Chapter 9: Ex Muris

"Kirika?"

"Yes?"

"Can you see anything?"

"Um...yes?"

"Other than yourself and me, I mean."

"Oh. Well...no."

"I'm just asking, you see. Seeing as we stepped through a door, and it isn't there anymore, and all."

"Huh. Um, Mireille?"

"Yeah?"

"Are we...floating?"

"Are you normally upside-down?"

"...No?"

"It's probably psychological; we see a black, empty void, so we think, 'Space,' and 'zero-gravity,' so we float."

"But...is there any air in -- "

Mireille grabbed her partner by the parka. "Don't...say that! You don't want to give our subconscious-selves any ideas! Just imagine that there's plenty of air, and that there is, in fact, a floor for us to stand on."

Kirika nodded, flipped, and landed next to Mireille, right-side up. "So, the one behind this is in here somewhere, then?" Her partner nodded. She stared into the infinite abyss, wondering if anything would stare back. "Um...where, exactly?"

"No idea," said her partner. "Actually, I'm a bit disappointed. I'd expected one of those big Gothic cathedrals, maybe a bit of lightning, maybe a pipe-organ symphony..."

Lighting flared. Someone played a few bars on a really big pipe-organ.

Mireille rolled her eyes. "Well, that was original."

"Mireille!" Kirika aimed at something in the distance; her partner followed suit soon after.

"Some...sort of grey mist," said Mireille. "Smoke? Gas, maybe?"

"No. I can see shapes. Arms. Hands. Faces."

"Getting closer now," said Mireille, monitoring its advance. "From all sides." Wordlessly, she and her partner moved back-to-back.

The spectral fog rolled in, bearing whispers. And there were arms, hands, and faces there, by the hundreds, all dead, all rotting...and all too familiar.

"Mireille?" Her voice was trembling. "I...I see..."

"Yeah," she replied, eyes flicking from face to face, recognizing every one. "I know."

They numbered in the hundreds, at least. Most Mireille and Kirika had glimpsed only briefly, often at the other end of a weapon. Almost all were men, nameless to them in both life and death. Many wore suits, all stained with mud and blood. Some wore masks, some whole, some split in twain, caked with blackness. Only a handful of (recognizably) female forms were in amongst the fog of spirits.

More familiar faces pushed their way to the front. There was Dux, his eyes rotting, arms wracked and twisted; D'Estaing, grown grotesquely fat and corpulent with his ill-gotten legal gains; the Saints of Sicily, bullet-riddled, with their brutal Princess, hair afloat with an eldritch glow, eyes fearless, one powerful arm poised with an executioner's blade; and, barely visible, a pair of ghastly eyes, locked in a permanent, cruel stare, accompanied by ten razor-sharp daggers on the ends of barely-there fingers.

But it was not these figures, figures they had met and dispatched in hatred, which troubled them, though they reached and clawed and slashed at them with limbs chill and intangible. These blood-crazed spirits stabbed at their hearts, but did not pierce them, did not impale them with the freezing shards of terror, grief, and remorse.

Those grim bolts were cast by other ghosts; ones seemingly untouched by the ravages of the grave. Less than a heartbeat away they stood, silent, motionless, pitiless, and whole. They were the spirits of every man, woman and child who had given Mireille and Kirika their unconditional love and friendship, and had received, in exchange, utter ruin. They surrounded them on all sides, their eyes piercing, but without malice: an old man, with a white kitten; a young girl, holding a fallen orange; a Legionnaire, painting; an Uncle, bearing flowers.

Two of them stepped forth. Phantom limbs encircled and passed through them. Chill lips pressed against their mouths. They gasped.

"Chloe...?"

"Mama? Papa?" Her limbs trembled. Tears started in her eyes. They embraced her. An arctic chill claimed her blood, crystallized her heart, and stopped her breath. Darkness rolled in from the edge of Mireille's vision.

Survival instincts kicked in. Mireille summoned forth her anger. Rage gave her the strength to shake off the chill, scatter the embrace from beyond the grave. "STAY BACK!" she screamed. She fired wildly. The bullets whipped uselessly through the mob. The mob defied her words, circled even closer, around her, over her. She could feel their nails, chilled to absolute zero, score marks across her skin. The scent of death filled her nostrils. Words, filled with malice, or, worse, love, whispered in her ear. "Not real," she moaned, clutching her head. "Not real!" She curled up to defend against the assault from without, but that left her wide open to the ocean of black despair welling up in her heart. Suddenly, it burst its dams, rushed into her blood, and flooded her mind.

"Not real," she whimpered, as the darkness claimed her.

"No."

The voice was a life-line. She grabbed it in both hands.

"No," it repeated.

She pulled herself up. Suddenly, she realized something was sticking into her back.

Kirika.

The voice was hers.

No, she realized, upon reflection. Theirs.

The two rose to their feet, back to back, supporting each other. Though the claws of the dead scythed through their limbs, they no longer felt them.

"This...is...real," whispered Kirika.

"Yes," her partner whispered back. "These people..."

"...These sins...we see them, every night in our dreams, every time we blink, staring at us from the darkness."

"But we do not fear them," said Mireille, her voice taking on an edge.

"We accept them," said Kirika, strength returning to her words. "We accept...you. All of you." She faced the spectral girl with the billowing cloak in front of her, looked her straight in the eye. "We accept your anger, your grief, your regret, for they are our own. And we will bear them, until the end of our days."

"And that end is not yet come," said Mireille. "We know the face of death, and none of you bear it."

The horde stepped back, circling warily.

"We will not fight you," said Kirika.

"But we will avenge you," added Mireille. "We will make the one who has disturbed your rest pay."

Kirika lowered her weapon; she felt Mireille do the same behind her.

The horde plunged forward and into them. Phantoms whirled, howled, and screamed as the shadow host funnelled into their souls. A thousand daggers of ice and flame ravaged their hearts and minds, but the two women stood firm. And then, just as they were about to pass through pain to the calm, cool lands of unconsciousness beyond --

It stopped.

The void was empty, once more.

They collapsed, dead.

And yet, somehow, still breathing.

"Mireille?"

"Kirika?"

"Are we dead?"

"Does it matter?"

"...No?"

"Good."

Slowly, limbs heavy with a level of fatigue neither thought possible (and which, upon reflection, wasn't), they stood, supporting each other.

"We still have to finish this," said Kirika. Mireille nodded. "Come out!" she said to the void.

"Yeah," taunted Mireille, "is that your best!? Your shadow-tricks are nothing! Face us! Show yourself!"

The hideous cackle was like ice water on their spines. They snapped to attention.

"Where are you?" demanded Kirika.

"I am here."

They pivoted, and aimed. Nothing.

"I am here," came the voice, from their left.

Again. Void.

"I am here," it said again, to their right. Then above them. Below. Between them. Soon, it was everywhere, growing more shrill and loud with each statement.

The two did not waver. They raised their weapons, closed their eyes, and focused, listening not with their ears, but with their souls, which hear all, and cannot be deceived. Until...

"I...AM...HERE!"

They swerved and fired, in unison.

Bullets screamed through vacuum towards a distant door, from which was cast an immense shadow.

A leather hand with claws of steel was raised, and flexed.

"Look out!" said Noir, as they saw the bullets reverse direction. They dived aside.

Lead met flesh, twice.

Mireille rolled and grunted in pain. "The arm," she growled, cradling it, "why is it always the damned arm?!" Kirika croaked and dropped to her knees, clutching her stomach. Mireille was at her side immediately.

"Kirika!"

"Fear is the mind-killer," she gasped, "the little death..."

"It's not real!" said Mireille, herself wincing. "Fight it!"

"I...know," she gasped. She coughed up blood.

"Kirika!" cried her partner, as she collapsed.

The huge shadow shook with laughter.

Mireille snarled. "Coward! Come and finish the job, if you think you can!"

Mireille covered the figure, keeping her body between it and her friend. It advanced, feet clicking on some surface intangible.

This took some time.

Then, through some trick of perspective, the figure was there, before her.

It was a man, in shape, at least. One of his hands was encased in a leather glove. The light from the door glinted off its hungry blades. A shirt of crimson and black stripes enclosed his arms and chest. A leather fedora covered his face.

"You..." The voice was of slit throats and cold steel. "You...dare...to call...ME...COWARD?" That hideous laugh returned. "You should not be so free with your words, Mireille Bouquet."

A thrill of terror ran through her.

"You. It is you who will play the coward, the fool, today, not I. You, who will run, you, who will hide, you...who...will...scream."

"We...we faced your illusions," she stammered. "We've survived the worst you could throw at us!" The paralysis of fear started to claim her thoughts.

Except for one corner of her mind, which was trying to tell her something...

Suddenly, the figure lashed out. Mireille yelped, as steel claws cut her wrist. The gun fell to the floor. A fist caught her on the chin, sent her flying. Daggers stabbed into her right thigh. She screamed.

The figure howled with laughter.

Mireille struggled to get up. Pain like knives stabbed her down. She tried, desperately, to block it out, to no avail. "Not real, not real, not real..."

"What is real?" cackled the figure, advancing. "What is real is what's in your mind. The deeper you go into it, the more real things get. And dreams, dreams come from the very deepest recesses of consciousness. They are real, too terribly real for us; we fight them off for as long as we can, but they lure us in with visions of better times, drag us down into the blackness with the weight of our own, exhausted selves. Have you ever woken up from a dream screaming?"

Mireille nodded, looking over his shoulder. Keep this guy busy... "Yeah, so?"

"That was not... fear...you felt, not terror that provoked that cry. It was...joy. Relief, happiness, brought out by the ecstasy you feel when you realize that you have once again escaped the trap of your own mind, that endless tunnel to the dark beyond! But now, here, there is no escape. For this is my world, my rules. Here, I rule. Here, I. AM. POWER! And now, you...and your little friend...will perish at my hands!"

"Why?" she asked, shaking. "Why us? Why do this to us?" In the distance, Kirika coughed, curled in pain upon whatever counted as ground here. She kept it up. "Why, why toy with our memories, why drive us mad? Why?"

"Why?" He laughed low and long. "Why? I asked...them...that, every day. Every waking moment, I did. And did they answer? HA! No, no they did not. They never did. Instead, it was more, more of their games, more of their tricks, every day, every hour, every minute, without end!"

"So," said Mireille, in an attempt at bravado, "they humiliated you. You, the 'Master of Dreams.'" She scoffed. "Pathetic."

She regretted her words immediately. A storm of claws slashed her face. A great hand of force slammed her against an invisible wall. Steel claws crushed her throat and chest, choking her. Suddenly, the figure was in her face, his hot, foetid breath upon her. Something in the back of her mind tried desperately to get her attention, but was shouted down by her rampant panic.

"Yessss," hissed the man, his nose twitching. "Yes, I was that. I was small. I was weak, and they were strong. They laughed at me, teased me, and toyed with my life. They tried to drive me mad." He giggled, hysterically. "They succeeded all too well. That was their last mistake!"

"W...what...?" She felt blood draining out of her from countless wounds, sensed parts of her body and mind shutting down, one by one. But, in the distance, she also saw her partner crawling towards her. She struggled to stay alive.

"They did it for fun," spat the man. "They did it because they though me weak. But they did not realize that the mind is like an atom: break it, and you unleash terrible power!" He stepped back several meters, his grip still somehow squeezing the life from her.

Somehow, that niggling entity called Rational Thought, with its last ounce of strength, roused Mireille to what her eyes were seeing. "You...you're a rat. Tiny."

The rat-thing cackled. "Yessss. And you will be my first victim. I shall take your mind, your soul for mine own. Then hers. Then...theirs. Oh, how they will suffer. And then, nothing will stop me! All shall fall to my will! All shall submit to my rule! None shall escape my dream!"

The shock of the realization gave her strength in her dying moments. "You're a rat," she repeated. "I, I could tear you in half with a shot. Heck, one stomp, and you'd be a pancake!"

Steel bit into her shoulder. She cried out, but there was no breath left in her lungs.

"WRONG." The man, the rat, the Master, hovered before her, clawed hand trembling with rage. "Size, stature, strength...you think those mean anything here? Here, the mind is all! Here, the imagination, the will, is supreme. And I am the master of will. I am the Master of Dreams! I. AM. IWATA MITSUO!"

And the last thing Mireille Bouquet saw before everything went black was a great leather hand with steel claws screaming towards her heart.

There was a final, deadly thud.

When the time comes, whose life will flash before yours?