Devil's Hands Season Finale: Violence Breeds Violence (ID Gang, Student Council, Fujiwara Senki, Rin, Itsuro, Alyona, Archie, Renka, Ai, Kiro no Kawa)
Anime Opening (0:00-2:05)
Dark water dribbles through eaves and runoff ditches, converging as it pours down eerie patches of grass and dirt. In the glassy reflection of the light, a silhouette of a boy and an old man. The old man rests his hand on the boy’s shoulder and hands him something.
Worms writhe through the dirt, their shapes obscuring the image. A knife’s blade extends from the boy’s outstretched hand. The water drizzles into an open cavern, where pale white fingers caress the stream. An unseen entity laughs in a gentle, mirthless voice.
The camera streaks back up the water stream and locks onto the moon. The next Episode fades in…
Bodies are packed close together around the new Student Council’s table. Students sit shoulder to shoulder, and some opt to stand. At the front of the room, Shu Jinko is standing on one side of a projector screen, with Yae Zennami opposite him holding a pointer. On the opposite side of the room, a girl Kohaku doesn’t know is slouched behind the projector itself, sending an illuminated map of the city through the dark room.
Beside Kohaku, Aida is huddled in a large hoodie, hiding his identity from the school he’s not supposed to be in. On the other side, Marisa, the newest member of the gang. She’s leaning in the other direction, whispering with a bespectacled girl- Kaoru Nagamine, Student Council Treasurer. Directly across the table, the sizeable bulk of Ran Nejima sits next to the Onguuchi dojo’s heiress and the smallest of the bunch, Meliaya Mihama. Momofuku and her motorcyclist chauffeur stoop over the end of the table, so their heads don’t block the map. The top of Momofuku’s ponytail still shows, shadows of strands reaching out across the bottom of the city.
Okabe stands beside the door. For a moment, a rush of light creeps in as he opens it for a hired maid of all people, who sets out a tray of tea and rice trackers. “Profitez-en, mes amis.”
“I see the School Council is using their funds responsibly,” Aida snides.
“Actually,” leaning forward enough her hair dips out of the frame, Momofuku cuts in before Nagamine can finish opening her mouth. The Delinquent Queen locks him with a glare, “She’s mine.”
“The hell can your broke ass afford a maid, Fuu-ki? You don’t even deal nothing,” leaning back in his crooked seat, one arm draped over the back, Aida shakes his head in disbelief.
“Don’t owe you an explanation for shit,” she fires back. Unshaken by the back and forth, her maid maintains a perfectly prim, professional posture and retreats near the door, with Okabe. To Kohaku’s trained eye, she’s more than just a student demeaning themselves for a side-gig. The way she carries herself matches the career women who attend the fancy events his father sometimes involves him with. Though he’s not outspoken like Aida, he wonders to himself why she’s slumming it in Fujiwara.
Raising a fist to her mouth, Zennami clears her throat. “So! Great to see we all made it. This is the largest collaboration of Awakened groups we’ve cobble together yet.”
“It gives me hope that together we can change the future for the better!” Shu boasts, chest puffed out.
“Mhm,” with a more non-committal grunt of agreement, the high school detective extends her pointed and indicates the city map. “Now listen up. I hate repeating myself.” Closing her eyes, she navigates the luminous projection by memory alone, illustrating her narrative as she recites it aloud, “Thanks to the intelligence provided by the ID, we know that a pair of Bigger Ideas known as Gang Violence and the Mean Streets has been active in the city, and responsible for the recent string of random violence and uninhibited territorialism. The Mean Streets was destroyed by Fukuzawa Kohaku’s Idolon, which possesses an Idea Slayer. However, an individual matching the description of Scarlet Senshi dispatched Gang Violence.” A pause for breath is placed intentionally into the detective’s analysis, and Shu speaks up to fill the dead air.
“Ideas don’t normally reform this quickly,” the Prez points out, likely drawing from a script the brains of the operation gave him.
Yae catches the ball of the briefing immediately by adding, “However, given the speed at which Kagayaki was able to recover from being banished, I believe there is an enemy out there assisting others in their recovery.” Opening her eyes at last, she points at the Fujiwara Ward. “Most of the incidents have taken place in the Fujiwara Ward, but there are others reported outside the borders of the ward. I’ve been looking into a possible unifying factor, and I believe I’ve found it. Dawn-chan?”
A rustling of plastic sheets follows as the girl at the projector switches to a new image. It’s a map of water infrastructure, this time, and Kohaku can immediately see... “They all get the same water.”
“That’s right,” the detective nods, slapping her pointed against the screen. “Fujiwara Ward was not always in its current state. At a time, it was a thriving part of the city. It, and several adjacent areas of other districts, are all supplied by a natural underground reservoir. Yaya has assisted me in scanning the Bleeding Zones available from our hub, and found that one such zone correlates with the reservoir’s location.” The small girl waves her hand when her name is mentioned.
“There’s something down there poisoning the water supply,” Momofuku immediately intuits. “That’s what you’re saying?”
“It is,” Yae twirls the pointer in her hand. “Something is using the Gang Violence idea, whatever is left of it, to poison those who drink from the aquifer. On the surface our solution is simple, we need to go there and eliminate the threat. That should allow us to restore peace to the Fujiwara Ward… but it’s not that simple.”
“I know. All this new fighting’s made new bones to pick, on top of the old wounds it’s reopened,” wearing a flat frown, Momofuku growls.
“It’s more than that,” Yae folds her hands behind her back, pointer bobbing up and down like a long, thin rat tail. “Nagamine-chan, you understand what I mean, right?”
Stirred from scribbling something into a notebook, the bespectacled girl looks up and freezes momentarily on being called out. “We don’t know the effects of all these un-awakened drinking Idea World materials for an extended period of time,” she assesses. “Drinking an Idea isn’t the same as being fed upon and turned into a Nightmare. We haven’t observed the effects of this before.”
“We cook and eat Idea Materials all the time,” Kohaku interrupts, drawing several eyes in the room towards him. “There are some short-term cognitive effects.”
“Ew,” the Onguuchi murmurs under her breath.
“Your gang are all Awakened,” Nagamine points out. “It’s possible you all can metabolize it in a way normal people can’t.”
“Very astute, Nagamine-chan,” Yae compliments the other girl in what somehow feels like a subtle barb. “I worry the effects of the poison can only be purged in the Idea World. And we can’t simply produce Bleeding Zones on command, can we?” A pointed stare falls on Aida, who fidgets in his seat.
“Man, it’s scary how you find stuff out like that.”
Tipping her head to the side, Yae fixes him with a patronizing smile. “You haven’t exactly been subtle.”
“Eh, I guess,” reaching into his pocket, he produces one of the gang’s Tamagotchis. “We’ve got these babies, our secret weapon!“ Aida matches the patronizing smile with an ignorant grin. Each day, the secret weapons become less secret. Kohaku smiles to himself- he prefers it that way. Let everything be out in the open. “So you just need one of us with one of these, and bam, your healers can take care of the poison,” his friend tosses the device in the air and then snatches it.
Hair bristling, Momofuku glares across the table at him. “I know about that shit. Already dealt with one of the loser idiots you handed those out to!”
“Hey!” Aida juts a finger at the sukeban, and for a moment Kohaku worries he might lose it, like poking a growling dog. “The price of freedom is dumb people doin’ dumb shit, right? It’s like America!”
“The fuck does America have to do with this?”
“Anybody can have a gun there!”
“And you think that’s fuckin’ sane?!”
“Enough!” voice cutting through the argument, Yae closes her eyes and nods slowly. She waits patiently while Momofuku and Aida slide back into their seats. “We will be splitting this operation into two groups. Momo-san will lead a team to help the people in the Fujiwara Ward-”
“Was already planning on it, don’t need your permission,” folding her arms, the delinquent glances at Onguuchi. “… I mean, yeah, I agree,” she mutters in a forced addendum.
“… And the rest of us will execute a raid on the Bleeding Zone in the reservoir,” Yae patiently finishes her thought, the pause perfectly placed, as if she’d already calculated the interruption. “Yaya, you will remain within the Idea Hub and maintain communication with Nagamine-chan here in the real world, who in turn will maintain communication with our team in Fujiwara.”
“I’ll do it. And if you need me I’ll be right there!” the smaller girl cheerfully calls out.
“Now,” resting his hands on his hips, Shu beams at the whole room. “Let’s pick our teams!”
Fujiwara Ward. Stepping through the door, Momofuku and her team walked through the Idea World Hub, through the shifting terrain swiveling through unseen dimensions. With just a few steps, they’d crossed the city. To home.
A Bleeding Zone in Fujiwara, where shades stalk the streets, picking fights with one another. Men and women, boys and girls, members of gangs Momo has known. So many faces she barely remembers the names to match them all. They’re like Zombies now, hollow eyes and dark, oozing sludge leaking from their mouths. But unlike the Zombies fed on by Nightmare Eaters, these things have a keen light of intelligence still in their yellow eyes.
”Look who it is,” one of the crooked things locks eyes with her. Its bruises from the continual fights swell and pulse, spreading under its body like bulked up muscles. The more the violence, the stronger these guys are getting. The stronger they get, the greater Violence’s hold on them.
Another grabs a street lamp, crawling with unsettling textures Bleeding into the world. Massive, bloody arms pry the metal from the ground, popping nuts and bolts free. They’re stronger than any damn Zombie Momo’s dealt with before. ”Come on, Bitch Queen,” the possessed delinquent challengers her with a tar-stained grin. ”See if you can come tame us.”
“At this rate, Gang Violence could ascend to become a Mature Idea,” a wiry boy with a large nose and shaggy hair steps up beside her. One of the IDs, but Momo doesn’t know his name. His eyes are analytical, scanning the area to pick out their enemies. “The riots are still fresh in everyone’s mind here. A moment in time personified, like the icon of a devil. It’s only a matter of time before Ideas like these merge and give face to it.”
“Not on my damn watch,” cracking her knuckles, Momo calls [Simply Red] to her side, the wind whipping around her black skirt. Behind her, the Fujiwara Senki take their stances- Fumiko’s steel colossus grabs her from the ground and perches her on its shoulder. Dawn hefts her sword in mirror to the challenging shadow, blade gleaming with the light of a computer monitor as she begins to gather power within. Their newest member, Parfaite, stands uncertainly, not yet calling her own Idolon form. All this Idea World business… it’s still new to her.
Alongside them, Ran pounds a fist into his palm, bony red and blue armor washing over his body like a flame. “I’ve got your back.” In the old day, the two of them didn’t always see eye to eye, but Momo is glad to have him watching her back. Not that she’d ever tell anybody.
Then there are the three IDs Kohaku sent with them. The wiry guy next to Momo sprouts a whole ass giant octopus around his head alongside a splash of water that darkens the pavement, eight long tentacles reaching as far as two human bodies. Aida, the old school dealer, stands with a cocky hand on his hip, wearing some fancy ass robe and looking like a dipshit. Then the cue ball head, Okabe, twirling a tire iron between his fingers with an eager look on his face. A flurry of feathers conjures a frankly hideous, pot-bellied Tengu beside him, who grips his ritual staff unsteadily. It’s damn weird to see an Idolon look more shy than their Awakened.
None of the gangsters interrupt as their opponents square up. The grandstanding, the image, it’s all part of the game. But the moment [Simply Red] takes one step forward, their enemies are off like a gunshot.
Enemies Incoming: [Infected//Gang Violence]
A sweeping kanabo impacts the torn streetlamp, the blast wind of their impact throwing several Infected onto the pavement. “Try not to hurt them, just pin them down so we can cleanse them!” Momo calls out her command. [Simply Red] grits her teeth- holding back doesn’t come easy to her. Letting the shadow win the clash, she guides the impact of the streetlamp behind her. Glass shatters and explodes. Momo shields her face, taking just a few shallow cuts.
Flashing in past the enemy’s overextended guard, [Simply Red] drives a knee into his gut, sending him doubling over to the ground. The Infected around her are scrambling to their feet, but a hail of threatening near-misses from Fumiko’s guns keep them dancing on the backfoot. Dawn raises her sword, but pauses, looking at the charged blade. “Right. We don’t know how damage might carry over with the [Infected],” as she officially names the new variety of enemy, she lets the light fade from her sword.
“Knock ‘em on their asses, huh? Allow me,” raising his arm, Aida swings it towards the scattered gangsters like a commanding general. “[Tsuchinoko]! Hit them with a dose of [Mescaline]!” The eyes on either side of his robe’s collar flash with a rainbow of colors, a swirling cascade of colorful rays chasing down the Infected. Where they impact, the enemies are surrounded by a hypnotic cascade of dazzling colors, filling their eyes and leaking out of their skin.
Cleaning up the stoned gangsters and holding them down is easy enough from there. [Simply Red] and Dawn restrain them until the tengu priest can sway his staff above them and purge the Idea gunk with his [Healing]. One by one, they vomit up the poison and slump down, half-conscious, barely-aware. When the last one is eased onto a rusty street bench, the Bleeding Zone around them begins breaking up and dispersing.
“Good work,” Momo barks to her subordinates. “Fumiko, call in. Where the hell are we going next?”
Flipping open her phone as she deftly lands back at street level, Fumiko calls Kaoru and Yaya back at the Door. “There are two other Bleeding Zones in Fujiwara right now, Yaya says we should prioritize crushing those before we start making our own,” she reports. “One at the park, and one at the Fujiwara Ashita group home for kids.”
“Aw shit,” spinning around, Aida suddenly has that dopey grin wiped off his face. “Fuu-ki, that’s the group home Hajime’s sister’s in. Ko’s been tryin’ to get his dad to sponsor her to a better one, but-”
“The Pygmies aren’t done going for blood yet. Ran!” turning on her heel, Momo takes charge. “Take the IDs and get to that group home. Make sure none of those kids gets hurt, got it?! I’m taking the Fujiwara Senki and holding back the situation at the park ‘till you can get there and heal ‘em!”
Ran nods fiercely, a fire in his eyes. “Not a single one.”
Aida pulls out one of those virtual pets. “Hey, why don’t we swap Takoyaki and that sword girl? You’ll want one of these with you,” he waggles the device in the air.
“Fine. Get moving!”
Reaching out, Aida ushers his team closer. Okabe takes him by the hand and with some prompting (a lot of prompting for Dawn), they all form a chain of hands. Holding up the Tamagotchi, Aida calls out, “[Hub Transport]! [Tsuchinoko], spirit us away!” The chain of bodies dissolves into digitized pixels, and they all vanish in a flash.
“That works,” kicking into a jog, Momo waves for Fumiko, Parfaite and this ‘Takoyaki’ to follow her. “Come on, the park’s not far!”
It’s stomach-turning. First they reappear near Yaya in the swaying grassy fields of the Idea Hub, then they’re being directed like clogged traffic towards another Bleeding Zone route. Ran lets go of Belladonna’s hand and charges after Aida, who’s already taking the front at a dead sprint. It doesn’t take long for Ran’s powerful legs to catch up.
Passing the threshold, they step through a shifting worldspace and onto the pavement outside a crooked, menacing-looking building. The barred windows of the Fujiwara Ashita glare down at them, a yellow glow from inside like the eyes of a monster. There’s shouting from inside, and Aida rushes for the door. “It’s locked-” he’s about to protest when an adult care worker is thrown through the door, splintering it and flattening Aida on the sidewalk. The care worker has a dislocated jaw, several bleeding holes in his chest, and lays in a pained, unconscious crumple.
“I’ve got him, you go ahead,” Okabe’s Idolon crouches over the wounded man, gently moving him off of Aida. Nodding, Ran rushes past the tengu into the home’s lobby. Belladonna stops beside the tengu, staying to keep watch in case anything attacks him while his guard is down.
They’re small, muscular. Compact, black-toothed, mean-eyed gremlins wearing distinctive blue jean jackets. Members of the Denim Pygmies. One of them is wearing a set of spiked soccer cleats and a set of brass knuckles, one of his feet stained with the care worker’s blood. Another holds a switchblade menacingly, and a third is wielding a metal bat. ”Look at this big oaf,” switchblade snarls. ”Break his kneecaps. I’m going to make good on boss’ promise!”
That one breaks away, going for the weakest targets- the kids. That little bitch. Ran bares his teeth and rushes after the Infected, Twinned Wrath crawling across his body. The bat-wielding Infected gets in his way. When Ran swings to sway him away, the Pygmy ducks out of the way, momentarily shrinking and then springing back to size to crack the bat across Twinned Wrath’s knees. The low impact sends Ran tumbling head over heels, but he rolls back to his feet. Barely even hurt, just a damn inconvenience. Grabbing the gangster from behind in a headlock, Ran calls out, “Stun this guy already! We gotta go!”
“Tsuchinoko, hit them with-” Aida prepares that stunning move again, but he’s too slow. Cleats clack against the floor as one of their foes rushes him. He pivots to shield his face, and his robe’s sleeve inflates like a big fat tube. The brawler Infected’s fist bounces off, the impact sending them both stumbling back. When a second swing comes in, Aida tilts to the side and crosses the room in a flash.
Stepping through the door while the Infected recovers from his missed haymaker, Okabe strikes him under the chin with his long tire iron, spinning it like a battle staff. Following through, Okabe keeps beating the Infected back towards the lobby desk.
Steadied, Aida calls on his Idolon again, “Now, dose them!” A flash of light rays cascade into the two Infected, leaving them swaying and fighting against an unseen hallucination of psychedelic restraints. Even being close to the one in Ran’s grasp is enough to make him feel a little loopy too. He tosses them into a lobby chair and turns, rushing down the hallway.
“Where the fuck did you go?!” he lost sight of the damned switchblade. Kicking open rooms, Ran looks into the faces of cowering children. Each time he runs onwards, ignoring their screams of monster. Then, down the hallway, he hears a girl scream. “No!”
Ran charges towards the sound. ”Cut them out… at the roots!” an Infected voice, inside one of the rooms.
Charging shoulder-first through one more door, Ran looks on as time seems to slow down. Past the shattering wood, the switchblade Infected is stepping towards a cluster of children. Homeless kids, orphans, a pile of future strugglers just like Ran. Those cold yellow eyes are locked only on one girl in particular, her pigtails bobbing on either side of her crying face.
Ran moves, but he’s too late. The steel shiv sails through the air…
Something sparks. A blue flame peels open the air, and a flash of brilliant blue steel shatters the gangster’s implement. The impact sends him flying, and he crashes into Ran, who pins him to the wall.
Wearing a tattered Ronin’s longcoat formed out of blue spiritfire, a new figure stands above the children. His ghostly lips split open in a ragged, sharp-toothed grin that matches his worn coat. ”Hey,” turning, the newborn Idolon sheathes his neon blue katana and kneels before the crying girl. His hand reaches out. The flames don’t burn her, only evaporate her tears. ”Ay-chan. Don’t cry. I told you… I won’t ever let them hurt you.”
“Onii-san,” the girl bawls, hugging the ghostly figure. Ran feels a familiar spike drive through his heart, and wet trails stain his cheeks behind the mask of Twinned Wrath. His arms clutch the disarmed Infected tightly, and he drags the thing into the hallway, slamming it into the wall. Winding up a fist, he wants so much to beat this thing’s face into pulp. Yellow eyes glare back, but a moment of pause has gripped them.
“What… did I…” a human voice whispers from the thing, tears forming around eyes that flicker between an eerie yellow and a plain brown. Setting his jaw in a firm scowl, Ran lowers his fist.
“Let’s get you cleaned up,” Ran growls. He jerks the regretful Infected by the collar, dragging him towards the healer.
Being real with herself, Rin knows the trash mobs were never going to last long. Even if they’re a step above normal Zombies, the only challenge the heroes would face is not killing the hosts.
Still, they could have at least wasted a little more time. Standing in the window of an empty apartment across the street, the young witch watches through the shattered front door of the group home below. Their Support Idolon is purging the Gang Violence out of another victim of the poison. It’s all over the floor, their Idea-infused vomit. Rin smiles to herself. “Like flies to vinegar,” she predicts, raising her hand. Energy pulses through her body as she forces the diminishing Bleeding Zone to swell once more, a Garganta tearing open above the street.
Ripped from their abode elsewhere in the city, a swarm of Nightmare Eaters tumble out into the street. Eyes within the building turn, catching notice of the new threat. Claws scrabbling on pavement, jaw-heads gnashing, the hungry thought-predators pursue the tantalizing scent of the predigested vomit.
A dual silhouette of red and blue, steps out to face them. Rin can hear a prayer chant echoing across the street from the other building, in a deep, throaty voice. Gleaming wards with the shape of talismans appear around the Idolon, repelling the claws of the swarm. With a spinning series of kicks, the dichromatic warrior knocks the first wave of Eaters back.
Behind him, a girl with a halo around her head steps onto the street. The framing light makes it difficult for Rin to make out her face. Light gathers in the girl’s hands, like the bright green of an old CPU terminal, pixels flaring to life in the shape of a longsword and a handgun. With a swipe of her sword, a crackling wave of TV static scrambles the street. The diffuse Definement softens the flesh of the Nightmare Eaters, leaving their outlines fuzzy and their movements sluggish. With a calculating eye, she raises her gun. Several shots pop off, splattering their heads and sending jagged teeth flying.
The second wave of Eaters, now fully aware of the Garganta, crawl through and assess the situation. The two Awakened fighters and their protective wards, flowing through the air like magic carpets, are easily holding the line. So these cleverer predators leap away from the fighting and slink towards the rear of the building. It’s more thought and strategy than Rin gave them credit for.
As the second wave draws near to the alley, a familiar face appears. Uesugi Aida, wearing his ridiculous house robe. Throwing his arms to the side, he shimmers. “You’re about to witness me be absolutely flawless!” he shouts, to an audience of uncaring monsters. Rin rolls her eyes. His outline splits like a cell performing mitosis, until a line of four Aidas bars entry into the alley. From the eyes of their coats, a spray of sickly green liquid sears the faces of the approaching Nightmares, bubbling their flesh like acid. Each of the sprays solidifies into the shape of two green scimitars, and the buffoon dances in his snakeskin robes while the blades slice through his enemies. One Eater grows its claws and lunges for him, but he flashes out of the way with one step, and a shimmering rainbow of color paints the ground. The Eater slides as if on an oil slick, impaling itself directly onto one of the blades and flipping head over heels.
These Eaters, however, have not yet been weakened by the knight’s sorcery. Soon their pressure catches up, and one of the duplicates shears open and then shatters into glassy fragments. Aida’s confidence is shaken, and he starts backing up, losing ground. Rin leans forward and grips the windowsill. “Come on… don’t die on me here, I still need you,” she mutters under her breath.
From the fire exit comes a brutish-looking boy, with a scarred face and a complexion like a dead lizard. Wielding a large tire iron, he steps into the fray personally, deflecting blows from Aida’s flank. It isn’t long before the two Awakened out front have cleared their foes and step in, flanking the second wave. Claws clash with claws, teeth snarl and clamp around the longsword, but one by one the monsters are slain.
Dismissing the Garganta, Rin lets out a breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding. The spiritual pressure of maintaining the portal gets easier each time, as her Yokai-given power grows. It feels… good. It feels good to feel powerful.
With neither the concentration of Idea-entities nor the Garganta maintaining it, the Bleeding Zone flickers and dies out. Mundanity overtakes the world, and Rin can see them for who they really are. Ran Nejima, and that quiet shut-in. What was her name?
“Well, we’ll have time to figure it out,” reaching into her pocket, she pulls out her phone and dials. After only one ring, it picks up. “They cleared the location. Expect them to be on their way.”
Rin can practically hear the unsettling smile on Itsuro’s face. “All is well. The trap is laid and the bait is bit. Now I only need to wait for the rod to reel itself in…“
It’s all moving very quickly. None of this is quite what Parfaite expected when she was hired by the Fujiwara Senki. Certainly, acting as the maid for a girl gang was always going to be a challenging prospect, but complaining about challenge never helped anyone succeed. What she never once could have predicted is answers to the strange goings on in the city.
The Awakenings.
Holding onto either side of her dress, Parfaite jogs briskly behind her boss and their companions. Athleticism is not among Parfaite’s many virtues, but the secret to aerobic exertion is the conservation of energy. After the first block, Parfaite had acutely calculated the ideal stride and speed to maintain a safe proximity to the team while expending the least of her reserves.
Ahead, the concrete jungle gives way to an poorly cared-for city park. Scabby trees, weed-ridden grass, stained wooden benches, and almost assuredly an unacceptable number of buried needles (more than zero). One section of Parfaite’s duties had been drawing a planned outline of distributed duties for the Fujiwara Senki and its associated gangs’ members to clean up and refurbish the park with naught but their own elbow grease and personal grit. A project she was, frankly, enjoying… until it fell by the wayside.
Huffing, Parfaite sets her mouth in a thin frown. If it means getting back to the business of improving the ward, she will do her part in cleansing the rot. And speaking of the rot…
Branches twist and rustle in unnatural ways. The grass is too still- too cold, where it brushes against her bare legs. The Bleeding Zone they call it, a place where the natural and supernatural collide. Ahead, there is already blood staining the pavement. Two rival gangs are engaged in combat with one another, their teeth stained black like an American baseball player’s. Dark veins run up their necks, and their eyes are wide, focused and blazing yellow. More of these Infected, as her companion had dubbed them.
“Simply Red!” Mistress Momofuku calls out, her Idolon appearing at her side and launching forward to shield a fallen gang member from a curbstomping he’d been receiving. Both sides of combatants turn towards their group, offended at the interruption.
”Mind your business, brat,” one of the older boys on the winning gang’s side bares his teeth at the Wind Demon of Fujiwara.
“Sounds like you need a reminder,” raising her head proudly, the Mistress brandishes a wooden training sword. “This ward is my business.” Adjusting her stance, she prepares for the advance of their foes, while Fumiko draws a pair of paintball guns and opens fire, splattering color and pain across the front of uncaring beasts. They charge right through as if feeling nothing at all, until they meet the tripping tentacles of the octopus-headed Takoyaki. His blue, blubbery head has swelled to the size of a forklift, carrying his comparatively tiny body beneath it. Simply Red topples more delinquents and tosses them to his free tentacles for him to pin.
“Brute Cannon,” adjusting her stance, Fumiko calls upon her own Idolon. Its massive steel bulk forms around her, mechanisms sliding out of thin air and piecing together on the spot, a gargantuan dragon-shaped siege engine. “On the defense!” Leaning down, it uses its broad arms to block the enemy swarm, shoving them back while the Mistress and their ally take on only a few at a time.
Combined, the strength of the Infected proves more than the artillery beast anticipated, and its feet start to slide back. Closing her eyes, Parfaite reaches out for that sensation. The feeling of being needed, of filling a role. “Mademoiselle Furukawa,” she says, reaching up with new mantis-like limbs and launching herself to the top of the Brute Cannon. La Premiere femme de Chambre stands above the raging crowd, a Dullahan head in mannequin hands striking them with her gaze. “Allow me to ease your burdens.”
A darkness floods down from la Premiere’s empty eyesockets, a waterfall of tears saturating the Infected delinquents until they are left sodden and waterlogged. Simultaneously, manifold hands unfurl from within la Premiere’s dress, gently massaging the machine’s shoulders and oiling its joints. Brute Cannon surges with strength and soon overpowers their weakened mass, pinning two groups of them beneath its claws.
Takoyaki’s voice emanates from the octopus head, as if he were calling from across an indoor pool. “I am able to perform rudimentary healing, but it will take me time to purge these victims.”
“Take all the time you need,” the Mistress spins her bokken. “Simply Red and I are going to track down any more in the park. We’ll drag their asses back here and put them in line.”
Would that la Premiere could imitate these healing arts. Parfaite is capable enough with a suture needle and a roll of bandages, but alas, this world functions on different rules. She reaches out, offering what aid she can- a long arm on several lengths of doll joints stretches down to offer Takoyaki a kettle of energizing tea. “This should enhance your focus and power.”
“Thanks,” grabbing the pot with a tentacle, he splashes the tea directly on his face, his strange Idolon form absorbing the liquid through its skin. “I was feeling a little dry.”
“We are pleased to be of service.”
Resting upon his knees, one Arakawa Itsuro looks into the Bleeding Zone of Fujiwara Park through a pair of binoculars. He leans against the ledge of an apartment building rooftop, enjoying the wide open view. Well, enjoying might be an overstatement. This entire place is a trash fire. A waste of space and effort, better off burned down so that something new may finally be built in its place.
Keen eyes take in the details of the combatants, their tools, their methods. They rest on a particularly new face. “Our enemies gather together like dust accumulating beneath neglected furniture,” he laments softly to himself. “No matter. For all their strength in the Idea World,” a gentle smile plays across his lips, “In reality, they are only children playing pretend.”
Itsuro had been busy. His carefully laid plan made use of the beneficial circumstances in this rash of Idea-fueled violence. Though the yakuza rarely bothered laying their roots in these rotten districts, many like to be close. For all the comfort of the nice side of the Forbidden walls, there are so many business opportunities on the other.
A select group of low hanging fruit had made the perfect target. New changes in leadership as the old oyabun’s passing left a new successor chomping at the bit to mark his name and reputation. Itsuro had made certain that defending his reputation demanded a certain delinquent girl be taught an important lesson.
Something to do with the Fujiwara Senki graffiti all over the family’s compound and garage, declaring a challenge for leadership. Who would have dared such an audacious thing? Well, it’s surprisingly easy to tag with the best of them. It’s all in the technique, and Itsuro had absorbed it easily after an online video or two. If he does say so himself, the true Fujiwara Senki would have been proud of his design.
Itsuro smiles as he congratulates himself.
“What’s taking those dumbasses so long?” Momo complains, her foot planted on the back of an unconscious, cured delinquent, who lay in a puddle of his own ink-black vomit. With a little help from the new girl, even Takoyaki’s low-level healing has been cleaning their guts out plenty fast.
Standing against a tree, Fumiko takes another drag of her cigarette. She can feel the wind start to rustle her hair now. “Bleeding Zone’s about to collapse,” she warns, flicking some ash in one of the park’s standing ashtrays.
“That’s fine, the rest are out cold,” Momo looks over her shoulder at the gangsters held beneath Brute Cannon’s forearms. They pushed themselves to exhaustion and then to unconsciousness trying to break free. All their little handprints have left pressure bruises up Fumiko’s forearms. “We’ll move them somewhere else and then use that pet.”
Snuffing out her cig and tucking it back into her pocket, Fumiko steps away from the tree just as a blanket of normalcy falls back over the park. Brute Cannon vanishes, taking the sensation of pressure on her arms with it. Takoyaki drops out of the air and sticks the landing as his octopus form vanishes, leaving them with a pile of sick and cured thugs to drag around. Fumiko sighs and squats down to get to work.
The four of them move one set of unconscious dimwits after another, and Fumiko has to stop, coughing as she catches her breath. “Damn. Manual labor sucks.”
“Mademoiselle. If you like, I can provide a soothing massage upon our return,” the fancy-ass new maid offers, making Fumiko crack a grin.
“Hell yeah. I hope Dawn’s paying you enou-”
A sharp crack splits the air. Takoyaki, standing just ahead of Fumiko, looks down at his chest. A dark blossom spreads across his white undershirt, and his eyes bug out. “Gun!” Fumiko dives for cover behind a thicket of trees as several more shots go off, one of them shattering a branch just inches from her head. Even after all those expeditions in the Idea World, fighting for her life- Fumiko feels he heart pounding in her chest, the surging mortal fear.
Parfaite ducks into cover behind Fumiko. The maid is covering her head, eyes wide, hyperventilating. Reaching out, Fumiko sets a hand on her shoulder. “Breathe slowly,” she advises, a pep talk as much for herself as for her new masseuse. “Stay calm.”
Momo ended up behind a bench in the opposite direction, shots clanging off of metal and splintering wood. She’s more exposed, and at risk of a lucky shot. Between them, Takoyaki is sprawled out on the ground. Fumiko can see his mouth still gasping for air. Alive, but stunned by shock. He’s got something in his hand- the Tamagotchi. “Momo!” Fumiko calls out, catching her boss’ attention. “We gotta turn on the thing! There!” she points. “Parfaite and I will cover you!”
Momo nods, face stoically set. She’s got a hell of a poker face, but Fumiko can see her legs shaking. None of the gangs out here are well-off enough to get their hands on a real ass gun. Someone’s out for their blood.
“Parfaite,” Fumiko forces one of her paintball guns into the maid’s hands. “You’re pretty good at wingin’ it, right? Follow my lead.”
“This is… this is a p-paintball gun!” the maid stammers. “Th-they have real guns!”
“Aim for the eyes,” in spite of her façade of confidence, Fumiko’s voice is shaking too. “Just wait for my signal.” Turning around, Fumiko fishes another of her homemade smoke bombs from her pocket. She tosses it at another thicket and calls out, “Move around and flank ‘em!”
The shooters take the bait. They open fire into the smoke, expecting somebody to be gunning it through the cloud cover. Wearing an expression that’s more grimace than grin, Fumiko swings herself into the crook of two branches, using them to stabilize her shots. Three adult men are walking into the park, approaching their location. Each of them is wearing a black suit, hanging open with a white shirt underneath. Each of them is carrying a 9mm handgun. The tattoos on their necks tell Fumiko everything she needs to know. “Yakuza…”
Squeezing the trigger, she fires several paintball rounds in quick succession. One catches a guy in the mouth and he staggers back as if punched, spluttering on the red paint. The next caps him in the forehead, momentum throwing him off his feet to the ground.
Parfaite fires too. Several paintballs go wide, but she gets a bead in and nails one of the enforcers right in the collarbone. Fumiko sweeps her firing arc to splatter impacts across the last man’s chest. The two still standing train their guns on the tree and Fumiko ducks down, pulling Parfaite with her just as more bullets start splitting wood.
During the distraction, Momo made a sprint for the Tamagotchi. It’s in her hands now, and she’s hammering the buttons with her fingers. “Come on Momo, they’re gonna see you-!” Fumiko hisses under her breath.
Click. With a woosh of energy that makes her chest flutter, Fumiko feels a Bleeding Zone ripple outwards from the device. Just as bullets start to fly in Momo’s direction, Simply Red appears in a twister-like burst of air, creating a wind tunnel that sends the small arms fire screaming around their intended target.
Just as it seems all will be fine, Momo lets out a scream, and Simply Red’s leg gives out, dropping her to a kneel. The kanabo keeps spinning, its oni wielder gritting her teeth. “J-” Momo tries to say something, but her voice catches in her throat. Fumkio can see red on her friend’s leg, clutched under a bloody hand.
The gunfire stops, and the yakuza fumble drunkenly with their magazines to reload. Fumiko feels a flare of anger and considers having Brute Cannon show them just what live fire looks like.
At the behest of her flaring emotions, the Idolon takes shape, stomping into the open ground between the two groups as its parts slot together. The three men look at the mechanical creature with dumbstruck looks on their slackjawed faces. Leaden fingers drop the weapons from their hands, and they turn and flee.
“Hold fire!” Fumiko growls. Brute Cannon emits a mechanical hum, weapons still trained on the fleeing criminals, but once they exit reach of their firearms its threat protocols ease up and it retracts the launchers to a resting position. “Crush those guns, so nobody can use them,” Fumiko commands, and the steel dragon obeys. All it takes is one stomp of its foot to reduce the deadly implements to metal scrap. “… Just a shame those assholes won’t remember this,” she mutters.
Taking Parfaite by the shoulder, Fumiko rushes to the others. Momo is lying on the ground with Simply Red crouched beside her, a bloody streak along her left like. “I- it only grazed me, check him first,” she insists. Parfaite takes a deep breath and kneels next to Takoyaki, opening her medkit. Her Idolon’s many hands melt out of her skin and her head rolls off into one of their palms as she shifts forms, an uncanny calm coming over her.
Fumiko slumps to the ground next to Momo, grabbing a roll of bandages and a bag of sutures. She ain’t as good as Parfaite, but at least that cig is keeping her hands steady. “Bite down on this,” she hands the boss a wooden cylinder, and Momo clamps it between her teeth. Muffled screams and growls serve as a backdrop to the girls’ work.
“There is nothing I can do,” la Premiere utters grim news in a flat tone. “His liver was struck and the bleeding is severe. It would take Geitzer to have a hope of stabilizing him, and he would need a hospital and a transplant.”
“You-” Momo sucks in through her teeth as she takes the cylinder out. “You can’t be serious, d-do something!”
La Premiere shakes her head. Brute Cannon squats down beside them and emits a sad hum. “I’m sorry, Mistress.”
“Damnit!” Momo punches her fist into the ground. Fumiko remains solemnly silent, wrapping the sutured wound with clean bandages. “He was my responsibility! Who the fuck were those guys? Why were they here?!” she directs her shouted demands for answers at Fumiko.
“I dunno. Yakuza,” the redhead looks in the direction they ran. “They didn’t look Infected, but they must have been affected too. Got it in their heads to… I don’t know.”
“Yakuza don’t do random violence,” Momo growls. “Someone fuckin’ did this. And I’m gonna find out who…”
It’s an eerie transition, from the Idea Hub and its swaying, peaceful yellow grass- pixelated as if in a video game. Kohaku looks upon the horizon, where Geistzer and Laplace lead their company of Awakened. Idyllic sky transforms into an abyss of darkness, the arched ceilings and hanging stalactites gleaming in the rays of Shu’s flashlight. Kohaku reaches beside him, placing a hand on Tai’s reassuring bulk. Small motes of light begin to appear in the air, as Kukurihime raises her staff.
Marisa steps forward beside Kohaku, jumping from one foot to another. “This is my first real… raid, with the School Council. Both of us actually, we usually just run into loose monsters.” Her nervousness is infectious.
“Settle down,” Kohaku reprimands her. The tension of an upcoming confrontation is tight within his abdominal muscles. One of his own going into battle like this… “You should wait here with Meliaya.”
“What? Why?” the girl stops, and Kohaku turns to face her. “…You think I’m not ready, right?”
“It’s not a matter of ready,” he lies. It is, but there is more to his strategy. “Your Idolon is powerful, but your stamina is lacking. You cannot hold to that form for long, you understand?” Nerves and embarrassment turn to understanding in her eyes, and she looks down. “We do not know what we will face, and we cannot waste our push before it is time. Meliaya will send you to us when your sword is needed.”
Taking a deep breath through her nose, Marisa bows. “Got it, boss. You call, and I’ll come running.”
Kohaku smiles and returns her bow, then rejoins Shu’s team. Laplace is watching him analytically, and nods to him. “A shrewd leadership decision.” Kohaku only shrugs at her. He doesn’t particularly care for approval. Not from her, in any event. “Prepare yourself, we are about to cross the threshold.”
“I’d nearly forgotten!” Geistzer twists and tosses a kitchen knife into the air. Kohaku reaches out his hand, and the weapon casually finds the place it belongs. “You told me this was your weapon in the Idea World. It would not do to step into battle unarmed,” the tokusatsu hero throws back his head and laughs, shadow boxing the air. “Unless your body is your weapon!”
Twirling the blade into a reverse grip, Kohaku eyes the axe-bladed bones jutting out of the heroic Idolon’s forearms. “It must be terrible.”
“Hah? Terrible?” resting his hands on his hips, Geistzer cocks his head at the non-sequitur. “How would you say so?”
“For your Idolon to be an Incarnation,” Kohaku looks at the three of them. Shu Jinko, Madoka Onguuchi, and Yae Zennami. He’d pitied his own gang members, Marisa and Takoyaki, for their Incarnate Idolons. “To be forced to stand before the world alone.”
“We’re not alone,” Kukurihime insists. A mature, motherly tone overlays Onguuchi’s shrill, cheerful voice. “We have our teammates. We support each other, and become stronger for it,” reaching out, she pats Laplace on the arm.
“I would feel more comfortable with frontliners to support,” the detective coolly mentions. “We can rely on Yaya and Marisa for reinforcements, but without Ran here we will be lacking in muscle. I hope we can rely on you to be a team player, Fukuzawa?” There’s an expectant look in her monochromatic eyes. An attempt to gently nudge him in a desired direction.
It’s mildly offensive. “I know how to fight with a team,” Kohaku answers, voice sharp. “It’s not the same. You’ve always been alone,” he looks straight past Laplace, still engaged in the debate Kukurihime had started. “You wouldn’t understand.”
”Maybe they do speak,” the wet rumble of Tai’s voice feels like a balm on Kohaku’s tense muscles, easing them into loose readiness. ”Speaking within. Not outside.”
“Sometimes. The best detectives must learn to engage in self-dialogue,” Laplace adjusts her cuffs.
“Detectives work with partners,” still unwilling to cede the point, Kohaku marches past her to Shu’s side, advancing across the boundary with Geistzer. Kukurihime and Laplace cross behind them.
Jagged terrain casts long shadows that twist like scorpion stingers in the Bleeding Zone. Darkness ripples like deep, abyssal waters outside the reach of their lights. Gleaming golden reflections paint the surface of the true abyssal waters, along the edge of a rough-hewn stone shore. More of the earth’s teeth jut out of the dark pool, wound by metal piping like glistening snakes. “Stalactites should have been removed when the infrastructure was laid down,” Laplace analyzes, as they pass abandoned construction tape and yellow barriers. “The Bleeding Zone must have reformed them.”
“Memories of what this place was,” Kohaku whispers in reverence. Everything in the Idea World has a meaning, and the things that return which were lost in the real world, they mean the most of all. “Whatever birthed this Bleeding Zone, it is a creature tied up in the past. In something that was lost.”
“You may be right.” Kohaku can feel the girl’s eyes on the back of his head. Something about the way she looks at him, it feels like her eyes are drilling down through the layers of his skull to witness the firing of his individual neurons. It’s unsettling.
Light peels away the darkness, falling upon something brilliant and white. Pearlescent bands of colors reflect from the long sleeves of a robed figure, painting rainbows upon the rock. The figure is female, her face shrouded in a cloud of white fog, long silver hair streaking to the floor on either side. Kohaku feels his heart beat faster. Something about her- the shape in his dreams haunts him, an outline painted beneath thin white robes. Underneath his hand, Tai freezes, eyes locked on this creature.
”So… familiar,” the spirit murmurs.
”Yes,” voice quivering as if in fevered prayer, she looks at Tai. Kohaku can feel her gaze on the worm, even behind her mask of fog. ”It has been so long. My sweet…”
Tightening the grip on his knife, Kohaku feels a surging violence possess his limb. “Back off, bitch!” there’s a new, gritty viciousness in his tongue. The kind that plagues the tongues of other delinquents- lesser beings. But she needs to know her place. “Tai is mine.”
”Sweet boy, you misunderstand,” her voice is like the softest blanket, a cocoon of cclouds that wraps itself around Kohaku’s shoulders. That violence in his arm shivers and goes still, unwilling to raise a hand to her.
“Yokai,” Geistzer steps forward, sweeping his arm through the air as he strikes a pose, one hand pointing up at the figure in white, the other shielding Kohaku’s eyes as if blocking his view of her will do anything at all. “You stand accused of poisoning the city, and now justice has come to call! How do you answer?”
Both hands folded in front of her, she looks down at a shape lying at her feet. Kohaku recognizes it immediately. The bancho shade, the leader of Gang Violence. Its chest is cracked open as if with surgical equipment, strands of shimmering thread holding onto the edges like meathooks. Ribbons trailing from the woman’s dress cradle its blackened heart, massaging it. Each beat pulses into a trail of sludgy blood that runs down translucent tubes of spiraling silk, flowing into the water. ”What about love?”
“What?” Geistzer’s lead tips backwards, chin jutting in confusion.
”I fight for love,” though it sounds still like whispered prayer, her voice carries through the cavern, echoing with power and authority. ”For this poor creature, that has lost its other half. For those who drink of the blood, and remember that love is violence…”
“Madness!” Geistzer steps forward, clenching his fist in the air. “Your words are mad. Love is not violence! Love is tender, love is a virtue!”
”If you would not kill for love,” the Yokai woman posits, ”Then you have never felt it true.”
Beside him, Kohaku can hear Laplace talking to herself under her breath, “My intuition was right. Bringing Ai on this mission would have been a disaster…”
”Will you join with me?” that voice grips Kohaku’s heart in those same razor-thin garrote wires, the ones he felt before. ”The two of you… my missing pieces. We can all be one, together forever.”
Limbs frozen numb, Kohaku struggles to look away from her eyeless gaze. He takes one step forward, then another. When Geistzer reaches out for him, Kohaku steps around, to the edge of the water. He kneels and scoops the black liquid in his hand, then tilts it into his mouth. That flavor hits him again, like the aftertaste of his meal. It makes his heart hammer, his adrenal gland twitch. Their fiery heat banishes the numb, and he stands up, knife raised towards the Yokai. “Sounds like hell. Fuck off!”
Recoiling as if slapped, the Yokai, covers the lower half of her face in a hand. ”Such insolence… disobedient children must be punished. That is a mother’s violence!” throwing out her arms, she releases a flood of energy. The ground trembles, the rocks shift and crack, pulling apart. A sensation like falling thrusts Kohaku’s heart up into his throat, vertigo as if he were in freefall.
“A Flooding Zone!” Laplace calls out. Something vibrates in her pocket and she reaches down, snatching it. Her eyes look into the screen of her pager and she calls out a warning, “Watch it! They’re in the water!”
Something bursts from beneath the dark surface and a pointed metal blade lunges for Kohaku’s throat. Whipping through the air, Tai’s tail slaps it aside. When the worm’s Idea Slayers slice through the air, the turtle-like Yokai spins and pirouettes out of the way, landing on the damp stone. Around them the cavern is expanding in all directions, pulling Kohaku’s allies away into the darkness. As their lights fade, he finds himself in the pitch black, only his bond with Tai to give him any point of reference. Then, sparks appear in the air, transmuted flames burning as the air is transformed into flammable gasses to fuel them.
Firelight illuminates their foe. A gangly, balding creature with dark eyes, wielding a pair of sharpened sai. Above them, the water that was at their side has curled in a wave- a tunnel, like a tidal wave collapsing under its own gravity. Its flow ripples above, glinting back reflections of the light, and shapes of them. Like a dark mirror. The lump in Kohaku’s throat finally settles as the Flooding Zone stabilizes, and he steadies his stance.
Enemy incoming: [Teenage Yokai Kappa Ninja]!
Their foe leaps into the water, splashing Kohaku in the face with an icy chill. He twists, going back-to-back with Tai, preparing for an attack from any angle. One hand wipes his face clear, the other grips his weapon.
To his right, from above. Swirling water splits above their heads, the kappa twists midair and dives towards Kohaku in a dropkick. Kohaku raises the point of his knife to meet the foot and teach this freak a lesson, but his weapon skates off- as if deflecting away from armor. A layer of gleaming white threads appears for a moment before vanishing, invisible once more- and the dropkick slams Kohaku into the ground. As the impact approaches, Kohaku feels a flood of rage pumping into his veins, staring up at this bastard. Getting real tired of ending up on the ground.
Landing across the shoulders, Kohaku immediately shoves the ground, launching back to his feet. Tai’s tail whips through the air in an arching slash, barely breezing past Kohaku’s nose- a few locks of severed hair float on the air. Teeth spread open in a wild expression, Kohaku can’t fully contain a furious, elated giggle. Totally in sync. Frame perfect.
The kappa braces and raises his pair of sai, sliding each prong between the tail blades. All of the weight behind the strike pushes the turtle demon backwards, coarse feet scraping the ground. Kohaku rolls his shoulders, watching the enemy. Tai’s length curls and sweeps for the kappa’s legs from behind to topple him, but the impact is absorbed by those nearly-invisible threads. A barrier. No feedback at all from the impact.
A distant rumble. The water tunnel above shudders, and a sheet of droplets fall like sudden rain. When the water splatters across the kappa’s back, its muscles tense and grow for a moment, granting it a surge of strength.
Leaping into the air, the kappa performs a flip, using Tai’s tail as a springboard to launch himself at Kohaku. The prongs of the sai come free in time to twirl into reverse grip and descend. Twin wolf fangs, poised for the kill.
But if it’s on my terms… Kohaku drops backwards. “Use the stone!” he shouts, as a cushion of softened earth catches his fall.
A pair of transmuted stalagmites pierce between Kohaku’s arms and his sides, striking the falling kappa in the chest when they converge. The barriers absorb the initial impact, but gravity keeps pushing him down. Each stalagmite makes contact with his shell, whereupon the kinetic energy transfers through and sends him careening backwards, ass over end.
The earth raises Kohaku up like a recliner kicking back upright, the two teeth of stone parting before him. “Cage the fucker.” At his command, Tai sprouts criss-crossing bands of earth around the kappa’s body, pressing in against the barrier. Kohaku grins down at their captive.
”Should I crush it?”
“Do it.”
The kappa pulls his arms and legs against his chest, trying to pushed back. Forced inward by a supernatural force, the stone meets his efforts. Golden flames crackle inside the transmuted structure as Tai fuels its durability and crushing force with Life Expenditure. Caught between a rock and a hard place, the yokai’s limbs crack and bend. Wretched, gargling sounds protest the merciless downward advance, but soon the compression has gone as far as it can. Gored flesh and blue blood leak out of the holes in the encasing stone, and the yokai lay motionless, either dead or unconscious.
Thoughts of turtle soup make Kohaku lick hips lips. “As fun as this is, we don’t have time to savor the kill,” turning away, he takes a moment to admire Tai’s outline in the flames. Gleaming eyes peer out through the sockets of the worm’s helmet.
”You said we don’t have time.”
“For him. I always have time for you.”
Rearing back, Tai breaks the contact of their eyes first, looking in either direction. ”The pack needs us.” The flowing water above them has transformed this part of the reservoir into a hallway. In one direction, it opens up into a larger chamber. ”I see the leader’s light.”
Following the worm’s gaze, Kohaku sees it too. The beam of a flashlight fallen to the ground. There’s no sign of Geistzer or any opponent in the cone it slices through the gloom, so wherever Shu ended up he’s alone in the dark. “You’re right,” Kohaku sprints ahead. It’s not long before his Idolon overtakes him, and he leaps to the side, clinging to Tai’s back with one hand. As they slither past, he leans down to snatch the fallen tool from the ground. A sturdy, waterproof camping flashlight, bulky with a large handle. More like handheld lamp. Kohaku sweeps it across the chamber in search of the Prez.
Sidestepping another flashing flail that passes her face in the darkness, Laplace transmutes the earth beneath her feet. The slick move slides her around the edge of their arena, just in time to avoid the kappa’s follow-through.
Laplace stands at the bottom of a pitfall. Streams of water fall down from the edges of the hole above, into the dark hole she’s dug for herself.
Her opponent, a kappa. Swinging two pairs of nunchaku, with a grace and coordination she struggles to keep up with, backed by muscles empowered by their contact with the water. Laplace has been forced to carefully manage her stamina between time dilation and transmuting her surroundings.
It was an easy call to make- the pitfall. Prior to their change of venue, her foe had been making use of the water funnel surrounding them, ducking in and out of her sight. Even Laplace’s eyes, long-since adapted to keen night vision, could not penetrate the surface of the dark water. Just as strong as he is now, but moving outside her field of view. Now, they stand on equal footing. Each fully visible.
He’d backed Laplace into a corner. More clever than she’d initially given him credit for, when this perverse creature had taken advantage of a rare opening move… to slap her ass. There’s an entire layer of thought between the two of them, though. His martial arts technique and refined combat instinct make him dangerous in the moment, but Laplace is already planning a dozen moves ahead. One transmutation of the ground moved her beyond his reach, to the other side of the hole. The water is now up to their ankles. Not deep enough for him to dive into and hide from her sense, but deep enough. …Deep enough for this.
When the kappa turns and tries to give chase, the water around his ankles freezes solid. Gravity takes care of the rest, and he faceplants into the water. Ice spreads across the surface, solidifying around the yokai’s body. Laplace triumphantly steps out onto the ice, a moment before it seals shut behind her. One small circle of shell still pokes out of the white frost. “Checkmate, Michelangelo.” Laplace adjusts her gloves. “I was always more of a da Vinci girl.”
Stairs erupt from the wall of the pit, allowing her to climb the spiral at her leisure. A sudden surge of water falls from above her, and Laplace shields her eyes with the brim of her hat.
An insistent buzzing has been coming from her pocket, with no time to answer. Sliding out the vibrating pager, she checks for messages.
Madoka in trouble! Negacion holding back a flood!
Laplace messages back simply, Direction.
A short beat afterwards, Meliaya responds: Your left.
Call in C-Team. Sliding the messenger back into her pocket, Laplace briskly speedwalks to her next fight.
As the Flooding Zone spilled forth and dragged her away from her friends, Kukurihime takes a deep breath and plants her staff against the shifting ground. A mountain of water closes in from all sides, threatening to swallow them whole in the darkness. Focusing on her Negacion, she holds back the Flooding Zone’s full transformation, creating a swirling tunnel of water where the crash would have consumed her allies.
“Watch it! They’re in the water!” Laplace’s voice, fading with distance, echoes back and forth between the swirling water walls. Kukurihime’s eyes widen, and she twists just in time to block an incoming strike. Icy wetness splashes her in the face, and in the moment of blindness something sweeps out her legs.
Landing on her shoulder with a gasp, Kukurihime fights to maintain her focus on Negacion. A sheet of water rains down from above, and she guards her paper talismans from the downpour with her body.
Rolling back onto her knees, Kukurihime looks up at her opponent. Arms and legs with a green outer side and a pale white inner side, lanky and awkward, with an unusual grace. The joints turn at unnatural angles as the kappa yokai twirls its battle staff, swinging it for another blow. Kukurihime swings her own, the paper at the end coiling around the foe’s. “Hold, honorable kappa!” she calls out as she brings herself to her feet, the shikigami within her staff restraining the weapon as the kappa tries to tug it away. Her words give pause. The yokai shifts stance, more defensive, less aggressive. Kukurihime releases the weapon and steps backwards, clutching her rod to her chest.
“I challenge you to honorable combat,” the goddess declares, bowing low.
A tense moment passes, then the kappa bows back. Kukurihime watches the animating water slosh in the dish upon his head, flowing down and out and- then it twists in the air and runs back up into the bowl. Kukurihime’s heart drops. The easy solution she’d read about was too good to be true.
Quickly returning to an upright posture, Kukurihime adjusts her grip on the short staff, twisting it to grip near the paper talismans. She brandishes the empty end like a bokken, feet sliding into a sword-fighting stance. “It seems we are to fight, then.”
The kappa nods, mouth opening into a sharp-toothed grin.
His aggression returns immediately, surging forward and using the greater reach of his battle staff to his advantage. A swing in from the side, Kukurihime blocks it. The inhuman strength in his limbs is enough to send a jarring shock of pain up her forearms. A practice stance keeps her steady, but even as Kukurihime, Madoka cannot match his raw physical power.
The staff bounces away from the contact and he flows with the momentum, spinning the other way. Kukurihime raises her rod over her head and upsidedown behind her to catch the backswing aimed straight at her head. This time, the angle of the impact is too much. She slows down a certain knockout blow, but it drives her own ‘weapon’ into the back of her head and sends her stumbling forward onto the ground. Another deluge of water spills down from above, and this time she’s too slow. It soaks the shikigami attached to her rod, leaving them a sopping wet mess. More suited to paper mache than combat.
To Kukurihime’s surprise, the kappa takes a step back and renews his stance, waiting for her to get back up on her own. “I… commend your honor,” she says, pulling herself together. The kappa makes a gurgling sound in its throat and licks its sharp teeth. Kukurihime immediately rescinds her commendation when she sees the lecherous look in the creature’s eyes, tracing her up and down.
“Would not want to damage my prize,” he burbles. Newly moisturized by the latest spray from the water tunnel, the kappa flexes, looking suddenly even larger and stronger than before. We definitely can’t take these things in the water…
“Ehn,” gritting her teeth behind her mask, Kukurihime takes her stance again. She releases the wet shikigami from her rod- they’ll only slow her down weighing on her weapon like that. The cluster of paper golems slithers out of her way like soggy white slugs. With her focus consumed by Negacion, she can’t even make use of her finer tools, like her Yata Mirrors. This Flooding Zone… whatever’s spilling it forth is strong. An insane amount of spiritual pressure on the world-barrier. I have to hold out. Buy time for the others. If he wants to talk, then… keep him talking. “Prize? Who has offered me as a prize, kappa?”
Leaning back, he sticks out his tongue. “The Demon of the Evils of Love has given us her promise of strong and beautiful brides! The two who prove bestest will earn their reward!”
“And what right has she to promise my hand in marriage?” Kukurihime’s voice strains, biting back her a deep, ingrained indignation. The idea isn’t just disgusting, it’s… painfully familiar. Her family hasn’t crossed that line yet, but they could, and that irks her.
“Conquest! The spoils of her conquest,” spinning his staff to either side, the kappa begins advancing on her position. “You should be grateful! The love of me and my brothers will spare you Nurarihyon’s execution!”
The lower half of Kukurihime’s face finally cracks into a disdainful sneer. “You disgusting creature. Come and meet your fate, if you dare!” For all the grandstanding, she feels near her limit. The kappa’s mouth opens into a yowl and he rushes in, now blinded by anger. Madoka remembers her lessons. Anger doesn’t make you stronger, it just makes you sloppy…
Smoothing out the momentary outburst of emotion, Kukurihime twists her body in time with the kappa’s approach, using her rod to thwack the other end of his staff when he attacks. Instead of blocking the overwhelming strike, she misdirects his force. The end aimed at her side instead strikes the stone beneath them, wedging itself in an uneven nook. All the rage and vile lust behind the kappa’s strike comes back to bite, it, the staff rebounding out of the yokai’s grip and clattering to the ground.
In that moment, triumphant hope swells in Kukurihime’s heart- and in Madoka’s. Their two hearts beating together as one, they spin their empty charm rod, driving it up into the kappa’s chin.
As if from thin air, a layered lattice of gossamer threads appears, ensnaring the blow like a spider’s web. Kukurihime feels all of the momentum of her swing die- then, the kappa grips her by the arm. “Most impressive! I will be glad to call you mine!” A slimy palm strikes her in the chest and-
“You pig!”
“Nyehahaha!” the kappa slams Kukurihime into the ground, bending her arm. His grating voice coos in mock concern, “Warn me if I’m twisting too far, ne? Wouldn’t want to break my-” a dozen metal javelins launch through the air, stopping dead against the kinetic barrier, then fall to the ground with a clatter.
“Stand and face me, cretin,” Kukurihime has never felt so blessed to hear Laplace’s voice. The dark-clad detective is standing down the water tunnel, one hand raised. Another dozen javelins transmute out of falling water droplets in the air around her, levitating under her power. The kappa gapes its toothy mouth at her.
“We are in the midst of an honor duel! You dare interfere?” the creature spews the words like venomous bile.
“I do.”
“Nrrragh!” grabbing Kukurihime with both arms, the kappa heaves her into the air and tosses her at Laplace. The airborne spiral ends with a cushy landing against a tower of pillows. Laplace steps around the improvised crash pad and leans her head back, looking down her nose at the kappa. He growls and reaches down to snatch his staff, then charges her.
“Thank you kindly,” Laplace says, preemptively. A flash of confusion paints the yokai’s face, before he steps into the soggy wad of shikigami in his path. His foot hydroplanes and he loses balance, falling forward. Laplace swings her hand, transmuting two pillars of water from either side. They slam into the barrier around the kappa, but the water forms soon forms a bubble, encasing him entirely. Clenching her fist, Laplace transmutes the water to a giant ball of ice. “You’ve a faithful bunch of golems, Kukuri-san,” the detective says solemnly, reaching down to help her up. “Fighting even as they are reduced to mush.”
“I’ll be sure to thank them,” Kukurihime stands and thrusts her rod against the ground. The remainder of her soiled shikigami crawl on and reattach themselves. She shakes her head, feeling the drain of the continual Negacion on her shoulders. “This water is trying to literally flood us. I know not how long I can hold it back.”
“I’ve already called for reinforcements,” Laplace turns, leading Kukurihime by the hand. ”Come, the others will need us. If you tire too much, I can try to hold it back with my Realm, but…”
“I know. It takes a lot out of you.”
The two Awakened nod to one another, and jog carefully across the slick ground.
Two blades run astride one another, their metal letting out a piercing keen. Geistzer walks in circles opposite his foe. Neither combatant breaks eye contact with the other. While the kappa makes his weapons sing their taunt, Geistzer relies on a more visual medium, flexing his fingers and striding aggressively. Above the grounds of their duel, a dais of stone rises. A temple- a sacrificial altar. The woman in white stands above the object of her ritual, and the Idea’s blood leaks down in dark rivers, flowing into the water on either side. Outward, until they join the twister- the typhoon of soaring water that is their battlefield’s boundary. Flashes of metal pipes can be seen now and then amidst the upward flow.
All is dark. Only the dim glow of their audience, and the flames in the Underworld Hero’s blazing eyes to light the way. The hero’s eyesight in the dark is better than average, but it is luck more than perception that keeps him from wandering over the edge and tumbling into the abyssal storm.
“For daring to besmirch the name of love,” Geistzer clenches his fist, thrusting the other hand forward to beckon the kappa to face him. The material of his suit creaks as it stretches with each motion. “I, the Underworld Hero Geistzer, will deliver you to justice!”
“You think me without honor?” the kappa’s voice is calm, like the burbling of a quiet forest brook. Wearing a serene smile, he spreads his arms and holds his blades to either side. “Come. You may strike the first blow. I swear, I shall not move to stop you.”
Lowering his head, Geistzer swings one foot around, bending his knee into a runner’s stance. “If those are your terms…. then,” visor glinting, the hero launches forward, spinning in the air. A flying kick aimed directly at the kappa’s face. He stares up at the oncoming missile, eyes wide with anticipation. And then, it stops.
Geistzer remains paused in the air, mere inches from contact. He lowers his foot and drops to the floor. “It would be shameful to strike an opponent who is not fighting back! I, Geistzer, refuse your offer!”
Silence punctuates the moment- silence beneath the white noise of screaming wind and water. Amphibian eyes look upon the fool hero, dumbfounded. Then, splitting into a wide grin, the yokai throws back his head and laughs. “Aha! Ahahaha! Hyeahahahaha!”
Folding his arms- an awkward affair with the axe-like bone blades jutting out of them- Geistzer looks down at the amused kappa. Then, he throws back his head and laughs too. “Hah! Hahaha!”
”What is this nonsense?” the soft voice of the pale figure takes on a biting impatience. ”Kill him.” Raising her hand, she flicks her wrist. The image of the kappa vanishes, and in its place sits a rapidly bloating mound of snow-white flesh covered in vicious looking barbs.
“Oh crap,” Geistzer stumbles backwards, trying to backpedal. The hidden trap explodes, and spines like tiny billhooks launch in his direction.
A flash. Green, white, brown and glinting steel. Bone snaps on impact with metal, and spines thud against a hard surface. Before Geistzer, the figure of the kappa stands, back to the explosion. His blades had cut a swathe of the projectiles from the air, but several have still embedded themselves into Geistzer’s upper chest and arms- his would-be protector only measuring up to his torso in height. Many spines intended for the hero’s lower body have deflected from the kappa’s shell instead, or lodged in the back of his head.
”Why.”
“Human,” the kappa turns and walks several paces away, before facing Geistzer. They stand once more where they stood at the beginning of their encounter, when one of them was the mask to an illusion- a trap. “Your words ring true, and I feel shame in my heart for this deception. You have reminded me of something I lost long ago.” Raising one blade towards the pale yokai, the kappa demands, “Do not interfere. I will face this human being alone, in an honorable duel… as it should have been.”
Though no expression can be seen behind the cloud of fog, Geistzer can feel the menace of the yokai’s glare. ”Die, if it pleases you.”
A reset. Two figures in the dark, blades at their sides, in the eye of the storm. The kappa moves first this time, closing the distance and sprinting for Geistzer’s left flank. When the hero moves to intercept, the kappa pivots cleanly and spins with a slash to the right.
One arm raises up, and Geistzer’s bone blade deflects the two swords. The hero’s leg shoots up in a kick, and the kappa latches on with taloned, ape-like feet. The other leg plants itself against Geistzer’s chest, and the yokai spins backwards, yanking the captured leg with him. Geistzer feels his remaining foot leave the ground, his body hurled into the air by levered momentum.
Leaning into the angle of the spin, Geistzer rights himself in the air. As he falls, he experiences the loss of control- the beginning of an air juggling combo. The kappa moves to intercept the angle, and Geistzer clasps his hands in front of himself. “Pray to…” a gleaming golden light sparks between his reversed palms.
Just as he’s about to land, the surge of prayer power he channels into the kappa increases the yokai’s leg strength, causing him to overshoot the mark. He skids past Geistzer’s landing position and swings wide into empty air, left open in the follow-through. The moment Geistzer lands, the hero rescinds his prayer and bends to the side. With a swift spin on one heel, he delivers a spinning kick to the kappa’s back, bone spur driving hard into shell. Their impact sends the kappa flying across the battlefield, skidding and spinning on his back.
Raising his weapons, the kappa strikes them into the earth, slowing himself before he careens off the edge. Raising his feet in the air, he kips up, using the momentum to yank his twin swords free. “Sasuga!” the kappa declares, striking his blades together.
Geistzer claps his arms across his chest in an X, returning the bladed salute. “Happy to impress!”
Their fight is interrupted by a beam of light. A human figure steps off of the spiral path down from the peak, body gleaming with light that frames his bones. “Jinko,” Kohaku calls, the figure of his serpentine Idolon rising behind him, flanked by blazing whisps that sputter in the spray of the surrounding typhoon. He points the forgotten flashlight at the kappa, “I’m here to assist.”
“There is no need, friend,” Geistzer replies, holding out an open palm. “This is a contest between men of honor, and I must face it-”
“Don’t care,” Kohaku points his knife at the kappa. “Tai, maim.”
Rearing back, the Idolon splits the jaws of its skeletal face open and howls. A sound that belongs in the throat of a hellhound, not something of its kind. The stone beneath the kappa shifts and bursts into stone teeth. Agile, the yokai uses its flexible feet to leap from one to the next, ascending into the air as the increasingly unstable pillars of rock give chase. Thorns growing atop of thorns.
A pit of guilt sits in the bottom of Geistzer’s stomach, and he finds his feet frozen, stuck in a mire of his own indecision. He cannot allow this, but nor can he turn his fists upon an ally who is only trying to help. What should a hero do in this situation?
“Into the water,” walking further onto the battleground, Kohaku gives his Idolon another command. The worm slithers off the edge and into the typhoon. “Galatea!” Become the typhoon!
As wind and rain break against its body, the worm transforms, melding into the chaos to become a creature of screaming wind and flowing water. It lunges out of the wall, streaming towards the kappa still dodging desperately high above in the air. Stretching open wide, the worm swallows the yokai whole. In only moments, raindrops begin to transform into tiny metal knives within the animated blender of the Idolon’s insides, tearing into the kappa without mercy. A spray of blue blood joins the flow of water, running down the beast’s gullet or leaking from its jaws onto the battleground below.
“A hero…” Geistzer crouches low, “Saves those in danger!”
The Underworld Hero leaps straight up through the flying worm’s storm-shrouded body, feeling the sting of the steel rain tearing into him. He grasps a bloody mess in his arms and sails out the other side, until at the apex of his leap he lingers in the hangtime. A shredded kappa lay across Geistzer’s arms. Like trails of tears, the afterlight of his blazing eyes shimmers beneath him, two twin trails.
“The fuckwhat are you doing?!” two voices, equally outraged by the absurdity, cry out from below.
“You…” the kappa gasps, gargling on a throatful of blood. Then, in a flash of crimson light, the thousand cuts close as one. Ragged breathing comes in clean, and the kappa blinks away the blood in his eyes. “You… are truly mad.”
Shu Jinko grins.
As the two fall, the worm Idolon avoids them, soaring back into the typhoon. ”What now, Haku?” it calls, a roar that joins with the voice of the storm.
“Forget them… our real target is there,” shaking his head, Kohaku points at the woman in white. Her heavenly visage has begun to crack, arms twisting as new joints snap. Her flesh bursts open, a carpet of ragged white worms tearing their way out. They consume her flesh until only they and a gaunt ribcage remain. A mouth, ringed with sharp lamprey teeth, gapes open.
”Sweet child,” the unveiled demoness cranes her hand at the splayed open Idea beneath her. ”It seems that it falls to us to finish this fight. Rise! Rise and fight for your love!” Glistening white threads that had been holding the gangster shadow’s chest cavity curve inwards, knitting it shut. With a gasp, Gang Violence is tugged to its feet.
Landing gracefully, Geistzer lets the kappa down. He looks up at the masked hero. “You have saved my life, Underworld Hero Geistzer,” raising his fists, the kappa slams them against his shell, across his chest. An X. “I swear to you my loyalty, until my dying breath. Cross my heart.”
The face of Geistzer’s mask is deformed by the broad smile underneath. He takes one of the kappa’s hands and clasps it in his, pulling the smaller yokai into a bro hug. “Today you remembered honor. And that is the first step. Walk with me, and I will show you how to be a hero!”
“Geistzer!” another voice calls out. Turning, Geistzer sees Laplace cresting the spiral path. Behind her, an exhausted looking Kukurihime follows. “… I see you’ve already made a new friend,” the detective states, voice bemused. Kukurihime looks at the kappa with a disgusted expression.
“Really?”
“I apologize for my brothers,” the kappa declares as he retrieves his fallen blades. “I was like them… until this hero reminded me of virtues that the Spirit World has too long forgotten. I remember now, the brilliance of the human soul!”
“… We’ll see. I will let you prove your repentance,” Kukurihime sighs and lowers her rod, allowing a slithering mass of sodden shikigami to slump onto the underground plateau.
”Disgusting platitudes,” though her appearance has become monstrous, the white figure’s voice remains feminine and supple, like silk upon the skin. It sends shivers down the inner ear. ”Virtues are the chains with which the kami bind you! Force you to forget your heart’s desires!” Rising taller, her voice becomes a rallying cry. ”Witness the power of unbridled human sin!”
Gang Violence steps to the edge of the stone dais, a swarm of gang silhouettes already forming around him. They’re more menacing now- taller, stronger, more numerous. The tainted tar of all the misguided human souls above, trickling down every moment they remained under his thrall. One of them hefts the shape of an entire streetlamp above his head. ”You… took my precious partner away from me,” speaking for the first time with clear lucidity, the shadowy Idea looks down with very human hatred in his yellow eyes. ”Boys. We have to keep going! We have to get them back” A commanding finger directs the delinquent army, and the tide of bodies spills out.
“A Greater Yokai,” the detective’s voice at Kohaku’s side takes his furious eyes off of that idiot, Shu Jinko. “She spoke as if she knew you, and your Idolon. Parts of her, she said. What do you know about that?”
“Nothing. Stop wasting time asking questions in the middle of a fight,” Kohaku spits back. Then, he exhales an observation: “Our enemy can create barriers out of silk. Invisible until they appear. They-”
“Completely negate the momentum, I know.”
“- I was going to say they don’t stop everything. Blunt pressure from all sides can overwhelm them, and momentum affecting the kappas’ weapons still transfers to them inside the barrier. I’m guessing striking surfaces wouldn’t work if they were protected.”
Kohaku’s observations give Laplace pause. She raises a hand to her chin, watching Geitzer and the kappa spin and twirl, deflecting blows from the swarming gang shades and striking back. Each hit barely leaves a dent. Either the Idea’s natural healing molds the amorphous army back together, or slices and tears are knitted back together by more of that silken energy. Any that draw near to their conference, and to Kukurihime wobbling on her feet behind then, are swatted aside by Tai’s thunderous tail swipes. Spray like a natural disaster off of the ocean batters the crowd with each swing, knocking them into one another and off their feet.
“Hm… the one I froze was also affected, even though my transmutation was coming in from the outside, because the water was already in contact with him. A contiguous surface. I think I’m piecing together the mechanics of this,” Laplace nods her head. “Fukuzawa-san,” she says. Kohaku meets her eyes, listening intently. For all the anger pumping through him, he maintains clarity. The eye of the storm, within the eye of the storm. “Soon, I will need to replace Kukurihime keeping this tower of water from crashing in and crushing us all. It will take all that I can muster, but have already sent for reinforcements.”
“What do you need me to do?”
“Our target is not the Greater Yokai,” the detective asserts. “We need to destroy Gang Violence to stop it from spreading in the city. Use what we know, target the MacGuffin. Transmutation will be the key, and you’re the only other person here who can match me. The Yokai will fall back when her chess piece is lost. There will be nothing more to gain here.” She looks Kohaku in the eye. “Conserve your strength. Wait for the final push.”
Clenching his fists, Kohaku considers the proposal. “Alright.” He’s not going to let his bloodlust get in the way of victory. That’s not what a pack leader does.
One of the thugs, the one wielding a streetlight, swipes the massive bludgeon through Tai’s mass. The worm’s storm body reforms behind it, but Kohaku can feel the sting of a cramp running through his abdomen. Grinding his teeth, he stomps on the weapon and yanks the shadow forward into a double kick. Tai seizes it with the storm and tosses it like the trash it is, hurling it into its fellows like a bowling ball. “She’s not even bothering with the barrier for them.”
“They don’t need it,” Laplace’s analytical gaze is taking in everything. “The only vital part of this Idea is the leader.”
“Right…” Kohaku remembers, from their last fight. The core is in him, the bancho up there on his Yokai patron’s dais. “She’s saving the barrier for him.”
“And herself, I would wager,” Laplace nods. “Just in case we have some way to make a play for the queen.”
It becomes a war of attrition, and one that their side has no hopes of winning. In the thick of the melee, Geistzer parries a jab from a switchblade, only to be slammed in the stomach by a pair of bats- one of them stuck through with nails, their sharp points glistening with some unidentified liquid. A pair of shades grab him by the arms, and his new kappa friend slices their appendages off, only for the damage to mend shut behind his blade like the most superficial cuts.
Geistzer kicks off of a bulkier shade in front of him and twists out of the gangsters’ grips, soaring into the air. He angles himself into a dropkick, but passes straight through his target like thin air. A moment later, something explodes inside of the false enemy, peppering both of them with barbed spines. Only the protection of Tai’s storm prevents the spray of projectiles from reaching Kohaku and the girls.
The kappa warrior slashes another, only for a set of teeth lashed together by tense sinews to snap shut on his sword, trapping it. He tries to pull it free from the organic bear trap, but is forced to abandon the weapon and shift into a two-handed stance with his remaining sword.
Geitzer and his new ally are already slowing down. “Hey, guys,” Shu’s voice comes clear through his Idolon’s mask. “I think… those barbs were laced with something.”
“Her venom,” the kappa hisses. “A potent paralytic. It… she’s using it to treat their blades as well.”
It’s true. On the phantom switchblades and spiked bats of the delinquent horde, that same, slick layer of liquid clings to them. The only reason Tai has not yet felt its weight on is because the worm is not in an organic form. “Laplace, you need to take my… place,” Kukurihime steps up beside Kohaku. “My Enhancement can keep them in the fight.”
“Alright,” sighing, Yae’s Idolon braces herself and closes her eyes. “In this world shrouded in fiction, let my eyes see the truth. I will become the law and bring order to the chaos.” A fearsome aura surrounds her, terrifying in its subtlety. The way that space bends in an irrefutable way against her skin. Absolute gravity, like a black hole. Laplace’s eyes open, two shining beacons piercing through the night. “[J]ump [I]nto [T]his [E]ra!”
That absolute gravity washes over Kohaku’s skin. It tingles in his tongue, a sensation of utter Truth, rendering him incapable of so much as thinking a lie. When the ripple in the air passes over the enemy crowd, their energy channels are lit up like Christmas lights beneath their amorphous mass. Any false foes are scattered like dust, and the traps once hidden are outlined in shimmering white light. The gang leader on his perch, too- his heart-like core glows through his chest, the ultimate target of their fight.
Under the law of Zennami Yae, the typhoon around them stills in an instant, and the mountain shrinks. Every passing second, the reservoir looks more like its true state of being- in the human world. However…
Where the ripple meets the air around the dais, it struggles to advance. Kohaku can see Laplace’s expression twist into dire exertion, her entire body tensing up in sympathetic effort. Her mouth cracks open and she gasps, the ripple of her domain pushed back just a few inches, enough that the mark on the heart of Gang Violence flickers out.
”Your unwavering belief may overwhelm the World Between, the pitiful domains of the peons. But,” raising its head, the Leech Yokai looks on Laplace with haughty dismissal. “I carry a fragment of the Nurarihyon’s own domain. Against His Authority, your little uprising is like the thronging of ants.”
“An ant with enough venom,” Laplace growls through her teeth, “Even just one. Can kill. A grown man.”
”You are-” the leech takes a stop forward, but stops in her tracks. Her tongue, her voice, halt suddenly as if caught in a mouse trap. Kohaku can see Laplace grin grimly through the strain, and he grins too, looking up at the Greater Yokai.
He says what she can’t spare more effort to: “You were going to say hopeless, weren’t you? But here, you cannot speak a lie.”
”Be that as it may,” the Yokai regains her stately composure, ”A law declared is a law upon all, else it would not be a True Law. You may not forbid my healing without forbidding your own, nor banish my barrier without shearing a hole in that which you fight to defend.”
“She’s right. The best I can do. Is keep her Flooding Zone… from- from crushing us all,” Laplace growls. “And. This!” Her eyes flare. Steam erupts from the skin of both Geistzer and the kappa, released into the air. In no time at all they’re moving freely again, the weight of the paralytic venom banished in an instant.
“We’ll just thrash your ass the old-fashioned way. Geistzer!” Kohaku hollers. “Target the pathways of energy sustaining the delinquents! That will make them harder to reform!”
“Allow us,” from behind the group, a prim female voice cuts in. It is echoed by a cavalcade of gunfire, chunks blown out of the crowd of violent thugs. A blond-haired girl stands at the edge of the shrinking battlefield, her floating firing squad angling their shots upwards until they scream towards the enemy leader at sonic speeds. Predictably, the barrier appears, its impenetrable silk stopping each of the bullets in their tracks as if they were frozen in time.
Alyona Rodionova. Kohaku remembers her attempt to drag the volunteer kitchen into her extortion racket. Were it not for the laws of this land, he might have gutted her where she stood… instead, he simply rejected her and paid for the program’s expenses himself.
A massive porcine warrior standing beside her. Violet and red flames cascade from the swine’s body, lunging like a cluster of snakes to snap off pieces of the horde with their jaws. Seared wounds left behind by the flaming jaws struggle to mend, the mark of a keenly sharpened Idea Slayer.
Alongside the two of them, another eerily tall figure in white stands, nearly a mirror for the Greater Yokai’s false form. She raises her hand, and the pillars left behind by Tai’s earlier transmutation shatter, becoming a rain of shrapnel over the leech’s head. The shower doesn’t make it past the barrier. But it’s only the beginning, more sections of rock shattering into rain that forces the Yokai to focus on her own protection. Their own war of attrition.
Marisa, too, marches into the fight and blazes into her Idolon form in a burst of dark flames. Drawing a sword of black fire from the air, she steps in alongside Geistzer and his yokai companion, fighting back the horde. Shining halos of light encompass them as Kukurihime’s blessings swell their strength. Blades and claws of bone tear through the evasive veins of the angry mob, dissolving entire crowds of hostiles in singular strikes. No longer can their vitals hide beneath their bulk.
”Haku, behind!”
Tai’s warning comes not a moment too soon. Kohaku spins around to see three more combatants entering the fray. One of the kappa uses a staff to launch himself through the air at Laplace’s back. Kohaku steps forward and blocks the blow with his body, grabbing the foot before his foe can leap away. No barrier on impact, he smiles to himself, throwing the attacker onto the ground.
A second kappa steps in, swinging a pair of nunchaku. A shotgun blast of scattered metal rain shreds his two wooden weapons into splinters, and the miniscule barrier afforded to the kappa gives way- he flies backwards, chest embedded with two dozen blades of shrapnel. With the main barrier under constant assault, she can’t keep protecting them.
The third staggers forward on shaky limbs, mended shut but far from fully healed. He flips his sai around, glaring at Kohaku. “Brother! Why are you fighting alongside the humans?” the returning foe demands of his former ally.
“Because this one is worth fighting for!” the turncoat kappa claps Geistzer on the shoulder, moments before they grab each other and perform a double spinning bicycle kick, throwing away the enemies all around them. The dynamic duo release each other perfectly in time, somehow already in sync, and the kappa lands near the new confrontation. “This is it, brothers! How we regain our honor!”
“Honor?” the staff kappa gets up from the ground and brushes himself off. “I’m here for a wife!”
“That’s what I mean,” their leader, the eldest brother perhaps, passionately argues back. “So long we have spent living in the Nurarihyon’s world. Where the strong thrive, and the weak are food- or toys. Have you forgotten? The days of old, when we were loved? Not by force, but-”
“Because we were protectors,” the wounded kappa exhales the words like a sigh of remembrance. “The village…” However, a growling hunger remains in the sai-wielder’s eyes. He leers at Zennami’s backside, drooling from his tongue. “You…”
For a moment, she meets his gaze. Then, with a twitch of her finger, a hiss of steam erupts from his shell. The kappa is left blinking, staggering backwards. Another cloud of dispelled poison. “They were ah… affected by. Aphrodisiac,” she says, softly. “I see it now.”
And so do they. “The Demon… the food and drink she gave us,” sudden clarity strikes the sai-wielder’s eyes, alongside a righteous fury. “That deceiver!”
As he listens to their exchange, Kohaku lowers his eyes. A shadow charges at them from the side, but he pays it no mind- the next second, it is impaled by Tai’s tail and torn apart by the typhoon worm. “Until now, I thought the only way to coexist with the yokai was to subjugate them,” Kohaku’s hand goes to the guidebook under his coat. “You really used to live alongside humans? As protectors?”
“We… we did,” the one with the shredded nunchaku in his hands looks down at them, shame suddenly writ across his face, as though he’d awoken from a perverse dream. “We would play with the children.”
“Walk the market without fear,” the sai-wielder adds, the anger quivering in his voice. “Without fearing… or being feared. And now that memory, we’ve betrayed it!”
“We had… friends… human friends. We would trade fish for cucumbers,” the staff-wielder recalls. “It’s like I’m waking up from a dream.”
Raising his sword above his head, the lead kappa beseeches them, “Stand with me, brothers. It is time we reclaim what was lost!” For a moment, they waver. The weight of sin, of doubt, of years under the thumb holds them back. But one by one they step in and hold out their hands, forming a stack atop one another.
“That’s what I like to hear!” in a flash of crimson light, Geistzer lands next to the cluster and sweeps a healing ray across them, mending their fresh wounds. “Be it in this world or the Spirit World, all it takes to be a hero is the will to answer the call!”
“Hey,” Laplace’s lighthouse eyes land upon the four. “If you said it. Here. Then, it’s true.” She puts on a forced smile. “Cowabunga.”
“Cowabunga!” the four break like a sports huddle and charge back into the fray at Geistzer’s side.
The tide is turning. But this is still a war of attrition, and Kohaku can see that Zennami will not last forever. He needs some way to drag the core of Gang Violence out of the barrier and deliver the coup de grace in one fell swoop. Like a hunter, he reads his prey, and he reads the terrain.
The pig beast grabs a handful of the gangsters and tears them from the mass, tossing them into his fat gob. The others aren’t pulled along for the ride, their soft shadow-material tears too easily. In order to get leverage, Kohaku needs to somehow make it more solid. If he could freeze, them, then maybe… but moisture seems to roll right off the Idea-material, like a duck’s waterproof plumage. How to get it to stick?
Then, he feels something wet and slimy touch the side of his shoe. He looks down to see a… piece of paper. Wet and slimy, the living paper construct was thrown away from the fighting and landed on Kohaku’s foot. He leans down and grabs it, holding it in his palm. “What’s this?”
“My shikigami servants,” Kukurihime clarifies from beside him, her stance slumped and tired. “They got soiled by all the water.”
That’s it. “I need you to get them all to gather there,” Kohaku points at the trails of shadow running down from the bancho shadow’s feet, feeding the swarm of violent goons. “Cluster them tightly around the points of connection.”
Kukurihime nods slowly. “Alright.”
Beneath the trampling feet, the booming guns, and the clashing blades, several dozen soggy, tired, torn paper slugs work their way to one point of convergence. They gather together, lifting one another up the rough-hewn wall of the dais. One inch at a time, an inexorable march. Kohaku looks up at Tai, both waiting for their moment.
Clumps of paper mache gather and clamp down around the shadow’s roots, forming a tight cast. Kohaku rushes forward, knife flashing to cut a path for himself. He leaps over a bear trap, kicks off the head of an angry midget, and leaps through the air. Arms reaching out for him are struck aside by Geistzer’s bony stingers, or beaten down by kappa weapons. “Now!”
All the water coating the shikigami freezes in an instant, transmuted to a solid iceberg hanging from Gang Violence’s feet. He staggers forward, but doesn’t fall. Then, Kohaku grabs onto the cluster and kicks off of the wall. Gang Violence slips right through barrier, still visibly shimmering as the Census Club’s mage peppers it with attacks. In that split second, Tai’s tail drops like a bolt of judgement from heaven above. Four Idea Slayers slice through the Idea’s body, piercing the black heart at its core.
Everything freezes. In that moment, all of the figments of gangsters look up at their leader, frozen in the air, blades through his chest. Then, they shatter. Motes of darkness drift in the air like the spores of a mushroom.
Under the auspices of Truth, the leech cannot utter so much as a stunned ”impossible”. She stands, behind her impenetrable shield, looking out at them with an unreadably alien expression. ”You have proven a credit to your kind, defenders of man. I will learn from our encounter.” She looks directly at Kohaku, and for a moment he feels that heart-stopping grasp inside his chest again. ”Flesh of my soul. Stay true to love.”
Raising her hand, the Yokai conjures a tear in the fabric of reality behind herself, a Garganta opened as easily as breathing. She steps through, and then it shuts and she’s gone. Kohaku gasps, able to breathe again.
“I got you,” he hears behind him. When he turns, he sees Geistzer lowering Laplace to the ground. She blinks awake from her fainting spell.
“A Garganta… could she be the one who…?” the detective ponders. “It would make sense, but it… doesn’t feel-” she is silenced when Geistzer places a finger to her lips, sudden color rushing to her pale cheeks.
“Shh. Save the thinking for later.”
“What are we going to do about the kappa?” Kukurihime asks, her lower face still betraying uncertainty about them.
“Do not worry about us,” their leader answers. “We will remain here. We will guard your peoples’ water supply from further contamination.”
“I trust them,” Geistzer insists.
Kukurihime lowers her gaze. “I… want to trust them, but I don’t want to forgive them.” The lingering aura of Truth ties her tongue into knots. “Forgiveness needs to be earned.”
“It is only fair,” the staff-wielding kappa admits.
Shortly afterwards, the last of the Bleeding Zone fades, and… they are all sitting on the dark shore of an underground reservoir deep below the city, with only a flashlight to see by. “Lovely. How exactly are we to get home?” the blond-haired girl asks in a snide tone. The pig has reverted to the form of a European-looking thug, and a strange girl with a patch over one eye lurks quietly behind them.
“I researched this place before we came here,” Zennami stands uneasily with Shu’s support. “There is an access tunnel the workers used when this place was tapped into. We just need to break the lock.”
The thug cracks his knuckles. “Leave that to me.”
The Student Council Room. Most of them are seated. Nagamine, Mahima, Zennami. Shu Jinko and Madoka Onguuchi are sitting casually on the tables, the latter tapping furiously at the keys of her phone. Alyona and her racketeers stand at the rear of the room along the wall, looking uncertain, as if they’re not sure whether they’re still supposed to be here. At the center of the room, Kohaku sits awaiting his military tribunal, with Marisa beside him. Geistzer had cleared up most of the lingering wounds, but healing can only solve damage. Everyone looks exhausted.
Momofuku and the rest haven’t returned yet.
“They’re,” Onguuchi’s voice wavers, like there’s something she doesn’t want to say. “They cleared the two Bleeding Zones. When we destroyed Gang Violence, the people stopped being ‘Infected,’ but everyone is still angry. It’s not like they realize they were possessed. So they’ve been putting out fires this whole time- sometimes literally, she says.”
It’s dark outside the windows. The blinds are shut and the glaring fluorescent lighting beams down on them, giving Kohaku a faint headache. It makes his forehead feel hot, like he’s got a fever or something. He hates it. Give him an oil lantern over this shit.
Stirred from his idle thoughts by Onguuchi’s eyes lingering on him, Kohaku meets them with his resting glare. “What?”
“There was a,” she sniffs, her hand trembling a little. Shu slides off of the table and walks over to place a hand on her shoulder. Onguuchi smiles up at him and wipes her face with her hand. “Your friend Takoyaki didn’t make it.”
Ice floods into Kohaku’s veins. Burning ice, turning the skin red from underneath and threatening to blister. “What?” The rest of the room is silent with him. Marisa clutches her hands in her lap, eyes wide.
“He was shot,” the Council’s second in command explains. “Some yakuza got involved somehow, and they had guns. And…” the girl swallows. “The Fujiwara Senki helped bring him back to your- your place. For um, Momo said you have a special funeral you do.”
All is quiet for nearly a full minute. “Alright,” Kohaku’s voice remains stone cold, his poker face barely holding back his fury. Does she expect a thank you? His man died under that sukeban’s watch. As far as he’s concerned, there’s a blood debt yet to be paid. More importantly, he wants names. “Tell Fuu-ki I’ll talk with her about it later.”
Onguuchi nods her head.
“I,” Shu raises a hand to the back of his head, rubbing at his long, wavy hair. When he pulls his hand away, it falls perfectly back into place without so much as a cowlick. “I feel like an asshole for needing to bring it up, now. But we should discuss your… group and their activities.”
“The Tamagotchis,” Nagamine specifies.
“I’m also curious about what that Yokai said about you,” the smug smile Zennami had been wearing while she waited to bring this up as been wiped from her face, replaced with sobriety. It is a small comfort, but Kohaku counts his silver linings. “Under the effects of Truth, she called you her ‘child’. Can you tell me what that means?”
“No.”
Her face remains a stone wall. “No you don’t know, or no you don’t want to say?”
Kohaku rolls his eyes. “I don’t know shit about that thing, nothing more than you do.” It’s not completely true. Kohaku can see in the detective princess’ eyes that she sees it, too. But she doesn’t press.
“Alright. Nagamine-chan, you may proceed,” Zennami holds out a hand.
Flipping through some notes, the bespectacled girl addresses Kohaku formally, “Fukuzawa-senpai, your associate Uesugi-senpai admitted to distributing these Tamagotchis which allow for anyone who possesses one to open a Bleeding Zone. Additionally, there are rumors that the Idea Destroyers-”
“Ideal Destroyers,” Kohaku cuts her off flatly.
To her credit, she barely pauses. “Ideal Destroyers, I apologize. There are rumors that you are offering to ‘help people Awaken’. Is that true?”
“Sure,” Kohaku holds a palm in front of Marisa. “We helped her Awaken. She was looking for someone who went missing with no rational explanation, and needed the power to do what the adults wouldn’t and couldn’t do: investigate the Idea World.”
“My dad,” Marisa adds. There’s no surprise in Nagamine’s expression. Interesting.
Letting out a small sigh, the Treasurer- and apparently the record-keeper- continues, “The Fujiwara Senki reported one of these Tamagotchis being used by a member of the Denim Pygmies a few days ago, in an attack that would have resulted in casualties if not for the Fujiwara Senki also being Awakened. The spread of these Tamagotchis is too dangerous to continue. The Council,” she glances at Shu, “Is interested in continuing to work with the Ideal Destroyers, but distribution has to stop.”
“Nah,” kicking up his legs, Kohaku leans back in his chair. Nagamine glances up at him, and Shu fidgets awkwardly beside the Onguuchi. “Listen here. The Idea World is coming, whether they like it or not. The more people that Awaken, the more people that’ll be able to manage that shit. People need to be ready, they need to evolve and adapt to the new world.”
“We know the Idea World is spreading,” Onguuchi shakes her head. “And we know Nurarihyon is coming. That’s why we were called to protect and restore the barrier.”
“The barrier?”
“Yeah,” she nods her head, smiling. “There’s still hope. The same force that granted us the Door, they can help us restore the barrier and separate the two worlds. That way things can go back to…”
It’s just noise from there. Kohaku isn’t listening anymore, all he hears is the deafening pounding in his ears. Separate the two worlds. It keeps echoing, playing on repeat. “You can’t do that.”
“Huh?” there’s this idiot doe-faced look on her now, like she can’t even comprehend what he’s saying.
“Are you fucking stupid?”
“Kohaku-san,” Shu tries to soothe him with that gentle fucking teacher voice, like he’s talking to some stupid kid. “I know how freeing it feels to-”
“You don’t know shit,” Kohaku cuts him off. “You’re an Incarnate. You don’t understand anything, you don’t understand that your Idolon is a partner, not some tool,” standing up with enough force to throw his chair on the ground, Kohaku elevates further, his blood pumping, blood demands blood. “None of you get it. None of you! They’re here to help us become who we’re meant to be. A new, better humanity, for a new world. You’d use their power, and then throw them away like a- like-!”
Now, Onguuchi gets up from her seat on the table, standing up before Kohaku’s taller frame. “Don’t make assumptions like that,” she challenges him back.
“Madoka-” Zennami tries to speak, but she can’t get a word in.
“Kukurihime knows what needs to be done. She’s the one guiding me,” the stupid bitch places a hand over her heart like it’s some- some heartfelt moment. “I know if you asked Tai-”
Kohaku’s body is ice cold. His hand moves on its own. “Keep that name out of your mouth.”
“Fukuzawa-san, please. Tai-”
Kohaku doesn’t even feel it. He doesn’t even hear them cry out around him. Panic, fear, rage. It’s all the same as the sound that’s rushing in his ears. Hands grip his arm, fighting back agianst him. A force moves him forward, overpowering the struggle. Then, there’s something warm on his cold hands. Onguuchi gasps and stumbles back, her hands releasing his- going instead to the hole left by the knife. When the bodies around him begin to move, closing in, Kohaku’s instincts take over in his legs. He turns and bolts for the door. Someone tries to grab him. He swings with his knife, catching something. More blood.
Through the halls if Higan, with someone on his trail. Out into the cool night air. Into the street. Footsteps still trail behind him. Just one set. Recalibrating fight and flight, the raging animal twists around, steel tooth ready for the confrontation.
It happens so fast. Kaoru stares, halfway over the table, at the bloody wound in Madoka’s chest. The brightly-dressed girl falls backwards into Shu’s arms. Nearly falling over the other side of the table, Kaoru scrambles to stop the one responsible.
Marisa reaches out and grabs Kohaku’s arm when he tries to run. His knife flashes, and she cries out, grabbing her hand. A shallow cut, but enough to break her grip. The older boy gives her the slip and sprints out the door. Kaoru sprints after him, all of her intellect doused by blind purpose. He can’t get away with this.
“Shu! Get her into the door!” Kaoru can hear Yae’s voice behind her, collected as ever, taking charge in the heat of the intense moment. It gives Kaoru the peace of mind to pursue the suspect. Her feet slam into the tile floor, gunning after his trail. She has the strength of adrenaline in her legs, but so does he. It’s all she can do to keep him in sight.
He slams his shoulder into the front doors, and then he’s out into the night. Sprinting under streetlamps and past the sidewalk, into the street. No traffic out here this late. Kaoru, against her better judgement, keeps running. What would she do when she caught up? She doesn’t know.
She doesn’t know what she’s going to do when he turns around, and she sees his face. Pale like a corpse, mouth splitting so wide his flesh might tear from the strain. A wild, grimace of a grin, drool seeping beneath his teeth like a rabid dog. Those eyes- his grip around the knife Kaoru knows in that moment that he’s going to kill her. In that moment, she knows. He’s not a human. She’s cornered an animal and it’s about to lunge.
Falling back into a stance practiced with her grandfather, Kaoru prays it’ll be enough. His long strides pound the pavement as he closes the distance. With the kind of blood-curdling howl that spawns urban myths, he raises the blade and slashes it at her.
Metal clangs against metal. Beside Kaoru is a girl in a too-large white sweater, hair wild and splayed around her anguished face. “No!” Ai’s voice screams, her arms shaking as she holds back the knife between the blades of a pair of scissors. She’s got it in both hands, limbs buckling.
Kaoru kicks. She launches her foot for the older boy’s crotch region. When it’s life or death, you go for the low blow, her grandfather told her. His knee shifts and blocks her, but the impact is enough for Ai to swing his weapon away. She tries to rush at him in her blind panic, but Kaoru pulls her back. “We have to get away!”
Tires screech on the street. A large, black van swerves around the corner and stops next to them. Kaoru stares at it in abject confusion- even the two maniacs stop to look at the sudden interlopers on the scene. Three men in full, black body armor and masks pile out of the sliding side door and grab Kohaku, wrestling him inside. Ai tries to run at them, but an armored woman in the van shoots her in the leg with a dart. Ai stumbles and falls, nearly cracking her head on the sidewalk before Kaoru can catch her.
The van’s door slams shut and it speeds away. Kaoru holds a groggy, bleary-eyed Ai in her arms, kneeling in the street. As she pants, feeling the adrenaline wash out, Koaru mutters to herself, “Who the hell was that?”
Ran leans against a wall while Momo lectures another street gang inside their trashy apartment complex. His body is tired, but his mind is exhausted. Listening to the same shouting match repeat again and again, trying to talk down these idiots in their petty feuds- Ran sighs. He was that idiot, once. It’s so… “How does she not go insane?”
“Y’think she’s not insane?” Aida stands beside Ran on the street, smoking something that doesn’t smell like a cigarette. Whatever it is, it’s calmed him down. Not far from them, Okabe kicks an empty beer can around the street. Car tires squeal in the distance.
“I guess she might be,” Ran shrugs, “Trying to save everybody in this godforsaken ward from themselves.” He respects her for trying, he does. A lot of them are like him. If someone just gave them a kick in the jewels, maybe they could… shape up. Be something more. At least, he hopes they can. He hopes he can. “I think the world needs some insane people.”
“Yeah, guess I do hang out with Kohaku,” Aida laughs to himself. They fall back into silence, listening to Momofuku and her girls put the fear of the oni into the latest group of wannabes. Then, a large black vehicle swings around the corner and screeches to a halt in front off them. ”Nani?”
Pushing off from the wall, Ran feels something hit him in the chest just seconds after the sliding door of the unmarked black van opens. He looks down at a dart sticking out of his left pectoral. “Amngn,” he says. When he tries to move his leg, it’s as if the limb is asleep. It gives out underneath him, and Ran falls over like a felled tree.
Fuzzy shapes grab other fuzzy shapes. Something vrooms and squeals. Ran doesn’t know what’s happening. He blacks out under the effects of the tranquilizer.
Closing Credit Roll
The moon falls below the horizon, and the glare of the sun rises over the Kageoka skyline. A boy with tired eyes sits up in bed and glances at the alarm clock. Wisps trail through the air as the world of darkness fades.
There is a pile of photographs on the table. Rough-looking youth, with strange grainy silhouettes around or beside them, laughing, toasting cups and chopsticks as they share a meal together. The boy takes one and looks at it fondly, then shuffles them away into a drawer.
Cut to the street, where he walks with a coffee in his hand. He stands at the gates of Higan Academy, back to the viewer. He casts one last glance over his shoulder, as the ghostly outline of a serpent flickers briefly in the air. Looking into the camera, he sips his drink and steps through the doors.
Fade to black.
It’s cold in the pharmacy. A woman is standing in the corner, behind the counter, organizing the shelves. The air conditioning from the vent sends chills across her forearm. Tiny bumps form on her perfectly waxed skin. ”Mmhm, mmhmhmhm,” quietly humming to herself in the small nook where the cameras do not reach, Mimi carefully peels open one of the pill bottles, slowly, steadily, so as not to tear the seal. From a pouch inside her white uniform coat’s pocket, she deposits two small pills of the appropriate color into the mix, then shakes up the bottle to hide them among the rest. Smiling, she uses a glue dabber to draw an adhesive circle on the bottom of the seal, and folds it lovingly back into place.
As Saito Mimi replaces the bottle on the shelf, she feels a tingling rush surge up her spine. A smile spreads across her lips. “My angel. You’ve come back to me.”
The angel does not have a voice, not in the traditional sense. Secreting away the tools of her mischief in her purse, Mimi walks to her desk near the counter and sits down. The night shift is as dead as always, lending her all the time she needs to explore her new cravings. It’s a thrill, not knowing who might purchase her hidden presents, when they will draw them from the bottle, who will show up on the news. It’s a game of Russian roulette with dozens of guns floating around the city, and Mimi never needs to worry about her turn on the trigger.
Taking a pen from the jar on her desk and tearing a small scrap of notepaper from a pad, Mimi closes her eyes and relaxes her body. “Move through me, angel,” she prays. The hand begins writing on its own. A twirling, ornate scrawl, like a pit of snakes. Illegible to most people, but to Mimi’s eyes the words float effortlessly to the fore of her mind.
There is an opening for a new dorm manager at Higan Academy. You must go there and seek the position. A sinking feeling of disappointment hits Mimi, down in the bottom of her heart. “Will my game need to end?”
Warm butterflies bubble up in her stomach. Her fingers trace the pen in more words on the tiny page, I have a new game for you to play. Would you like to learn the rules?
Another new game from her special angel Mimi smiles again. What might her angel want to see from her next? “Yes, please. Please. Tell me all about your new game.”