Yumekui Kenbun Nightmare Inspector Volume 4 by Shin Mashiba

Hiruko the Baku, or Nightmare-Eater, returns in another six stories set at the Silver Star Teahouse, where he lives and spends each night waiting for people with nightmares to come to him so he can remove them and help the person, then eat their nightmare.

In the first story, Hifumi's friend Seiichi is troubled by a dream in which he has fallen in love with a conductor on a tram. But he hasn't been able to speak with her or get her to leave the tram with him, so he just dreams of spending night after night on the tram, watching her and loving her. But can Hiruko get him to realize what the dream really is, or will Seiichi refuse to change?

Next, a young girl who knew the Baku as he was before comes to Hiruko to purge a dream in which she is a key surrounded by doors. She needs Hiruko to put her in the doors and unlock them, since she is curious about what is beyond them. But when Hiruko finds a door for her where she dreams about marriage and children with a friend of hers, she asks him to leave her there. She returns when the dream becomes too irritating, and Hiruko agrees to make a new door for her to dream in. But he finds a case in her dreams that belongs to him. Can he retrieve it without hurting himself?

The third story has Hiruko badly injured. He no longer remembers who he is, calling himself Chitose. In an effort to cure him, Mizuki feeds Hiruko her own nightmare of herself in the teahouse before he came to live there. But with Hiruko so injured and believing himself to be Chitose, can she get through to him who he really is and what he really is?

In the fourth story, a woman named Sai dreams of writing letters to the man she loves, who was sent to Siberia years ago and hasn't returned. She puts the letters in bottles and sends them across the sea to them. Instead of letters in reply, she has gotten things instead, things she is too frightened of to look at. In her dream, Hiroku finds bottles filled with body parts, and Sai says they told her that the man she loved was killed in battle, but she didn't want to believe it.

Soon, Hiruko is met by a man who is the twin brother of Sai's lover, except for a cloudy eye that he gouged out so that he could be more like his twin. But Sai wanted the brother she fell in love with, not the other. Is there any hope for Sai and the brother to be together? Or is that merely a foolish dream?

In the next story, a woman comes seeking "Little Misao", who is close to death and wishes to dream of her life. But she isn't in the Silver Star Teahouse. Instead, she has gone to Delirium, where clients may fantasize anything they wish and live in the fantasy. Can Hiruko persuade her to come out and live instead of dreaming her life away?

Next, a young boy named Meguru comes to Hiruko because he dreams of whispering shadows, and the whispers hurt his ears. From them, he learns that his family is sending him away for his own sake to a big house, and that kids who were his friends seemed to be jealous of him for it, and mistreating him. Meguru decides to help his family by going to the big house and never looking back. But is the situation really what he thought it would be?

And in a bonus story, Hifumi drags Mizuki and Hiruko to the beach. But is Hifumi's idea of "fun" something that Hiruko can share?

Another intriguing volume of nightmares that conceal and reveal a great deal about the people having the nightmare, and also how such nightmares can be misinterpreted, to the cost of the dreamer.

Here, we also get to see more of Delirium, a place very unlike Hiruko's place of truth as it is a place to live in fantasies, even to drown in them, if you wish. Some people enjoy the fantasy so much that they never come out, but Hiruko will help a client, even if it means dragging someone out of there so they can live their real life instead of a fantasy.

And we also get a glimpse of what Hiruko was before he was a Baku, but it only deepens the mystery surrounding him. Who is he really? What is he? And what connection does he have to the proprietor of Delirium? As the series goes on, we get more and more hints, and I can't wait to read more. While this is not a series that wil make you go "I must have it!", it's very well done and interesting to read.