Chapter 4: The House of Wolves
***Earlier, before the previous meeting.***
It was a simple night when Shido found himself in his kitchen, cooking a meal for not one guest this time, but two: Tohka and Yoshino. It was a typical sight for the Itsuka household, with nothing particularly unusual bar the sound of the TV, playing a random show that filled Shido's ears.
"Hey, Tohka, do you want—" Shido spoke as he turned to face the spirit in question. However, Shido found that the living room was all but deserted, despite having been occupied just moments ago. "Tohka? Yoshino?" The young man called out. "Where are you two?" He stepped out of the kitchen to look for the two girls, only for his search to come up fruitless. "…You two aren't playing hide and seek again, are you?" Shido continued his search as he tried to figure out where the two girls disappeared to. At that moment, Shido heard the TV produce a loud static noise, drowning out the noise of the show from before.
"Are you two trying to prank me? Dinner's almost ready, you know!" He spun around, assuming that it was the two girls messing with the TV. However, he found no one there as the TV continued to emit white noise. "Come on out, you two~" The static sound began to wear on Shido's ears; with an annoyed sigh, he reached forward and grabbed the remote before trying to switch off the TV.
"…Huh? What in the world?" For whatever reason, the TV wouldn't turn off, continuing to emit white noise like a faulty radio. "Is this another test? If it is, I don't really see the point of this, Kotori." Shido set down the remote and began his search once more.
(275x/413 x 8376)418 – 590 + (318 369)/tan(120)413 – 733y ζ–(55y625*60 413x81/301) * 13 ¬ cos(690) (55 – 413 ∂ 316/ 76x – 413 ± 925y416 + 50/55 + 81x) (55x * 623y914 – 408)128 + 29 – (55 276216 -214x770)
Shido stopped in his tracks, a cold bead of sweat running down the back of his neck.
(55x + 61837)413 (714 * 424y318 – 1060) ± 6125 (408 x 695410 – 618y339/339520) (413616 – 76/318) U (219x) (55413
117 – 76/318x446 + 37) (√429x120/ 413 – 612) (55 + sin(107) ) – (301x413 ± 587/76 * (413y293 + 471 ∂ 512)
"What… was that…?" The young man muttered as he heard what sounded like a math equation playing out. It was an equation he had never heard before; the young man hardly had an idea of what it could possibly mean. In fact, he doubted that anyone did. He looked around for the source of the strange noise, eventually leading him back to the TV. It no longer emitted white noise as it had been before, and was now instead displaying some strange new movie unfamiliar to Shido.
It showed a desolate city, like one you would see destroyed in a war movie. The city itself was decimated, the sky burning red and orange above. The streets looked like they had been destroyed by multiple bombings, and the buildings were slumped over, every window broken and shattered. There wasn't a singular sign of life to be found in the city.
The strangest part was the date and location displayed on the bottom right of the television screen: Tengu City, Japan, December 1st… current year.
"What kind of show is this…?" Though he had been formerly invested in finding wherever Tohka and Yoshino had disappeared too, the young man couldn't deny that he was intrigued by the television screen. He drew closer and closer to the digital screen, as if pulled in by some magnetic force.
Shido placed his hand on the screen like some child addicted to TV. His hand phased through the screen as if it hadn't been there at all, catching him off guard. He tried to pull his hand away, only for some invisible force to take hold of it and pull him in further despite his resistance.
"W-wait- W-what is this?!" Shido cried. His resistance mattered little, his words even less so, as the young man was fully sucked into the TV.
With a thud, Shido hit the ground. "W-what the…where am I? Is this a simulation? Or another dream…?" The young man coughed as he looked around the familiar hellscape that was the city he had been pulled to, stumbling as his vision grew blurry. "Reine? Kotori? Enough games! W-where am I?!" He received no response. "Okay… Kotori might be cruel in commander mode, but there is no way she would just dump me here and not give me instructions. This has to be a dream." Just another nightmare that his sickened mind had conjured up.
He closed his eyes and tried to relax. Any minute now, the others would come and wake him up. So he waited. And waited. And waited. And yet… nobody came.
"…Okay. Well, most dreams end with a cliff-hanger or an actual story… so maybe a little walk wouldn't hurt…?" The young man told himself. Now convinced, Shido moved forward and made his way into the city.
Slowly, he climbed over rubble and waded through ruin. The sights before him were worse than the aftermath of even a spatial quake. Beyond the destroyed ruins, Shido found nothing of note, however… That is, until he tripped and fell upon a pile of jagged rocks, sparking a vision.
A painful throbbing filled the young man's head as his vision blurred. He couldn't make out the finer details at first. However, he could see that he held in his hands a rusted long-sword, a faint glow emanating from its blade, moments before his body rippled as he was hit with a heavy force. His vision finally began to clear, only to reveal a sight that Shido had never wished to see. The heavy force had been an attack from the one before him, an attack that came from a massive broadsword that was all too familiar.
"Come on, Tohka. Surely a princess can dance better than this!" Shido yelled without knowing why. He grinned as if he was playing a game, but Shido felt no joy. He dashed backstepped as Tohka brought Sandalphon to her side. He could not tell what she was saying; in fact, it was like watching a broken movie, the only sound coming from her mouth being a strange buzzing noise that rang in his ears. He felt an intense heat to his life. Without thinking, Shido bent backwards and dodged the gargantuan flaming halberd swung in his direction.
"Hey now, don't go waving that around. You're going to get someones arm cut off." he laughed as the one who brandished the halberd revealed herself to be his own younger sister: Kotori Itsuka. She was adorned in her astral dress, flames wreathing around her as her expression was filled with a mix of both horror and fury.
Shido leapt into the air, and the two spirits came at him in a pincer attack while he was suspended. Tohka came from the right with Sandalphon aiming for his weapon while Kotori attempted to try and disable him withCamael.
"Clever girls~" With skill well beyond his years, Shido deflected Sandalphon and wrapped his legs around Camael.
"But not clever enough~" He pulled out a small metallic ball and pressed it against Camael. In an instant, the object exploded, sending Kotori flying into a nearby building. Kotori came flying back moments later with another attack ready. Shido dodged that blow as well, a knowing smile on his face as if he had seen the attack coming from a mile away. He struck with his own blade, severing Kotori's arm in a swift strike.
"Told you~ maybe you should've listened to your 'beloved big brother' more?" Kotori opened her mouth as if to reply, but he heard nothing come out from her. Shido then grabbed the arm as it fell and slammed it so hard into her face that he heard a cracking noise as her head twisted sideways. She fell to the ground, her body limp and lifeless.
"Now you know how that feels." He laughed as his sight blurred once more, only to see none of that had happened. Yet… it all felt so real. His body trembled. A moment later, he felt a liquid sensation trickle down his arm; he looked up to see that its source was a nearby fallen building.
"N-no, i-it's just a dream… just a dream." Shido's breath slowly grew more and more ragged as he looked up to see what was dripping on him. To his horror, he found Tohka's kinako bread plushie torn apart, as if given to the wolves and soaked in blood.
"J-just a bad dream… that's all. Just a bad dream…" However, he couldn't get the thought out of his head that this wasn't really a dream. It just felt too real. He bent down and picked up the remains, still dripping with blood. He threw it back down a moment later, too terrified to hold it for long.
"N-no no, j-just a bad dream." Turning around, he tried to walk back to whence he came from only to feel a strange cloth feeling under his foot. Though he didn't want to look down, his curiosity got the better of him as his gaze fell to the ground. It was a pair of ribbons, one black, one white… The same kind Kotori wore every day, now bloodied and torn on the ground.
"I-it's nothing, just a…just…" Over and over he tried to convince himself but to no avail. It felt all too real, it had to be real. Shido tried to walk away again, until something once more caught his eye
"N-no no nonono…Yoshinon?" His throat felt dry as he found the rabbit puppet Yoshino would always wear, soaked with blood and impaled upon a rebar. "N-no, just-just a dream, just focus on getting out, that's all it is." He then noticed something peculiar. The blood from the kinako plushie, the ribbons, and the puppet started to move, like worms writhing in dirt. They held an almost metallic shine to them, slowly moving north from where Shido was.
At the same moment, Shido felt something in that direction pull him along the same path. Like a magnet pulling iron, there was no escape for him as his legs started to move on their own north.
"W-why…" He couldn't understand what was happening anymore, only that this must be a fever dream or… maybe even the work of a spirit. He had never heard of such a spirit, but at the same time, it wasn't the first weird omen he had experienced, and it was certainly far from the last.
In time, he, alongside the blood, finally came to a stop. The young man took a moment to try and find out what had been pulling him to no success. Instead, he was greeted by an unnerving sight: human limbs buried underneath the rubble, holding each other tightly while a bloody chain intertwined them.
Shido tried to dig them out of the rubble, but found that he wasn't strong enough to remove the debris that covered the bodies. Underneath the tiny amount that he could move, he found a single, orange colored braid soaked in blood.
At this point, Shido's throat was sore from his panicked cries and constant panting. After taking a few moments to recompose himself, he wandered around the area more to discover that the only object of note left was a microphone with a colorful handle and a dented grill. Shido grabbed it, holding the damaged mic like it was a memento of an old friend.
Once more, his body once more began to move as he felt the force yet again. At the same time, a faint voice began to speak directly to his mind.
"The Carnival shall begin. Come. You shall announce it to your world~" It was a sickeningly sweet voice, akin to a queen whispering traitorous remarks to her guards about her king. Shido grabbed his head, another ear-splitting headache bringing him to his knees.
"Ahhhhh!" Whispers poured into his head with words beyond his understanding. Voices piled on themselves as he gripped his temples and clenched his teeth through the pain.
"Shido… Why?" The voice of a young girl filled his ears as he looked to the voice's source. Before him was a young girl with long, frizzy green hair floating in mid-air. In her right hand, she clutched an ornate, golden spear that had white lightning arcing all around it's length. In her left was a small metal object that was shaped like a wand with a glowing red tip. She looked down upon him like a goddess about to judge a mortal… yet, there was fear in her eyes, an intense fear that brought a smile to his lips.
"So you actually managed to grab the lance, huh. The Professor would be proud of us both, if he were here." He smiled up at her as he twirled the bloody sword in his hands. "The Spear of Destiny, the Lance of Longinus… hand it over, little girl, and no one gets hurt. Well… maybe a little hurt. No promises~"
The vision disappeared as quickly as it appeared as he fell to the ground. However, getting closer to the ground revealed to him something strange: a torn witch's hat, lying just before him. What was underneath it was a destroyed newspaper, the only thing readable on it being a single date: December 1, current year.
A strange thought rang through Shido's head: maybe this was him seeing the future? No, he refused to believe something this catastrophic to ever be the future. And yet, a feeling in his gut told him otherwise.
He tried to stay focused as he attempted to wake himself up through various methods: pinching himself, trying to find water to splash his face, even hurting himself to try and wake up. Then without warning, and for the 3rd time, he was then pulled along like a puppet on strings towards what he hoped to be the last destination.
After a while of walking along, Shido's body was plopped right on a base of a pile of rubble and ruin. With a groan, he stood to his feet and looked around. It was the same sight over and over again, but a key difference was that the blood that was moving went up the hill and seemingly stayed still. To Shido's horror, he found yet another hand outstretched on the rubble; it was wearing a pristine glove as white as a wedding dress. Clutched in its palm was a small glass vial.
He went over to pick it up, only to see that the contents spilled out of the cracks in the vial that he didn't see earlier. The leaked substance was blood yet again, but it was different, it seemed to be somehow more metallic, reflective enough that he could see his own face in it.
"W-why does it have my name…?" Written on the vial's label was indeed his name, several hearts drawn all around it. Shido tried to think of why this would be here and who it would correlate to. A moment later, he tried to shake away such thoughts. He continued to tell himself that it was all a bad dream, no matter how much his gut told him that it was all real. "Ahhhgh!"
"Shido, Shido, Shido… Come on, we both know that it isn't good to lie to yourself." A new voice spoke out to him. It was a voice that sounded smooth like molasses… and it was close. However, as Shido looked around to find the whereabouts of the voice, all he found was dust and rubble.
"Come on, chin up, Shido. I don't want you dying on my watch." Shido slowly looked up as he realized something else: the voice sounded somewhat like him, only cockier, and more condescending.
"It was such a surprise when that woman came out of nowhere…summoning that bright 'ole flower. Damn, that light was blinding, wasn't it?" A breeze travelled through Shido as he realized that his clothes were suddenly torn to shreds, entire parts were simply ripped off him as if he fought a bear.
"I…I killed them…I k-killed them…" Spoke Shido's voice. Yet, those weren't words he had chosen to speak. It was as if someone else was controlling his voice.
"Shido, you didn't kill them. They already left you. You just made sure that they will never come back." The voice echoed all around him. Shido felt a stinging pain all around his body, as if dozens and dozens of fire ants started to crawl upon his flesh and bit his skin. His mouth was opened and he himself tried to speak, but nothing came out but dry gasps of air.
"T-the Professor… He—" Shido turned up to the sky, which had slowly started to turn gray. He didn't know any professor.
"He left you like everyone else: just like the spirits, your friends and just like your mother." The voice snickered as if he saw an old clumsy friend trip and fall. Shido's eyes welled up with tears, his hands balling up into tightly clenched fists.
"Y-you were the one that killed them… You made me—!"
"I didn't do anything. Well… maybe I did a few things to hurry the process along, but everything else was bona fide, a hundred percent, Shido Itsuka himself!" Shido cried out in pain as the stinging pain grew worse. He curled up into a fetal position as his vision started to blur.
"I merely protected you. I helped you become who you are now. Look at what we've accomplished together! We are a light that can burn empires, so bright even the sun would be ashamed to shine over us! And here we are at the beginning of your story, your own Garden of Eden." Shido choked on his own spit, shivering in agony on the scattered debris.
Slowly, the blood began to crawl again, writhing, slithering towards the young man as it began to latch itself onto his skin like a parasite. Shido screamed in pain yet again, his arms and legs spasming and jerking whilst the blood started to drill into his flesh. It was like being paralyzed as a bullet was slowly inserted into his flesh, tearing his skin open. But that was nothing in comparison to the pressure of the parasitic blood entering his veins.
"Here we are, back at square one. Little Shido, all alone in this world again, but…"
It didn't stop at his skin though. The blood oozed their way onto his cheeks and his chin as he screamed. The iron tasting fluids then violently forced itself into his mouth and throat as his body convulsed inwards.
"I will always be here for you Shido. I want you to know that."
The blood then entered through his nostrils as if being poured through a heated metal straw, a hot pain welling up in his nose and into his head. He tried to scream, but no sound left his mouth.
"I will make sure you stay safe, and powerful." The blood continued to enter Shido as he levitated just slightly off the ground, the voice ringing loudly as it reverberated into his skull. Then, all at once, the pain stopped. The blood was all gone, the torture coming to an end as his body slowly drifted back on the ground.
"W-who…are…you?" Shido croaked out the question he was meaning to ask as his body lay motionless on the ground.
"Hahaha… Oh, poor Shido, I'm the one that was there for you when you were alone in the Itsuka household, hidden away in that dark corner. I'm the one who was with you every time you fell down the stairs, broke your ankle and couldn't play with your friends. Every time you wrote a poem, and it was stolen away. I was with you when you rejected that girl and I am the one with you in these darkest of hours when you have nothing left." Shido looked to his side as his body regained strength.
"R-Reine's…", and right beside him he found a familiar purple stuffed bear. Reine's stuffed bear was ripped apart into pieces and only its head remained intact.
"I am the one who will be with you when you find love, and when you lose it. I'm your friend, the one who is going to save you." Shido looked down as he found his clothes reformed as if by magic, and slowly his body is lifted back up as he stands.
"W-why…what happens next?" He asked as the air around him started to ripple.
"Oh, I'm glad you asked. We need to tie up loose ends. That Tokisaki is still alive, after all." The voice laughed. "A tricky one, isn't she?" Shido's eyes widened. Kurumi was still alive, but where?
"Let's go pay her a visit, shall we? She couldn't have gotten far in her state. Hmm, I am guessing she jumped three days out—works out well enough. Come, Shido, let's see if we can catch us a Nightmare."
Both of Shido's arms flew up in front of him. His hands made contact with an invisible wall as he began tearing open a hole in space. Cracks started to form in the air where the ripples had come, aligning themselves to form a single large tear. He panted and tensed as his hands went further and further, pulling apart the tear into a fully formed hole.
The void within the hole seemed to be sucking everything in, or perhaps, it was pushing everything out? It was hard to tell. The ripples around Shido started to pulsate like a beating heart, it's beat steady like a drum. He yelled out in defiance and jumped into the void, leaving everything else behind as he faced nothingness. The cracks and tears were then sealed up just as he entered, rendering the area back to normal.
Falling.
"Why?!"
That's what he has been doing for the last few hours, or so he thought. He lost track of time as the endless void wrapped around him as he continued his descent. Whether it was a dream or not, Shido didn't know. He only kept repeating that question as he continued to fall.
Eventually he closed his eyes and felt himself stop mid air as a breeze of fresh air blew across his body. He opened his eyes to see that he was levitating an inch away from dirt in the middle of a road centered in the middle of a dark forest. The trees that were just on the side of the dirt road were curved at a perfect angle to simulate an archway.
"Come now, boy! We do not have much time." Shido heard a voice right behind him as he hit the road with a thud.
"If you want to die a painful death, then by all, means lie down and wait for it to come… Otherwise, get a move on!" He looked up to see it was an old man, sounding much like an angry old man yelling at some kids on his lawn.
"…Who are you?" Shido asked as he dusted himself off, standing up to look more closely at the old man. He noticed the brown leather coat that he wore, an unshaven white beard that covered his face, and a scarf wrapped around his neck.
"Maybe if you stopped asking idiotic questions, I would tell you. Actually, just stop talking altogether, you'll alert the gynoids." The old man trekked along the path as he took out a strange metal wand-like device that made a buzzing sonic noise.
"Gynoids?" Shido asked, as he followed behind the old man. He had decided to go along with the elderly man in order to keep from angering him further.
"Humans and their incessant questions…yes, the gynoids. We don't want them finding us right now because Natsumi is currently in Egypt looking for the spear. Without the TARDIS, we can't contact her, so unless you want a repeat of the Vegas Incident, don't even try. Ratatoskr itself has been infiltrated by the Faction, so we can't trust anyone there." The old man waved his metal wand around as if he was looking for something. Shido was taken aback by the man's words for two reasons; the first, because the old man somehow knew Ratatoskr, and the latter because he never met him or this 'Natsumi' before in his life.
"Uh—" Shido then decided to keep his mouth shut, deciding to trust the old man for whatever reason despite his scolding words.
"Now boy, we're going to be facing her soon. Don't be stupid, watch what she does and listen to her words very carefully. Remember, she is a being born of irrationality. She is the remainder after dividing. Do. Not. Trust her. The Carni—" Before the old man could finish, and in the blink of an eye, Shido found himself whisked away to yet another strange scenario.
"What the—" This time, it was a circus, where he sat in the back of a multicolored tent lined with poles and string, hundreds upon hundreds of visitors all around seated in rows, eating popcorn, and watching an empty stage.
"Oh— I need to leave now." Shido found himself unnerved by it all as the colors in the tent kept switching colors, from red, to blue, to green and then orange, so on and so forth seemingly with no rhyme or reason. The poles were shaped and colored like bone and the string appeared like human hair more than anything else. The audience members, too, looked strange, each and every one of the members in the crowd wearing a black hooded robe. The most unsettling part was that they all wore a mask, each crafted from a pristine skull.
"What in the world…?" Was Shido's rather appropriate response, seeing the strange crowd. As he searched for an exit, Shido saw the crowd silently applauded as a woman with prismatic hair stepped out into view. Dressed in a blue robe, her hair changed colors rapidly just like the tent itself, a shadow covering her face as she bowed to the crowd. He searched around for the entrance or exit of the mysterious circus trying to make sure he was not noticed.
"… Oh, finally! A way out." He said softly as on the other side of the tent was the very exit he had been searching for. Without another word, Shido began making his way in its direction
"Welcome one and welcome all to tonight's last performance. After seeing all that we had to offer; I feel it sporting that we have a member of the audience be our final performer, don't you all agree~" The whole audience murmured in agreement as Shido heard the same voice from earlier. He shivered as he felt a creeping gaze fall upon his back.
"Now, let's pick our lucky someone, shall we?" Shido began trying to find another way out, or a place to hide, but streetwear wasn't exactly the best camouflage option in a crowd of what seemed to be cultists. He was then pushed into the forefront of the carnival by an invisible force as every single audience member turned their eyes upon him.
"Ah, it looks like we have our volunteer! Oh …Shido Itsuka was it? Itsuka, the future companion of the traveler beyond time, one of the Watchmakers." Shido, shocked at how she knew his name, remained in a stunned silence.
"Now now, don't be shy. Here in the carnival, everyone is welcome, and anyone can join in the fun. And tonight, we have the perfect trick just for you." Her form shimmered like a mirage as it flickered and wavered.
"W-wait— What are you going to—" He was silenced as the ringleader placed her finger upon his lips. The audience seemingly all stood to attention as the room fell silent.
She snapped her fingers as tall, hooded figures brought out a large rectangular box with horizontal rods attached to its length, decorated with golden baby angels that faced each other, their wings touching on the top.
"W-wait, no— I-I think I'm in the wrong place—" Without warning she grabbed Shido's hand as the beings removed the lid off the box.
"Now, with our volunteers here, we are going to show that death is just a simple parlor trick for the carnival. He shall enter the box, and while sealed within with no escape, we shall stab him twice, once in the chest with this spear, and the next in his stomach with this sword." As she said that, both a sword and spear appeared in her right and left hand respectively.
"W-wait, what do you think you're doing!?" Shido looked around frantically as he tried to pull out of their grip. However, their grip was ironclad, stronger than anything he could imagine. It never even budged. "W-who are you?!" The ringleader carried him by the wrist with one hand and dropped him into the box. The hooded beings then start to slowly place the lid over but not until he got an answer.
"The one that will save you, of course." She then closed the lid as he tried to punch, kick, and even scratch his way out of it to no avail. He couldn't see anything, but he did hear that all around his golden coffin was ritualistic-like chanting as he tried to scream.
"H-hey hey! Let me o—" His pleas were interrupted as a spear pierced through the lid and stabbed his chest. The pain was instant. He stopped moving as his blood spilled out, his vision blurring in moments. The spear continued, going in even deeper and causing him to cough up blood, and his ribcage began to vibrate like the spear inside his chest. The spear punctured one of his lungs as blood started to flow into it, suffocating him.
Then, a sword plummeted through the coffin and skewered his gut, severing his spinal cord, making him feel terrible agony. He could no longer feel the lower half of his body as his vision went dark and he drew his last breath.
With a groan, Shido opened up his eyes to see that he was no longer in the box, no longer in pain. He looked down at himself to see that his clothes were perfectly fine, as well. In fact, he himself felt perfectly fine, though his mind was a little groggy.
"Ugh… Where am I?" He muttered as he looked around. After a moment, he realized he recognized the sign of that familiar swing set and slide. "I'm in… the park?"
"Ah, you're finally awake, Shido. Your head should be feeling better any second now, don't you worry." Shido's expression turned to one of pure bewilderment as he looked up to see the old man from before. Before he realized it, he found himself asking a simple question.
"…H-how do you know my name…who are you!?"