Sorry for some delay (still took less than a year like the chapter 2), but this time you can expect actual dialogue. I am also sorry to say it ends with a cliffhanger, since I din't want to post a 10k+ words chapter. Thanks to Solarius Scorch for beta'ing. R&R please. Enjoy.
The never-ending night hung over the nameless city as quietly and motionlessly as ever. The air was perfectly still, undisturbed by a slightest wind or sound. Whatever differences could be found between house blocks, six storeys or ten, brick or plaster, statue or no statue, they ultimately didn't amount to anything. Shape after a dark shape, rows of abandoned, lifeless, odourless buildings. Even the soft sound of the girl's footsteps seemed inappropriately loud in the absolute silence.
The prolonged loneliness started to really weigh on Kagami's shoulders. Perhaps normally she would be able to ignore it for the most part, but not in this strange city, not with those strange happenings and memories. She didn't remember how she got here. Nothing seemed natural. No point of reference existed here, no notion of what was the wrong or the right thing to do, no purpose to be found other than to fight for survival. Which seemed a hopeless case anyway, due to the obvious lack of any food sources. The constant hunger was making it really hard to be optimistic.
Giving up wasn't something that Kagami did easily, so she kept scouting around the fountain square day after day, never really finding anything besides the empty streets. That didn't make her any less afraid. Not of dying or getting hurt, but of sliding into madness. Who knew, she could have crossed that line long ago. Mortal wounds that healed without a trace, her hair that was alive, memories of horrible suffering, a city which really shouldn't be possible. Maybe this whole place only existed in her imagination, while she was lying in a hospital, beyond help, with no chance of recovering. She would remain in this imagined labyrinth alone for the rest of her days.
She usually shrugged off such extreme thoughts as counter-productive, but they kept returning, especially when she laid down to sleep. During the "day" she kept walking and exploring, keeping the worst out of her mind, but that didn't mean she felt good. She started to really long for that insane rollergirl to return. After all, she was the only sentient creature Kagami had seen in days. Perhaps the next time it would be possible to made that psycho to talk. While this seemed like a slim chance, the empty city promised no chance at all.
This "day" – a rather empty concept in a city of perpetual night – turned out to be a little different. She was almost ready to return to the square to quench her thirst and fall one more step closer to despair, when she saw the tower. It wasn't much, just a pencil-width silhouette in the distance, but that was enough of a point of reference to spark some hope, like the fountain square before. At the very least, the tower promised enough elevation to get some bigger picture of the surroundings. That was at least some sort of plan and Kagami clang to that idea with all her strength, as it kept her from losing sanity.
Hours passed as she was marching under the huge moon, an athletic girl with two long, lavender ponytails, dressed in a torn high school uniform. She was really used to walking barefoot by now. Once or twice she cut her foot against some sharp stone, but the wounds weren't very painful – and, of course, disappeared in minutes. If they had been real at all.
She tried to recall as much memories as possible, but it wasn't easy. Details of her previous life were slipping between her fingers. Some childhood and high school memories… and not much more, except for that horrible moment: the pain and the smell of burned flesh. Her flesh. But did the last memory even belong to that previous world? It didn't really fit. She recalled once more the faces of people who were close to her. Tsukasa, her other sisters, the parents, Konata… few others. It made it all even more difficult. How she could find them? Was it even possible? Or was she lost in this strange world for good? The longing was hard to bear.
As anything finite, her long march towards the distant tower finally reached its end. It might have lasted eight or twelve hours, but it wasn't important anymore. For some time Kagami could see some kind of clearing located deep in the maze of buildings. Now, as she made it to the last row of buildings, she found herself facing a vast valley cut into the cityscape by a dark, greenish river. The tower itself turned to be just one of several, even if largest by far. They all protruded from a huge, complex structure of dark-gray stone that looked a bit like a cross between a Tibetan monastery and a European colonial castle. The building sat on an island in the middle of the river. Or was the island. In some places, the lowest storeys seemed to came right out of the water.
A pair of tall, stone bridges were spanning between the island and both river shores. They were linked by a triangle-shaped courtyard, or a terrace, elevated at least twenty metres above the river. Two sides of the terrace were open, the third was closed by one of the shorter sides of the rectangular building. A flight of wide stairs with a pair of statues gave hints of it being the main entry. A second large terrace overlooked the courtyard, another twenty metres above.
Kagami stopped for a moment. Next to her, a staircase went down to the shore. The river tempted with an opportunity to finally take a bath. The pony-tailed girl was perfectly aware how dirty and stinking she had become. On one hand, if somebody was inside, she couldn't bear to meet them looking like that. On the other hand, somebody could be inside, and that would make a naked dip in the river out of question. She could of course take a detour and bathe in a safe distance… Which still didn't rule out a possibility that the rollergirl or someone like her could notice that and prepare an ambush.
Kagami groaned and headed downstairs, into the deep shadow of the bridge. It's completely dark here. I should be safe.
She decided to leave her red g-strings and bra on. She slowly lowered herself from the reinforced shore, looking around cautiously. The water was cool, but not cold. Despite the overall dire situation, Kagami felt relieved as it washed around her body. She didn't want to lose too much time though. Keeping herself afloat and upright using her legs alone, she quickly ran her hands over her skin, then submerged completely and washed her hair as thoroughly as possible. Finally she removed her bra and cleaned her breasts as well, but only just prior to climbing back ashore. Looking around all the time, she hastily put the fuku on. Only then she took off her panties and squeezed the water out of both parts of her underwear. The bra obviously needed to dry, but her g-strings were much smaller, as well as more critical, so she decided to put them back on immediately. The bra ended up tied to a metal pole.
It was only after all that hassle when she sighed with relief. Deciding against wasting any more time, she started to climb the stairs.
It took almost five minutes to cross the bridge. Kagami was wary of any movement, but nothing happened. The island palace seemed as empty as the rest of the city. Close up, the building didn't seem as huge as before, but it was certainly majestic. The triangle courtyard was surrounded from two sides by waist-high stone railings with a goat-like head topping them every ten metres. The third side was occupied by the face of the building, at least a hundred metres wide. It was composed of storeys stacked one upon another, each of them a little smaller than the previous one. The windows were scarce and narrow, but each was taller than Kagami. Apart from the impressive thickness of the walls, they revealed only darkness. Higher up, terraces and balconies took increasingly more space, up to the seventh floor, where steep, metal roofs covered the rest of the structure. Six square-based towers breached the roof, the big one in the centre, four smaller in each corner of the main body of the building and the last one in the back. The main tower was at least three times as tall as the others and had proportions of a modest skyscraper, despite sharing the historical look of the rest of the structure.
Kagami had discovered in the previous days that she could jump a few metres up quite easily, but the lowest windows of the palace seemed still too high. Her only choice was the main entrance, which she promptly approached.
Several dozens of stairs were stacked in a pyramid-like fashion with a spacey, flat area at the top. The double door itself was built into a niche. The door was black, made of metal and large enough for a moderately-sized car to drive through them.
The door was framed by a pair of larger-than-life statues. They resembled the bald, nude caryatides found throughout the city, but were both much less formal in pose and more extreme in shape. They looked incredibly muscular, but not in the overmuscled way like female bodybuilders Kagami had seen a few times on TV. Their bodies were structured in a slightly inhuman way, much heavier and stockier, allowing to carry the extra muscle without making the overall body shape grotesque. With their long, powerful legs and arms, they looked fast and agile instead. Their faces weren't exactly human either, with massive jawbones, which looked much more insectoid than masculine and made the faces surprisingly attractive. Their eyes lacked eyelids and their foreheads were topped with a pair of horns. Not small, crooked horns like Kagami had but thin, vertical spikes.
The figure on the left was closing one of her clawed hands on an exquisitely crafted scythe, as tall as herself. Her other hand rested on her hips. Her impressive breasts were supported by some sort of bra or low corset that looked like weaved from metal. Aside thick bracelets on her biceps and ankles, it was the only article of clothing she was wearing. As the statue kept her feet away from each other, Kagami noticed that the sculptor didn't omit the finer details of the model's anatomy.
The figure on the right kept her feet together but she was even less dressed, a necklace of three small skulls being more or less everything she was wearing. Her hands were put together, pointing downwards, like on Hindu holy paintings.
The features of the strange pair were clearly different, but their shapes and most of all the look of slight contempt and amusement on their faces made them look much alike. Perhaps most disturbingly, they seemed to look exactly at the spot where Kagami was standing. She spent several minutes watching every feature and detail of the shameless statues, until she finally managed to break the spell. Still, after climbing upstairs, she couldn't keep herself from appraising their stone buttocks. She felt a tingle of envy mixed with contempt, perhaps also a bit of shame stemming from the fact that she really liked what she saw.
The door turned out to be locked. Initially Kagami experienced a spike of irritation, but then she felt her heart jump. It's locked from the inside… That means somebody locked it! Maybe they're still here! It's good I took that bath after all.
She grabbed a large, oval door-knocker and jammed it into the surface a few times. A deep, resonating sound tore the silence like ringing of a huge brass bell. For the next thirty seconds nothing happened. Kagami was ready to knock again, when suddenly a small flap opened in the door at her breast level.
She heard a high-pitched, yet rather harsh voice, something between a teenager's and a long-time alcohol addict's. Most definitely a male voice, too. It spoke in some strange, menacingly-sounding language that immediately reminded Kagami of the way Orcs had spoken in Steven Jackson's Lord of the Rings.
Only after a few seconds Kagami realized that she understood the alien words, however impossible it was. Amazingly, she started to discover knowledge she'd never thought she had. Apparently she knew that language. Speaking it was a different matter though. She still struggled to put together an answer, when the guy from the other side of the door spoke again, even more harshly.
"Who are you? What do you want?"
"Me… Hiiragi Kagami… Who… are you?"
"I guard the gate."
"What is this… place?"
"The Temple."
"What temple… what kind of temple?"
"Just Temple. We allow people to live here, if they behave. For a fee. Other than that, ask a priestess."
"People live here-yes?"
"Yes they do," answered the voice without a hint of sarcasm.
"Would you let me in, then?"
"Your fee has already been paid, so I guess I would."
Kagami heard several loud metallic sounds and the door opened, revealing a short person dressed in a black, hooded robe. He wasn't any taller than Konata, perhaps even shorter, but was so impossibly stocky that he must have been at least three times heavier. Kagami almost stumbled backwards in fear when she noticed that his skin was not of a human, more like of an elephant – dark gray, almost black and atrociously wrinkled. His features visible from underneath the hood were rough and brutal, his face square and ape-like, with prominent brows, flat nose and most disturbingly, red predatory eyes that seemed to glow in the dark.
"You may proceed," spoke the strange creature. "Just don't destroy or spoil anything, especially the sculptures." He kept looking at motionless Kagami, blinking periodically. After more than a minute he finally added, "I have to close the gate."
Kagami composed herself somewhat and walked into the corridor, trying to keep as much distance as possible. Then, as the creature seemed not aggressive, she cleared her throat and said, "Erm… Who did pay for my… stay here?"
The short creature locked the door, plunging the corridor in an almost complete darkness. His eyes turned out to be glowing indeed. Not before checking the locks he turned to Kagami and answered her question.
"Your familiar."
"My what?"
"Your familiar."
"Where I can find this… familiar of mine?"
"Ask a priestess."
"And where is this priestess?" Kagami's fear started to give way to annoyance.
"Somewhere inside."
"Where inside?"
"I don't know."
"Such honesty! Just great!" exclaimed Kagami, her anger quickly overwhelming her unfamiliarity with the language. "How does she look like then?"
"She's a Fiend."
"What?"
"She's a Fiend."
"In what way is it supposed to be helpful?"
"You'll find no other Fiends here."
Kagami had no stomach for this conversation anymore. "Ah, that's really relieving," she said and left.
She noticed a faint light coming from somewhere far down the corridor. There were multiple doors and side exits along the way, but being unsure where exactly she should go, Kagami ignored them and proceeded towards that light instead. The hallway was spacious, though she didn't notice any draft, which was unusual for such structures. The stone beneath her feet was dry and smooth.
After a while she noticed that the light was coming from a half-open door that ended the corridor. She also heard voices, this time in an unfamiliar language. Not much of a conversation either, just a couple of words spoken by two or three men. Kagami cautiously looked inside.
There was a large room which turned out to be the bottom of a stone staircase. It was lit by a small sphere set on a table in the middle of it. Four people dressed in a really weird and varied assortment of clothes were sitting by the table. They seemed to be playing some kind of game. The main table, as well as several smaller pieces of furniture that stood around it, were literally covered with lots of various props – dice, domino pieces, figurines and cards, to name but a few. Whatever this game was, it surely required lot of thinking, since the players looked very concentrated. There was also a tall, ingenious device with rows and rows of small stone discs that were rotated to display numbers from zero to nine, a scoreboard perhaps. As Kagami looked, a middle-aged man with a beard, dressed in a gray fur and a Santa Claus cap, said some words, placed a card on the table, rolled some dice, turned a few domino pieces and moved a cat figurine. One of the other players, a bald teenager wearing rags and cloth straps in every colour of the rainbow, nodded his head a few times, then everything went motionless again.
Kagami straightened herself, cleared her throat and entered the room, trying to look as businesslike as possible in her state of mind and dress.
"Good day! How's the game going? May I ask you some questions?" she tried in the dark tongue (as she started to call that language), raising her hand. She was ready for any reaction but the lack of it. And that's exactly what happened. Another player took his turn, not even looking at her.
Maybe they don't understand, thought Kagami and decided to fall back on Japanese.
"Excuse me, dear sirs, I only need some directions…"
Nobody seemed to hear her.
"Erm… Good Muloningu… Mai yu her-p mi?"
Still no effect.
"Zdrasatvuytye?"
"Izvenitye", answered the bearded guy without looking up. Kagami almost jumped from joy before remembering that her knowledge of Russian has been already spent. She put her fists on her hips and tried to push the advantage with further inquiry in the dark tongue.
"Priestess… Fiendish priestess? Familiar? Anyone?"
Her words hit the wall of silence yet again. The only observable reaction was that the next player waited till she finished before declaring his next move.
Those people are mind-bogglingly rude! I guess it cannot be helped. I have to find that supposedly fiendish priestess by myself. Honestly, fiendish or not, surely beats that rudeness hands down. Besides, I'm not somebody to be victimized easily!
Unwilling to go back into the dark corridor, she headed to the stairs that climbed around the square central space. They seemed to go straight to the topmost floor of the palace, not counting the towers and potential attic.
When she had climbed to the third floor, a sound of metal hitting wood reached her ears. She headed into a hallway. It was dark of course, but a faint glow in the distance gave hint that the corridor ended with some sort of window or balcony. As she was walking towards it, the sounds were getting louder. She had time to get a look at the hallway itself. The only decorations she saw were puzzling curtains that covered some of the side exits, obviously made of rings of some black metal. Whoever had hanged them here, must've been either superhumanly strong or equipped with a crane.
When Kagami finally reached the far end of the corridor, she found out that it didn't end with a mere balcony. Instead she found herself on the top level of a Roman-like arena under open sky, round, descending below ground level and completely surrounded by buildings, including the rearmost tower. A half-naked man in a horned helmet could be seen in the arena proper, attacking some wooden dummies with his sword. Tall, muscular and blonde-haired, he looked a bit dangerous. Kagami felt an impulse to avoid him, but dismissed the thought as immature.
"Excuse me, sir!" she said aloud in the dark tongue, walking downstairs. "Perhaps you could give me some directions?"
The man froze and turned to her. His wide chest was heaving and he had eyes of a madman. Kagami stopped but didn't buckle under that gaze. After all, they were separated by at least twenty metres of space and the three-metre tall vertical wall of the arena. "I am looking for a priestess," she said in the way of explanation.
The man started to shout something and gesture at her, like he wanted her to come down to him. Like hell I will, thought Kagami. She also realized that the man was shouting in what seemed to be English. Her knowledge of that language wasn't exactly broad, but she managed to piece together the meaning of his words. He wants me to fight him? Do I look like a freaking gladiator?
"Mi – no fighta," she said, waving her hands and smiling apologetically. "Ai rook for… ehm…"
The man interrupted her, this time launching into a prolonged tirade, gesturing vividly with his hands.
What the hell is he rambling about? He… wants to teach me how to fight to fight him? This is getting more ridiculous every minute. At this moment, she noticed a light coming out of one of the eight exits up on the rim of the arena.
"Good bai," she said, turned on her heel and headed towards that exit. The man was getting more and more agitated, but he didn't seem to follow her. Soon, she entered the corridor. The light was coming from around the corner, so she promptly followed it and nearly bumped into a short, weird creature. They both appraised each other with a measure of shock, especially on Kagami's part, granted.
The creature carried a glowing orb in one hand and several long, black metal bars in the other. They must have been damn heavy, yet he was holding them almost casually. He must've been the same type of creature that Kagami saw guarding the gate, but this one was completely naked, showing an overwhelming amount of gray, wrinkled, hairless and extremely tough-looking skin. His built was so impossibly blocky that his perfectly humanlike genitals were almost hidden from the view. Almost.
Kagami turned red, trying not to stare and almost succeeding at that.
"How could you show yourself like that!" she exclaimed, finally able to look away.
The strange exhibitionist blinked and said slowly, "Like what?"
"Like… that!" Kagami clenched her fists.
"I have work to do," answered the creature and walked Kagami around, apparently unfazed in the slightest.
"Ehm… wait!" she managed, wrestling her embarrassment down. "Where could I find a priestess?"
"One of them was walking by the furniture stockpile, down the hall," answered the creature without looking back. Kagami gawked at him for a longer moment, then rapidly turned on her heel and walked away. Her heart was pounding. How could he? That's plain gross! What kind of wicked customs this place has? Certainly, I won't be made into fighting anybody or running around in the nude!
Kagami spent another ten minutes walking through various, similarly looking corridors. She noticed these were much better decorated, with walls covered in various engravings and murals, depicting scenes that were more or less gross. She was so preoccupied with examining a statue of generously-built, naked man with goat's head she found besides a corner that she almost missed the priestess.
Kagami heard a soft but very heavy footstep and lifted her eyes to notice the tallest woman she had ever seen, easily three of four heads taller than herself. The huge woman was wearing a long, flowing black robe. Kagami immediately recognized her features as belonging to one of the statues that stood by the gate of the building, with bald head, black spikes-horns and a jaw that could probably bite human head in half. Still, the statue hadn't revealed that the model's skin was in the colour of fresh blood nor that she had two golden, glowing orbs for eyes. The girl stumbled backwards and pressed her back into the wall, seized by some primal awe.
Somehow the monstrous woman didn't notice Kagami, or just didn't care, since she walked right pass the former Ryōō student. It took Kagami several seconds to break out of stupor. Yet, at the exact moment she was ready to launch into a chase, a hand covered her mouth.
"Are you crazy?" she heard a nervous, male whisper in broken dark tongue. "Do you want to die?"
Kagami's first reaction was fear, but it quickly turned to anger. She brushed off the hand with ease and turned to see a young, tall Asian man in a tattered sports jacket, black t-shirt and casual trousers. He looked angry, but the moment he saw her face, a strange and immediate transformation had befallen him. His eyes went wide with fear and he almost butt-headed her as he started to bow really vigorously and really low.
"I am very sorry, Mistress! I had no idea who you are! I would never want to disrespect you! Please, judge me harshly but justly!"
"Now what the hell are you talking about? Maybe you were a little harsh, but you didn't disrespect me… Don't make a fool of yourself… Will you?" she sighed, resting her hand on her hip. Man, that's embarrassing. "It's really all right."
The man looked up cautiously, then straightened himself.
"I am sorry. I just wanted to help… I mistook you for a human."
"What? Mistook me for… a human? Well I am a human, for your knowledge!"
"I'd love to talk about it but see… maybe not here, okay? Follow me please."
Kagami sighed. She was still angry, but this guy was way more normal than anybody she had met earlier. And even kinda cute, for a weirdo, that is.
"Let's go then."
