Chapter 2:

The Tangled Chain

The hooded man looked around the room, staring at the empty masks and talismans on the ground. They littered the place, now; remnants of his experiments in heart-removal. He sighed a bit and shook his head, only doing so out of knowledge that he would have in the past. He needed to find a solution soon. It wouldn't be long before he was noticed. His manipulation of that person could only hide him for so long. Eventually someone would find him out, and would probably lead a riot against him. The man swung his arm, the blade of his weapon swinging across the room, tearing apart the masks and talismans. The less evidence the better, he figured.

He vanished into the shadows of the room, reappearing in an office. The woman he was manipulating was writing on her desk, unaware of his presence. With a swing of his arm, his chain wrapped itself around her massive neck, the blade hooking into the chain. He needed to find a way to accelerate his plans. Undoubtedly someone would figure him out soon.

-----------------------

The man looked about as he appeared in the bleak city. He felt strange, though technically even that would be inaccurate, since the fact was that he could not feel at all. Shadows moved around him in the city, their glowing yellow eyes watching him from every alleyway and every dark corner. He knew instinctively what they were: they were the heartless. Hearts which had descended into darkness, losing their identity. He also knew what he now was: a nobody. A remnant identity without a heart. And he even knew his name, which had been twisted for this new, incomplete form. He was Kornix.

He never questioned this new information as it entered his mind. After all, the more he knew, the greater his chances of finding a way to complete himself.

There was a twinge in his mind. More information. A skill he could use. He threw out his arm, and what appeared to be an ornate sickle appeared in his hand. He knew there was more to it than that, though. He snapped his wrist and the blade section disconnected, a chain following it out. His weapon was a kusari-gama, a chained scythe.

He smiled a bit. "This is an interesting place," he commented, though more to test his voice than to inform anyone or anything. Kornix looked about and called out to the darkness, a heartless of the Neoshadow caste being summoned near him. The black demon looked about. Kornix had not imposed his will over it, so it was free to do as it would. And as Kornix expected, it lashed out, trying to strike him down. Kornix swung his arm and the chain swirled in the air, acting almost as an extention of his own body. The blade of the kusari-gama swung around and sliced through the demon's neck, wiping it from existance.

The nobody thought for a while, looking at his weapon. It had more properties than simply a sharp blade. He could see that. But what were they?

Calling out more heartless be began striking at them, but to no end. Each heartless that was struck was wiped out, and the properties of the weapon remained hidden from him.

"Perhaps..." he thought aloud, "perhaps it requires something more. I am just a body, and the heartless are only corrupted hearts. If it's not acting any differently on them, perhaps it needs a body..."

-----------------------

"This cannot be ignored any longer!"

Kohaku the Water Dragon addressed the cleaning staff, assuming human form while he spoke with them. He had his suspicions that Yuubaba, the bathhouse's owner, was either turning a blind eye because of a threat, or perhaps simply had other concerns. He couldn't imagine what would be more important than the disappearing clientelle, but when he tried to confront her about it originally, she didn't seem to know anything. It seemed it would be up to him, the staff, and the few clients who had their own suspicions to get to the bottom of it.

"It's been going on for two weeks now," said Kohaku. "Our patrons are vanishing without a trace from this bathhouse. Even if they were turning invisible - which at least a few aren't capable of - there would be some sign of them leaving." He paced over to the balcony, looking down. "Word's getting out, too," he noted. "The clientelle is getting thinner. It won't be long before we have to shut down due to the lack of business..."

One of the employees piped up. "Kohaku," she said, "if there's no trace of the disappearance, then how are we supposed to find the source?"

The powerful spirit shook his head. "I'm not sure yet. Perhaps..." He thought for a moment. "Perhaps we can draw the source into the open somehow. It may be our best shot."

-----------------------

Kornix forced his way into the new world, through the darkness, looking about him. He appeared to have entered a rather large building, down in the furnace area. A slight movement caught his eye as he glanced about; a eight-armed old man was asleep at a bizzare apparatus, and his breathing was what Kornix had spotted.

The empty remnant walked over and inspected the old man, gathering as much information as he could about the subject. Obviously this was not a normal human - the human brain, he realized, would be unable to operate eight arms, since it had developed to work with only two. This person didn't appear like any being he could categorize with his sourceless knowledge. It was that very wellspring of information that would grant him the answer to his query: this person in front of him was a spirit. A nonentity, much like himself, but possessing a heart and somehow given a body. Something in this world solidified beings like that, which meant he was vulnerable here.

A voice seemed to whisper in Kornix's ear. "Perhaps that man can be of use to you," it commented. "you should see how."

Before Kornix could question the source of the voice, the eight armed man awoke, feeling Kornix's probing eyes on him. He looked over and gave a shout of surprise, lashing out at the cloaked nonentity with a few of his fists. Kornix lept back, swinging his kusari-gama and allowing instinct to take over. The chain wrapped around the man's neck, the blade hooking itself in one of the links. The man's angry swings ceased immediately, as though he had never even begun and as if he were completely unaware of Kornix's presence.

It took Kornix a while to realize what was going on, but he gave a laugh as the information entered his head. "That's it!" he shouted. "It makes sense now! If the blade and chain act as extentions of my body, then anything bound by them..."

He sent a mental command and the eight-armed man followed it, starting to work on his apparatus a bit. So that was his untapped skill, Kornix realized. When his weapon was around someone's neck, he could command them to act as he wished.

He grinned, imitating the appearance of a twisted genius - which wasn't far off the mark. If he could control people's actions like this...

-----------------------

"Three more in one day..."

Kohaku shook his head in frustration. It seemed that the whatever was causing the dissappearances was getting more common. Perhaps despirate...

The water dragon turned, finding a staff member - a tanuki who had just recently been employed - waiting behind him. The dog-spirit bowed as Kohaku took notice of him. "E...excuse me, sir," the dog stuttered. "There's been another dissapearance report, and..."

Seeing Kohaku's obvious frustration with this news, the tanuki continued, skipping to the information that would actually be helpful.

"The client that vanished was a yuki-onna. She was in the cold water baths, when another client saw her stand up suddenly and walk out of the room. The client tried to follow her, but she seemed to vanish down a hall. The other client said that he thought he saw something around her neck when she was walking. He said it looked like a chain."

Kohaku's expression changed from one of frustration to one of curiosity. "What was that?" he asked.

The tanuki repeated his explanation. "The client said that the yuki-onna had a chain around her neck that hadn't been there before," he repeated. "And that it remained there until she vanished."

Kohaku's eyes widened with understanding, and he ran past the tanuki, heading for Yuubaba's office. He threw the door open as he arrived. It was only for a moment, but he saw what he needed to see. As he entered, he cought a glimpse of metal retreating from the witch's neck. Once it was gone, Yuubaba turned around to see what the commotion was. "Kohaku?" she asked, perplexed. "What's going on? Why are you breaking into my office like that? Can't you at least KNOCK, you rude serpent?"

Kohaku didn't bother answering. He turned and headed downstairs to talk to the staff. He knew what he had to do, now.

-----------------------

Weeks had passed, now, since Kornix had found his way to this world and begun his experiments, but to no result. It seemed that he could not undo whatever this world did to give these roaming hearts form. He grumbled to himself as he swung the blade of his kusari-gama, wiping out the latest victims of his research and heading upstairs. He needed to make sure that the woman who ran the bath house didn't reveal the secret passages he's been using to abduct his victims through.

Kornix swung his arm as he entered the office, the blade finding its position around the huge woman's neck. Something was wrong, however.

"What is this?" Kornix asked to no one. No matter what command he sent to the woman, she would not respond. Could she have been dead? No, that was unlikely. Everything he'd seen suggested that these spirits could last an eternity short of being destroyed by an outside source. There was something else...

It was too late when he worked it out. Kornix spun and found a group of spirits behind him, including the woman he was meant to be controlling. imitating panic, Kornix looked back to his blade, and his eyes went wide.

Sitting where the woman had been was a small, raccoon-like dog spirit, holding a leaf. That's why the commands wouldn't go into place. His victim was not the person he thought it was.

"Well," said Yuubaba, lifting her hands. "It would seem that you found a way to control me without my name."

"However," continued Kohaku, "this cannot be allowed to continue."

The blue-haired boy assumed his true form - a large serpentine dragon, which snaked around the black-cloaked nonentity, blocking all escape routes. He opened his mouth and inhaled, and Kornix knew it was too late.

Each of the employees in the room including the old witch and blue dragon began drawing an unknown energy from the black-cloaked man. He could feel himself weakening by the second, and watched as his body seemed to fade beneath him. He tried to swing his kusari-gama, only to find that it was fading as well, the blade already gone from existance. Was this what he'd been striving to do? How could these people wipe him from existance when he couldn't even begin to unravel the laws of this world?

How...

Why...

At last, the final thread that kept Kornix's body together was pulled away, and his body was gone. A slip of paper fell to the ground where he had stood, and Yuubaba walked over, picking it up.

"Peculiar," she commented. "I've never heard of someone stealing their own name."

She dropped the slip of paper to the ground and went to her desk, checking over the documents she'd been manipulated to miss. Kohaku resumed his human form and picked up the paper, reading it curiously.

There was only one word on it. Undoubtedly the man's name.

Ronik Keilen