Edward was in the middle of writing the storyline for The Grudge 2.
However, although the name was The Grudge 2, it was not the version where the infamous "ghost queen" appeared. Instead, Edward chose to work with the continuation of the Grudge: Video Tape version. This installment's plot primarily revolved around the Suzuki family.
Suzuki Tatsuya could, to some degree, be considered the protagonist this time around. Strictly speaking, the only true main character in The Grudge was Kayako, but as a living human, Tatsuya naturally had quite a significant amount of screen time. His younger sister, Kyoko Suzuki, also received substantial focus, enough that she could be regarded as the female lead of this version.
Originally, the siblings were supposed to make their first appearance at the very end of the first Grudge: Surveillance Tape, setting things up for the second part while also introducing the unfortunate Kitada couple. But Edward felt that such an arrangement was not ideal for the pacing of his film. So, he simply brought the Suzuki siblings forward, placing them at the very beginning of the second part as the central characters of the story.
This adjustment had its benefits. For one, it prevented audiences from wondering at the end of part one why the Suzuki siblings had not died. It also spared Edward from being affectionately mocked by viewers as a "plot-hole hack." All in all, it was a clever decision that achieved multiple goals at once.
Suzuki Tatsuya, in this narrative, was a moderately successful real estate agent. He managed a small agency of his own and, in the aftermath of the first video tape, had come into possession of the Murakami family's house—the infamous haunted residence central to The Grudge.
Tatsuya bought the property cheaply, as befitting a stigmatized "haunted house," intending to resell it at a much higher price for profit. After all, while people had indeed died there, its location was prime, making it a highly desirable property despite its sinister reputation.
But whether it was caution or carelessness, no one could quite say. The fact remained that Tatsuya, who was a rather superstitious man, decided before selling the house to take his younger sister Kyoko—who possessed psychic sensitivity—to inspect it. He wanted to confirm for himself whether anything truly unusual lurked within.
Kyoko followed her brother to the haunted house. Yet the moment she merely gazed upon it from the outside, a wave of unease swept over her. Once inside, the feeling only grew stronger. On the second floor, she caught sight of Kayako's shadow. She insisted that the Murakami family could not possibly have been the only ones to die there. And as she climbed further upward, she came face-to-face with Kayako herself.
Kayako even performed her iconic "head-down kill," but Tatsuya, who lacked Kyoko's sight, saw nothing—merely following his sister into the rooms. Kyoko, however, sensed the deep, suffocating grudge that saturated the house, and she promptly decided they must leave.
Before departing, though, Kyoko took a sip of sake, then told her brother that if anyone ever wanted to purchase this house, they must also drink from the sake. Only if the drink tasted normal could the property be sold.
Puzzled, Tatsuya asked her why. Kyoko explained: once touched by a vengeful spirit, sake would turn unbearably bitter, and people could detect it instantly. If a buyer drank the sake and found it foul, it meant they were already marked by the ghost.
Tatsuya accepted her advice, though Kyoko herself, as she left, cast one last glance back at the house, her body trembling with cold dread.
Unexpectedly, some time later Kyoko received a call from her brother. He said the house had been sold, and he had followed her instructions, making the buyer drink the sake. Since the buyer claimed it tasted fine, the transaction had gone through. Still, Kyoko could hardly believe it.
But Tatsuya's real concern was not the sale. Over the phone, he confessed that his son Nobuyuki had recently been acting as though possessed, and he begged Kyoko to come take a look. Naturally, she agreed—Nobuyuki was her nephew, after all.
Yet on her way to see Nobuyuki, Kyoko's curiosity got the better of her. She decided to stop by the cursed house again. From the courtyard, she saw Mrs. Kitada, the neighbor, who by now had already been possessed by Kayako. Just looking at her filled Kyoko with overwhelming fear, and she dared not approach.
So, she hurried instead to find her nephew. But upon checking the address and house number, she realized with horror that even this residence was no ordinary home but another haunted property connected to the Grudge.
"This Suzuki Tatsuya is unbelievable," Edward muttered as he wrote, shaking his head with exasperation. "He's a real estate agent himself, yet not only does he buy and sell haunted houses, he even dares to live in one! His professional competence is truly questionable."
In Japan, belief in ghosts and spirits was deeply ingrained. Most Japanese held genuine fear of haunted houses, which were commonly marked as "stigmatized properties." Under normal logic, a realtor—especially a successful one—should have been well aware of such matters. Even if not an exorcist himself, he should never have been so oblivious as to buy a haunted property and move into it.
But the truth was, Tatsuya really had been oblivious. Even Kyoko had not known her brother was currently living in a cursed house.
Once inside, though, Kyoko could immediately sense something was terribly wrong. She armed herself with a wooden plank for protection and noticed the protective talismans her brother had hung, though of course they were useless.
She eventually found Nobuyuki, shook him awake, and confirmed he was physically fine. But just then came a knock at the door. Opening it, Kyoko saw a neighbor, who mentioned hearing the sound of a baby crying. Realizing instantly that such cries could only mean a ghostly presence, Kyoko urged the neighbor to leave quickly, not wanting to drag them into danger.
When she returned, she found Nobuyuki sitting on the floor in terror, staring at a glowing crack in the doorframe, as though a light was shining from inside.
Rather than escaping with the boy or seeking outside help, Kyoko—whether out of courage or reckless compulsion—opened the door. Behind it replayed a gruesome scene of the past: Takeo Saeki breaking into Shunsuke Kobayashi's home, murdering Manami, and cruelly cutting her unborn child from her womb.
Takeo noticed Kyoko's presence, turned toward her, and began approaching. Terrified, Kyoko's entire body trembled before she finally fainted.
Later, though Tatsuya rushed over, all he could do was take his deranged sister and his blank-eyed son back to their family home, leaving them in the care of his parents for the time being. It was then that Tatsuya learned something shocking—not only Kyoko, but their father also possessed psychic sensitivity.
His father warned him: if this matter was not resolved, Tatsuya too would fall victim to the Grudge. Panicked, Tatsuya set out to question the Kitada couple for answers.
But as soon as he left his parents' house, intending to drive off, his phone rang. A subordinate from his company reported that his sister Kyoko was waiting for him at the office. Fear chilled Tatsuya to the bone—if he had already brought Kyoko home, then who was at the office?
He dared not go, dared not think further. He fled. Back at the company, when an employee checked on the supposed Kyoko, she merely nodded faintly. Yet when the employee later brought in tea, the room was empty.
Meanwhile, the Grudge had already seeped into his parents' home. Tatsuya's father sternly told his wife not to keep staring at Kyoko. But the old woman sat smiling blankly, whispering, "Kyoko is smiling." Sensing something amiss, the father turned—only to see Toshio's head emerging from beneath the floorboards, gazing straight at him.
Both parents perished. Kyoko, clutching a doll, knelt in the room rocking back and forth, her head shaking like a madwoman's. Nobuyuki alone rose mechanically, wandering dazed into the courtyard to sit in silence.
"In fact," Edward muttered thoughtfully as he stroked his chin, "at this point, Kyoko should technically already be dead—or rather, she died in Manami's room. Her body is now possessed by Manami's ghost, while her soul is what appeared at the company."
It wasn't merely speculation. Kyoko's erratic behavior, her obsessive rocking of the doll, her fixation on children—it all revealed that her body had become the vessel for Manami's spirit.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Kitada, upon checking her mail, came across drawings and a diary belonging to the Saeki family. Immediately influenced by the Grudge, she became possessed, and upon returning home, struck her nagging husband dead with a frying pan.
That afternoon, Tatsuya himself went to the Kitadas. He dared not return to his company, so he sought them out for clues instead. At first Mrs. Kitada appeared normal as she opened the door, but once he stepped inside, her demeanor twisted.
She claimed that the eerie drawings were her son's, and the diary her own. But Tatsuya knew full well that the Kitadas had no children. Alarm bells rang—he tried to flee, but too late.
The phone rang. Picking it up, Tatsuya heard only a cat's meow. Turning around, he saw Mrs. Kitada rising, and beside her squatted Toshio, meowing like a cat. Overcome with terror, Tatsuya collapsed as Mrs. Kitada crawled toward him, revealing Kayako's horrific face. He too met his end.
Back at the police station, two officers visited a colleague's home, only to find his wife refusing them entry. From the yard, they glimpsed their colleague sitting dazed within. When he noticed them, he shrieked in terror and fled deeper inside.
Returning to headquarters, the bald-headed detective recounted the strange incidents at the haunted house and showed photos their deranged colleague had taken. Though the subject was Mrs. Kitada, her face, on closer inspection, was unmistakably Kayako's.
The detective burned the photograph, declaring it cursed.
At that very moment, the colleague who had taken it slumped in a corner of his home, staring at the ceiling as life drained from him. His wife, rushing over, found him dead—only to look up and see a grotesque face twisting across the ceiling. Overwhelmed, she too perished.
Later, another officer reported seeing Kayako herself walk into the bald detective's room. Moments later came a scream, and the man stumbled out shouting that there was a ghost. His colleagues rushed inside—just as he noticed something moving below. From under his chair, Kayako's head suddenly lunged upward. He too was gone.
The last to fall was Nobuyuki. Though the only survivor thus far, at school he stood by the window watching Kayako's figure in the rain-soaked courtyard. He knew instantly his time had come.
Kayako approached. His classmates fled the building, leaving him alone. He ran desperately, but no matter where he turned, Kayako's forms surrounded him. Cornered, he finally collapsed into her arms. Outside, the storm raged, and countless female ghosts crowded the schoolyard, a sea of vengeful spirits.
The story closed with a final chilling scene: a mid-shot of the haunted house. A group of schoolgirls entered, giggling nervously about exploring. They found a cup of sake, drank it, and grimaced that it tasted awful. At once, Kayako's bubbling croak echoed through the house, joined by Toshio's meowing. Their fate, needless to say, was sealed.
"Still feels like something's missing," Edward mused, rubbing his chin again. "Maybe I should add a scene about a 'broken futon barrier'?" He toyed with the idea, but after some thought abandoned it. It wouldn't fit naturally into the flow of the plot.
"Boss…"
A gloomy voice spoke behind him. Edward jumped so hard he nearly dropped his phone. Turning, he found Zoroark standing silently, its expression pitifully resentful as it stared at him.
Edward's lips twitched. He hadn't been frightened by the horrific Grudge script playing in his mind—but by Zoroark sneaking up behind him. Truly, people scaring people was far more terrifying than ghosts.
Wait, Zoroark wasn't human—it was a Pokémon. So what exactly did that count as? Bah, he couldn't be bothered to figure it out.
"What are you doing behind me?" Edward asked irritably.
Zoroark sighed. "I just came in to deliver some documents, Boss. I saw you typing away at the script, so I took a look…" Its voice trailed off, sounding more depressed the more it spoke. Watching that script had left it feeling dreadful—it feared it might have nightmares.
Edward could only sigh helplessly.
"And how did you feel after reading it?" he asked, curious for Zoroark's impression. After all, Zoroark had seen its share of horror films.
"It's really good," Zoroark admitted with a shrug. "But I bet people will end up filing complaints against our company again when this comes out."
(End of Chapter)