
Less than a month after the new headquarters building was completed and everyone had moved in,
strange problems began occurring one after another.
The building was completely locked at 11 p.m.—no one could enter or leave after that.
But several times a week, the alarm on the door leading to the basement stairway would go off,
and each time the security company would call to check.
The first basement level was the women’s changing room.
The second basement level was the document storage room.
Only the fluorescent lights in the women’s changing room burned out unusually quickly.
The air-conditioning controls malfunctioned,
and the speakers picked up strange noises.
In the document storage room, the humidity was abnormally high,
and the floor would become flooded with water.
Regarding the flooding on the second basement level,
people said it was because the concrete of the new building hadn’t yet dried completely.
But the amount of water was incredible—
even after setting up industrial-grade dehumidifiers,
the documents continued to grow moldy from the moisture.
As for the repeated electronic failures in the women’s locker room,
those were also blamed on humidity.
But even after installing dehumidifiers there as well,
the malfunctions never stopped.
163: Anonymous Ghost Story Fan (2012/09/22 Sat 05:24:18 ID:sPPYs6WtP)
A few months after we had moved into the new headquarters building, reports of ghosts began to appear frequently.
First, several female employees said they saw a woman in a kimono reflected in the mirrors attached to the lockers in the women’s changing room.
In the underground document archive, day or night, staff members would collapse in fear saying, “I heard a woman moaning.”
When the last employee on a floor left for the night, the elevators were already locked for security, so they had to use the stairs.
While going down, they often heard footsteps behind them.
Thinking it was just someone from another floor, they would glance at the mirror-finished window next to the stairwell—
and see, right behind them, the reflection of a woman in traditional Japanese dress.
Panicking, they would try to run down the stairs, twist an ankle, or fall.
Every week at least one person got injured that way.
164: Anonymous Ghost Story Fan (2012/09/22 Sat 05:31:28 ID:VfeK6+Jk0)
And finally, I saw her myself.
In the General Affairs Department we had a late-shift duty: someone stayed until 10:30 p.m. to check each floor and left at 10:45 p.m. after confirming the building was clear.
One night it was my turn.
Just as I was about to exit the building, I heard a woman’s voice in the elevator hall.
It sounded like a soft “Ah—”, as if saying, “Wait a moment.”
I froze. What? The women’s locker room was locked—could someone still be inside?
I stepped back into the elevator hall and called out,
“Is anyone there? Please answer—I’m closing up.”
Then, from the stone-tiled wall, a thin bluish-gray arm suddenly hung down,
swaying slightly, beckoning me—
come here… come here…
It was the first time in my life my legs gave out completely.
I crawled out of the building on all fours.
165: Anonymous Ghost Story Fan (2012/09/22 Sat 05:33:36 ID:VfeK6+Jk0)
The next morning I reported what had happened to my section chief.
He passed it up to the department head,
and soon the story reached the secretary-general, the executives, even the chairman of the board.
There had been ghost reports before, but never from anyone in General Affairs.
I was the first witness from our department.
They decided to hold a purification ritual (oharai) to cleanse the building.
First we asked the Shinto priest from the local shrine who had conducted the jichinsai (※1) before construction began.
But he flatly refused, saying, “That’s not the kind of purification we perform.”
Next we asked a nearby Buddhist temple.
They agreed at first, but the next day called to cancel.
Because it was a General Affairs matter, I contacted more than ten shrines and temples in the area—
but every single one eventually declined.
The unsettling part was that none of them would tell us why they refused.
※1 Jichinsai (地鎮祭): a Shinto ground-purification ceremony performed before construction to appease local spirits and pray for safety.
Shinto priest / temple monk distinctions matter in Japan: Shinto shrines handle rituals for purification and land spirits, while Buddhist temples deal with the dead. When both refuse, it implies something deeply ominous or taboo.
Seeing a woman in a kimono is a classic image in Japanese ghost lore, suggesting an old, restless spirit tied to the land or the building site.
166: Anonymous Ghost Story Fan (2012/09/22 Sat 05:35:59.82 ID:VfeK6+Jk0)
In the end, the executives called in an ogami-ya from the Tōhoku region—the kind of spiritual medium people there respectfully call a “kami-sama” (literally “god,” but meaning a powerful local exorcist).
After the solemn ritual was finished, the ogami-ya said three things:
“This building was constructed on top of something that should never have been buried.”
“I’ve done everything I can, but I doubt this will completely settle it.”
“You’ll have to build a small shrine (yashiro) on the roof and perform rites to console the spirits.”
“Even then, it will never be entirely quiet—but it should be somewhat better.”
Only a handful of people in General Affairs and a few of the construction workers knew about the buried ruins and artifacts.
We immediately built the rooftop shrine and performed the necessary rituals…
but that didn’t really end the problem.
A year after the new headquarters was completed, the organization’s operations shrank by ten percent.
Two years later, by thirty percent.
By the third year, only one-third of its original size remained.
The amakudari (※1) executives—former high-ranking officials from the ○○ Ministry and ○○ Agency—stopped coming entirely.
Layoffs were carried out, and I took the chance to take early retirement.
168: Anonymous Ghost Story Fan (2012/09/22 Sat 06:00:58.35 ID:sPPYs6WtP)
Later, I heard from a colleague who stayed in the General Affairs Department that the most hated division chief—the one everyone said, “Anyone but him”—was promoted in an unprecedented move to chairman of the board.
Within a few months of his promotion, the chairman’s daughter was hospitalized with mental illness, followed by his wife.
Then, among the executives who had risen through the organization’s own ranks, many of their family members—mostly wives and daughters—also began suffering from mental disorders.
This came to light only after the organization’s health-insurance union contacted them, saying:
“There’s been an abnormal spike in psychiatric patients among your employees’ families. This ratio is statistically impossible. Investigate it.”
That corporation still exists today.
The building is still there.
But since all my old colleagues have quit, I have no idea what it’s like inside anymore.
Sorry my ID changed mid-thread—
my PC and modem suddenly crashed, and I had to reconnect.
Maybe posting this story… wasn’t such a good idea.
※1 Amakudari (天下り) — literally “descent from heaven.” A common Japanese practice in which retired government bureaucrats take executive positions in affiliated semi-public corporations or companies they once oversaw.
Ogami-ya (拝み屋) — a folk shaman or medium, distinct from formal Shinto priests or Buddhist monks. Particularly common in rural Tōhoku, such figures perform exorcisms or repose-of-spirits rites outside institutional religion.
Yashiro (社) — a small Shinto shrine building. Placing one on a rooftop is a form of pacifying or memorializing the spirits of the land (chinkon / repose-of-souls).
169: Anonymous Ghost Story Fan (2012/09/22 Sat 07:11:30 ID:/oN9iMHC0)
>>168
Good work. (“Otsu” — short for “otsukaresama,” a casual way of saying “thanks for your effort.”)
I think the curse only affects people connected with that building, so you should be fine.
At the company where I used to work, we also discovered ruins on the site during construction.
The process dragged on endlessly, and in the end they had to build somewhere else.
I understand why they’d want to avoid that hassle… but yeah, that was a huge mistake.
173: Anonymous Ghost Story Fan (2012/09/22 Sat 12:33:18 ID:4lbpL0sH0)
>>168
If the health-insurance union (kenpō kumiai) had hired a London-based insurance investigation company,
and that T-san had come to Japan as an operative,
he probably would’ve exposed all the wrongdoing,
and that entire tokushu hōjin (government-affiliated corporation) would’ve been shut down. LOL
(Note: This “T-san” reference is a running 2ch in-joke — the same “temple-born, spiritually gifted T-san” from countless parody ghost stories, now imagined as an international investigator or exorcist.)
198: 161 (Original Poster) (2012/09/23 Sun 05:20:56 ID:O+fvYgTSP)
>>169
The old headquarters was built back in the late 1950s (Shōwa 30s),
a four-story building with no basement,
so apparently nothing ever turned up during construction.
The new HQ, though, had two basement levels and twelve floors above ground,
so… yeah, something was bound to surface.
>>173
According to my colleague who took the call from the health-insurance union,
they said the ratio of employees’ family members hospitalized for mental illness
was impossibly high for a company of roughly one thousand people.
That’s how it was discovered.
Otsu (乙) — an internet shorthand for “お疲れ様 (otsukaresama),” used on forums to thank someone for sharing or finishing a story.
Kenpō kumiai (健康保険組合) — a company’s internal health insurance union; in Japan, such unions can detect medical trends among employees and their families.
Tokushu hōjin (特殊法人) — semi-public corporation that executes government-linked projects; they often have bureaucratic “amakudari” executives.
The reference to T-san is a tongue-in-cheek nod to 2ch’s “temple-born exorcist T-san” meme, who always appears in ghost stories to solve supernatural incidents with a shout of “HAA!!”
 This happened twenty years ago){kind=link}