TSKR Episode 16

Episode 16: At a Confessional ((エピソード#16【懺悔室】) is the an episode of the Thus Spoke Kishibe Rohan OVA. It covers Episode 16: At a Confessional of the one-shot series.

Summary
Koichi meets Rohan Kishibe at a café, and asks that Heaven's Door make him fluent in Italian, as mentioned in the first episode of part 5. This reminds Rohan of a macabre tale from his last trip to Italy.

After an event that's implied to be his fight against Josuke forces him to put his manga Pink Dark Boy on hiatus, Rohan took a vacation in Italy. In Venice, Rohan accidentally entered the priest's compartment of a confessional while researching the structure. Before long, a man entered the booth and confessed his sin to Rohan, as the confessional booth prevents him from seeing that Rohan isn't the priest. Intrigued, Rohan heard out his confession. The man described his youth as a day laborer for a food market. One day, a starving beggar came to him and asked for food, as he hadn't eaten in five days. Disdainful, the man forced the beggar to haul large bags of corn to earn his meal, and accidently worked the starving man to death. However, the ghost of the beggar appeared, swearing revenge and stating that he would come back on the happiest day of his life.

True to the ghost words, the man quickly gained a desirable life. He became rich from his invention of various corn based products and eventually had a daughter with a supermodel. One day, as the man walked with a servant and his daughter cheerfully played with a bag of popcorn, he unintentionally thought that this was the happiest moment of his life.

Suddenly, the spirit of the beggar possessed the little girl and communicated through her tongue that he had assisted the man's prosperity from beyond the grave so that he could fulfill his revenge. The ghost said that he wanted Fate to judge the man fairly, and thus challenged the man to throw a piece of popcorn in the air higher than a nearby lamppost and catch it in his mouth, each time at the clap of his hands, three times in a row. If the man succeeded the ghost would leave the man forever, otherwise the beggar would cut off his head.

With luck and ingenuity, the man succeeded twice, but attracted a flock of pigeons hungering for the popcorn. To deter them at the last try, the man lit the pop corn on fire as he threw it, but sunlight shone out from behind clouds, preventing the man from seeing the popcorn as it fell. Thus it landed on his shirt and without a second to spare, the beggar cut off his head using his daughter's body.

Back at the confessional, two ghosts appeared, the beggar and the confessing man's servant. The spirit of the servant makes it clear that the man made him get plastic surgery and used him as a body double to trick the beggar. As the man leaves the church, Rohan witnesses the spirits follow the man as they vow to get their revenge, and Rohan can't help but admire man's dastardlier ingenuity desire to survive.

Okuyasu interrupts, remarking on how scary that story was. Yukako is also there and changes the subject by flirting with Koichi.

Rohan still thinks about the cursed man, wanting to interview him in a year or two's time, and can't help but have some semblance of respect for him.