Chapter 35: Descent Into Naraku
A couple of days after the mass transformations, all samurai were called to a meeting in Aquila Plaza. There had been an ice storm the night before, leaving the paving stones slick and the surrounding structures dripping with icicles. As their group save one had shared breakfast in the dorms again, they met up with Jonathan to watch. And he had something strange to say. "Do you think this might be about descending into Naraku?"
"That would make sense," Issachar said, knowing it would be since he and Flynn had talked with Hope about it. "The masters have been discussing with the castle and the monastery about doing so."
"Hmm." Jonathan crossed his arms over his chest. "Our Code said says that we mustn't do so. But perhaps it is time."
"What makes you say so?" Isabeau asked, curious.
"Well I had an odd dream last night," he said. "A voice told me that the underground is a dangerous land, but if we wished to find the truth, and find justice through that truth, we would have to go into the underground."
"Really?" Walter asked, shocked at that. "It's odd, but I heard the same kind of thing in my dream last night. But it was more like 'to have the truth illuminated, you must come to the underground.'"
"Huh, then it should mean something," Jonathan said. "It had me worried since it is against the Code, but maybe it is time."
"I had a similar dream," Flynn then said. "And I heard both things."
"So if we're to find the truth of matters, the dreams say we should break the Code," Issachar said. "I am curious to know what's going on, and it would make sense to go down there since both of the demons ran off there."
"We shouldn't break the Code," Naverre said. "But then again, if we're not willing to go further in Naraku, we can't bring those two to justice. It's quite a conundrum; I've been thinking about it."
Isabeau smiled at them. "You both sound more curious to see what's going on down there."
"Well who wouldn't be?" Issachar said, smiling at it.
Naverre grinned. "Sure, it's one of those grand adventures that inspired my desire to be a samurai, so I am looking forward to it even if it may be a challenge."
"Yeah," Walter said, equally eager. "We'd be going deeper into Naraku than any since perhaps Aquila himself."
"It is a serious business," Isabeau reminded them. "Though I must admit to being curious about what is in the depths of Naraku as well."
"It would be interesting," Flynn said.
Then Hope called for their attention. "We have been in discussion with the king, the castle cabinet, and the monastery about what to do with the two demons that were the cause of the transformations earlier this week. Both demons were seen to flee into Naraku, but our surveys of the dungeon have only come up with a dead bird that is likely the black demon. Still, we cannot actually count her as dead yet.
"Based on that, it seems that both have gone deeper into Naraku, perhaps even as far as the country of the Unclean Ones. We have long been told not to go deep into Naraku as God's chosen people. But the demons may have caused us great harm if their acts had not been negated so quickly. We would like to ensure that our country is safe and this won't happen again. As a result, we have decided to issue a mission to explore deeper in Naraku, to the country of the Unclean Ones, in search of the two demons who tried to harm us.
"This will be a dangerous mission, as it is well known that the demons tend to get more dangerous the deeper one goes. Along with that, the magic of the Unclean Ones is said to be extraordinary, beyond what we know. It is your choice whether you accept it or not; the mission will be put in K's Tavern as usual, with a limited acceptance to make sure we don't leave our defense here thin. If you decide to take it, the monastery has given us what information they have on what lies ahead of you, including an old map of what the Underground country used to look like. All those who decide against the mission should be aware that we will remain on heightened alert as we believe anyone going past the fifth level of Naraku will lead to a change in the dungeon.
"To those who decide to take this mission, our prayers will be with you as we don't know what you will face. To those who remain, we're relying on you to help keep Mikado safe. May God's blessing be with us all. You're now dismissed to make your decision."
As others began to chatter around them, Flynn turned to the rest of them. "Since we've already decided that we'd like to take this mission, do any of you have something to get done before we leave? We don't know how long this will take us out of Mikado."
"I should speak with Marie," Jonathan said. "We should be able to send messages back with our gauntlets; I'll ask my father if he minds being a relay for us."
"That's a good idea," Flynn said.
"If we have some time, I'd like to go inform my family that we'll be gone," Naverre said.
"Walter and I had some things scheduled, so we need to speak with the monastery and the city church," Isabeau said. "My parents as well."
"And the city official," Walter said. "I'll go speak with him and the church's priest; you go on ahead to the monastery."
"Okay, thank you," she said with a smile.
"I should go tell Hope we mean to go," Flynn said. "But that won't take long; we can meet up at K's Tavern when you all are done with your business."
"I don't have any business to take care of, so I'll stick with you," Issachar said. "Is there anything you guys want us to pick up at the stores here?"
"Oh yes, everyone should make sure they have a good stock of medicines, especially detox solutions," Isabeau said.
After getting a list of what the others felt like they'd need for supplies, Issachar went to the apothecary while Flynn went to speak with Hope. A lot of people had seen fit to stock up on such things after the existence of demons got exposed to everyone in the capitol. As a result, the apothecary was low on supplies. But on hearing they meant to go after the two demons, she agreed to sell them a portion of her stock that was being kept off the shelves in case of emergencies. She also said it was possible to transfer stored items between gauntlets, so their contact staying in Mikado could buy supplies for them if needed.
He met up with Flynn at the entrance of K's Tavern. There were more samurai in the tavern than usual for this time of morning, all discussing the mission to go against the Code. Since they had made their decision, they went right up to the blackboard so Flynn could accept the mission for all of them. "K, we need the extra information for the Naraku mission."
"Sure, is it going to be your whole group?" K asked, getting an odd box from under the counter.
"Yes," Flynn said.
"Got it," K said, opening up the box and using a keyboard inside. "We got this all from the monastery, but the abbot's been in a sour mood apparently. Folks are challenging him and so he didn't want to be out giving the mission to us even though he was a strong supporter of it."
"Seems lazy then to skip out on the meeting," Issachar said.
K shrugged at that. "It was probably better without him. Anyhow, like the commander said, this has a map of the country of the Unclean Ones. They used to call it Tokyo; no idea of if it's still called that. Or if you'll find anybody down there, since it's been nearly fifteen centuries since anybody's seen what's below the fifth level of Naraku."
Issachar nearly brought up the time differences, but then remembered that it had been Flynn who'd told him that. No one else in Mikado could know about that. "Right, that's a long time to be stuck underground," he said instead.
"Master, the mission log has been updated with information on four new quests," Burroughs said.
"Four quests?" Issachar asked.
K nodded. "Right. If you take a look at the map you got, you'll see that Tokyo is a huge place. The entire land of Mikado lies above it, after all. It's a lot of territory to be searching for two specific demons, so we decided to add a couple extra quests in order to give you some directions. So you have the two quests to defeat or capture the two demons, the Gabriel impostor and the black crow demon Lilith. You also have two quests to help you explore Tokyo. One is to find a specific place: the Counter Demon Force base."
"Are they like samurai in fighting demons?" he asked.
"Yes, they're actually a predecessor of the samurai," K said. "The Counter-Demon Force gets mentioned in the earliest records, like the first Guisse volume and Aquilla's writings. If there are any remnants of this force, they could be valuable allies to you. You've been given a copy of some of Aquilla's writings that mention where the base should be located. Hopefully they'll make more sense when you're there."
"Hopefully," Flynn said, although he'd surely know where the place was. "And the fourth mission?"
"It's to find locations with mystic relics known as terminals," K explained, making his mechanical hand click its fingers. "If you go next door, there's an ancient building that holds a terminal that is recorded as inactive. Aquilla writes that if a samurai registers their gauntlet with another terminal, the one here will activate and allow instant transport between terminals. It's some kind of sorcery, but it'll be useful. The quest itself is to find as many terminals as you can, since Aquilla suggests that there are a number of terminals in Tokyo. If you find a bunch of them, that should help you get around fast."
"Yeah, that sounds like really advanced sorcery," Issachar said. While Flynn surely knew it, he added, "Can we get into the terminal room next door to see what it's like?"
K nodded. "Sure, nobody uses it for anything."
"We can wait until the others get here," Flynn said.
It took a while as the others got their business taken care of. Those in the tavern were exchanging tales they'd heard of samurai who had gone down to the fifth level. While it was well known that the legendary demon down there was called Minotaur, the stories seemed to vary wildly in what Minotaur was like. He had the sickly hues and sunken face of an Undead, but others insisted that he couldn't be undead. He breathed fire from his nostrils, or poison, or poisonous flames, or icy cold steam. But no matter what these stories claimed, they all agreed that Minotaur utterly crushed those who did not heed his warning to retreat and keep to the Code. It might be that K had lost his hand to Minotaur, but the barkeeper only smiled at that and wouldn't confirm it.
Once the others got back, Flynn took them out to the inactive terminal to explain the extra missions. Isabeau asked one of the obvious questions. "What is this terminal doing here, especially if it's the sorcery of the Unclean Ones? I thought it was all banished."
"We have lamps and the gauntlets," Issachar said. "So not all the mechanical sorcery was banished from Mikado."
"Mikado's laws were made under God's guidance, so He must have seen them as fine," Walter said. "And it's useful without being harmful, so I don't see why they'd want to get rid of these things."
"Then what about the Counter Demon Force base?" Jonathan asked.
"We have what Aquilla wrote, which also mentions Minotaur," Flynn said, using his gauntlet. "Burroughs, would you read that aloud?"
"Yes, of course," she said, then started reading.
'The angels will retreat from the world now that they've ensured that Mikado's surface is free of demons. The demons remain below the Firmament, much stronger demons than have been up here. The angels are adamant that we of Mikado should not meet back up with those they now call the Unclean Ones. In an optimal situation, my generation won't need to. But if demons become a major problem again, it may be needed to go down to Tokyo.
'That could be a long time from now and as the city is very dangerous, we need to ensure that anyone who dares go down there is capable of surviving in that environment. To that end, I will be assigning one of my most loyal demons to guard the gate that shuts off Mikado from Tokyo. Minotaur is a strong selfless fighter who isn't defeated easily. Anyone who is capable of subduing him is capable of fighting most of the demons in Tokyo. And just to be sure, I am allowing him to seal off parts of the cavern so that no more than two humans can battle him at a time. Teamwork is good to have, but overwhelming one demon with numbers won't cut it in Tokyo. Down there, the demons can more easily overwhelm us with numbers.
'While there is much more I would like to pass on to those who find the need to go down to Tokyo, I'll have to write it down at another time. I'm finding myself disrupted from putting this down more than I like with the day to day business that needs to be taken care of with a new nation. But those of you who do go should be able to find some help at the Counter Demon Force base. At the exit of the Naraku passage, it isn't far to a place called Ueno. Cross the river and head south until you find a metal gate with the insignia I'll copy here. The entrance to the base is across the street from that gate.
'And good luck to you who goes there. Underground Tokyo is a place removed from the blessings of God. Those living there will be different than what you know. Please, be considerate of them.'
"Those sound like simple instructions as long as we know what that insignia looks like," Jonathan said.
"That was copied along with this journal entry, so it is available as a reference," Burroughs said.
"Do we have any other writings from him, since he said he had other things to tell us?" Issachar asked.
"Sorry, but that's all that came with the mission files," the AI said.
"I've read a few of Aquila's writings as part of standard study, but I don't recall anything else referencing the Underground," Isabeau said. "Just that it was a dangerous place, hence the restriction in the Code."
"We can worry about finding the base once we're down in Tokyo," Flynn said. "We have to get there first, and that means getting past Minotaur. This says that only two people can challenge him at one time, so we should decide who goes ahead and does that."
"That would be prudent," Jonathan said.
Flynn nodded. "So what do we know of this demon? He's strong and has crippled or killed many capable samurai, so we should expect there to be injuries on our part. As a result, Isabeau, I'd rather you keep out of that challenge as our trained medic."
She nodded. "That's fine, having immediate care should help prevent permanent disability."
"Nearly all of the stories we were hearing just now mentioned that Minotaur is associated with fire and poison," Issachar said. "It seems like if a demon is strongly related to an element, then it doesn't take much damage from that element. So we can guess that Minotaur won't take much damage from fire or poison."
"He's also supposed to be tremendously powerful, so whoever challenges him needs to be able to take a knocking around," Walter said.
"Right," Flynn said.
"But surely he'd be weak to some other element," Issachar said. "Maybe ice? But we can't know until we get down to face him."
"I only learned agi and some physical skills," Walter said.
"Well I've learned needle shot and a few support skills," Issachar said. "No elements, and I prefer keeping a distance from a demon I'm fighting."
"If he is weak to another element, I could figure that out," Jonathan said. "I've learned bufu, zio, and garu, but not agi since I wanted some healing and support skills of my own."
"I've only learned support skills, so I'd have to stick back as usual," Naverre said. "Do you have any skills or spells, Flynn? I've never seen you use any."
"I have some spells," Flynn admitted. "But it's hard for me to use them without remembering some things. Nightmares, and Alice's whisper asked me to kill everyone around me for an undead paradise."
"Oh, well I can understand that," Naverre said quickly. He probably remembered something of Alarune in that.
But Flynn would be remembering a lot more things, and worse. Issachar tried to help him by saying, "Yeah, I saw him use something against David, and that didn't turn out well. Do you have any that don't make you think like that? You should try to overcome that."
"I'm trying," he said. "But it seems like any time I start getting used to it, something like that fight with David happens and all my thoughts around the spells turn dark again. I should try using them around you guys, see if that helps."
Isabeau nodded sympathetically. "Yes, be careful with that as you overcome it. We'll be here to help you." The others quickly agreed to that.
"All right, thanks guys," Flynn said, smiling briefly. Then he turned his thoughts back to their mission, serious again. "I think… Naverre, you are a good supporter, but you don't know any healing spells."
"That's true," he admitted.
"If you had something like Media, I'd feel you and Jonathan were best to take on Minotaur," Flynn said. "As you don't, Jonathan and Walter might be better since Jonathan can take care of the elements and healing, and Walter's strong and tough enough to probably be the best of us at close combat against Minotaur. What kinds of buffs and debuffs do you guys have access to either yourselves or your demons?"
"I've got a guy with War Cry that's been a huge help lately," Walter said.
"I have a demon with Rakukaja and another with Fog Breath," Jonathan said.
"Those should help you guys out fine," Flynn said. "Then you both will challenge Minotaur for us."
"Good, you can count on us," Walter said with a grin, while Jonathan nodded.
If it had been any other guy saying those things, that he was reluctant to use demon skills because of nightmares, Walter would have given him a hard time. That wasn't something to be afraid of, especially as they were samurai! They were supposed to be tough and take whatever the demons threw at them. Because of that, he often felt disgruntled at the supposed master samurai that avoided tough battles, only taking the easy requests or challenges. He'd even tease Naverre about it even though he had good reason to be wary because of Alarune.
But, it was Flynn. At first, it had just been Walter's own dreams that warned him that something wasn't quite right with Flynn. He wasn't bad, but those dreams hinted that he'd been through something that had been hell for him. And then Walter started seeing signs of that outside of dreams. There had been the incident with David which had left Flynn shaken badly, and their talk on the dorm tower. Long before that, there was also that night out at South Ooida. He'd spoken of becoming disillusioned with what everyone else spoke about with God. Whatever caused that, he was still taking his time in recovering from it. So it seemed like something that could still hurt him if he was made fun of for it.
They had all been down on the fourth level on occasion. It was an interesting place, a large cavern with the path on going down natural stone cliffs and old wooden bridges. Water spilled down the cliffs and walls from somewhere, falling down to a lake down on the fifth level. In this area, one had to be careful. The stronger demons made it a good training area once you made sure you were on good ground.
Even though they had to watch their steps, they had gone ahead of the others and shouldn't be overheard. "Hoy, Jonathan," he said. "What do you think is up with Flynn? I keep having dreams that he's in trouble, but then sometimes he seems fine and other times he's like this where we need to keep an eye on him."
"I'm not sure what, but I don't think it's going to be dealt with easily," Jonathan said. "I too have continued having such dreams. But more than that, I've spoken with Issachar on several occasions and learned that Flynn was his main support during a rough time of his life. If he is disillusioned, it may be because of that time. And if his trouble is something that's been there a long time, it probably will take a long time to solve."
"That would make sense," Walter said. "But I get the feeling that he's been through something else on his own, something with demons or someone that he's lost. Or maybe both. He's lost some feeling of certainty, so I've been thinking of some way to help him. I've tried talking to him, but he doesn't speak directly of what his problem is." He shrugged. "I dunno, something tells me that it's really important to help him because he's important to me. He is our leader, so I should support him. But he seems more important than that."
Jonathan glanced over at him. "Hmm. It sounds odd, but I have to admit that I feel the same way. Like he's a brother of mine even though I have no brothers, and I need to save him before he destroys himself. He usually doesn't seem that bad off, but it's a feeling that comes over me at times when I'm talking to him, like just now during our mission briefing."
"I wonder if someone is trying to warn us about him," Walter said. "Maybe we can find an answer in these dreams? Because they're obvious to me when they happen. There's a dragon in those dreams; maybe it knows something."
"I know of a caged angel in mine, so I can try asking her," he said. "She's the one I speak to most often, but I've seen two others there, Flynn and a boy I've only seen once. I'm not sure if asking the dream Flynn will help, but we could try."
"Right, we should do all we can to figure this out," Walter said. In that time, they had come to the cavern in the wall where the passage closed in and turned downward. A sign on the wall reminded them of the part of their Code that forbid them to go this way. "I never cared much about things forbidden without a given reason, but they really didn't want us going deep into Naraku."
"This is a severe breech of the Code, but I don't care about that now," Jonathan said, showing some anger. Then he sighed softly, trying to calm down.
Walter chuckled at him. "Those two are going to regret provoking you when we find them, aren't they?"
He nodded. "They may be powerful, but I will find a way to put an end to them."
After winding around, the descending hallway opened up into a tall chamber. A pool of water surrounded a pillar larger than them both. While the stone looked natural, the path ran a ring above the pool and around the pillar, leading to a open area of flattened ground, suitable for a battle. A massive pair of iron doors, somehow not rusted from all their time down here, blocked off any further passage.
Such a grand entrance deserved a grand guardian, as was the case with the giant beast standing there. He looked like he should be a physically powerful man by his bronzed torso and muscular arms. However, he had the hooves and the horns of a bull, as well as what seemed to be a shrunken bull attached to his skeletal head. Smoke trailed from his nostrils that was similar to the poisonous air on level three.
Minotaur shifted an ear towards them, then snorted. "Whoever you may be, go no further. This way is forbidden to the people of Mikado and I will kill any who try to go past this door."
"We must go on," Jonathan said, "or else a terrible pair of demons will escape justice."
"Right, have you see a pair of demons like gnarled wood pass by here?" Walter added. "We're after them."
"It doesn't matter to me what demons come and go," Minotaur replied. "But you are not to mingle with the Unclean Ones. Challenge me and you will perish."
Walter moved ahead of Jonathan and signaled his demons to come out. "We're ready for you, so we won't perish."
After snorting again, Minotaur bellowed at them with a war cry. Walter had time to ready his axe to block right before the giant rushed to punch him. It made the axe quiver. Then Minotaur got hit with way cry and fog breath from the other demons in the fight, although Walter suspected that put them on equal footing for the moment. Whenever one of the others got in a bufu attack and made Minotaur flinch, it helped immensely as that gave Walter an opening for a stronger attack without leaving himself too open. He exchanged blows, axe to fists, for what felt like quite some time.
Then something of Minotaur grew more intense, like he was focusing all of his power for a new attack. "Your body is strong and tough, young one, but you seem to lack in cunning. You will never match up to what my master Aquilla was capable of. What makes you think that you can survive what lies below?"
Walter gave him a mocking smile at that. "My fellows have more than enough cunning to cover for my lacking, so I lend them my strength and toughness. They can certainly accomplish what we're setting out to do, so I'm around to take out any stubborn obstacles like you."
While he snorted, there was something like respect in Minotaur's voice as he replied, "If what you say is true, I would believe you. I formed my pact with Aquilla fifteen centuries ago to protect you children. But perhaps you've grown enough…" something glinted near his fist, leading Walter to immediately brace himself.
Then one of those behind him disrupted their talk with another bufu, stopping whatever attack Minotaur had been charging. Walter quickly swung his axe again; it was a little sloppy, but it was enough to crack Minotaur's body. "We have," he retorted.
"I hope so, for that means I have fulfilled my duty," Minotaur said, bravely keeping any pain out of his voice before he shattered into nothing.
"Good job, especially in stalling him in conversation," Jonathan said, recalling two of his demons. "That last attack could have been nasty."
"Yeah, he was getting ready for it," Walter said.
"That was good work from both of you," Flynn said, coming in with the others from behind the pillar. "You guys all right?"
"Sure, just fine," Walter said.
"Let's head on then," Flynn said.
While Walter was strong, he had to have Flynn and Issachar take one of the doors so they could pull them both open. Past it, there was a short hall leading to a single ladder. It was a letdown after such a grand doorway. It was still a ladder down to the unknown, which might be what he'd been waiting for.
The sixth level of Naraku had some odd resemblance to the dorm hallways, with straight branching paths that held small rooms to the sides. Many of them had broken down furniture. Tables, old lamps, even beds; it was like people had camped out down here. But as it wasn't that far from the surface, Issachar wasn't sure why they would have camped here. There were a few signs around that mentioned a group called 'Sky Tower Excavation Group'. What kind of place was a sky tower, and why would you have to excavate it?
Two of the rooms had doors on them. The first one had a room in better shape than the others. And it was full of all kinds of interesting things: a machine in the corner identified as a generator, a desk with one of the electronic boxes like K had, a bookshelf full of old manuals and books, and a box that had a few small machines that he had seen pictures of. "Hoy, look at these," Issachar called to Jonathan and Naverre who were checking over the room with him.
"What kind of relic is that?" Jonathan asked. "I saw those, but wasn't sure if they were anything."
Issachar picked one up. "They're called guns, something I've seen a diagram of. They're a long distance weapons like a bow, but simpler to use and potentially more damaging."
"Those things can be more damaging?" Naverre asked skeptically. "They don't look like much."
"It's what another book said," Issachar said, recalling the diagram. He pointed it at a stone part of the wall and pulled the trigger. It made a loud bang and knocked his hand back since he wasn't ready for either the noise or recoil. However, it had put a deep hole in the wall. "Yeah, I don't think you could put an arrow that deep into the wall."
"Wow, that is impressive," Naverre said, coming over and trying to see how deep the hole was.
"They could be handy," Jonathan agreed.
"Well there's only four of them here," Issachar said. "They do have a kick-back."
"What was that?" Flynn asked, coming into the doorway.
Issachar turned around and spotted Walter with Flynn. "I found a different kind of weapon, a few guns. They could be helpful since the demons are supposed to be tougher."
"Hmm, is that what they are?" Flynn said, then brought out another one that looked like the one in Issachar's hand. "I found two others in another room."
"That's really convenient since there's only four in this box," Issachar said, then wondered if he'd really found them there. He might have kept two extras from other times knowing that there were only four in this room. "They'll take some getting used to. There seems to be a lot of interesting things in here, but I don't know if much more will help our mission."
"If those demons were down here, we'd see a sign of them, I'm sure," Flynn said.
"I think I found the terminal, in the other closed room," Isabeau said. "The room lit up, but the screen asked for a name for the terminal up in Aquilla Plaza. I wasn't sure what to name it."
"We could name it Aquilla Plaza since that's where it leads," Flynn said.
"That would make sense," Issachar said. "What was the name of the terminal on this level?"
"Well for some reason, it was named Sky Tower," Isabeau said.
"What, like all of the signs around here?" Jonathan asked, shocked.
"Maybe it's a company name?" Issachar wondered aloud. "Because you see that in Literature sometimes, where shops and work groups would have individual names instead of simply being called the tailor's shop or the Casualry bakery."
The answer would come sooner than they expected, and not what any of them (aside from Flynn) expected at all.