The ancient mechanics of the fireplace elevator groaned and grated as the car slid down the shaft, into the very bowels of the Castle of Candles. They had been delayed slightly in getting going due to the goings on in the bowels of Tsuzuki, but as that was a private matter, all that matters is it greatly dampened his and Terazuma's mood, which had already been dampened by having to come to work so late at night. Oddly enough, though, the deeper they went the more excited Wakaba became. Though she did not in the least match Watson's frozen, lip-less, ecstatic grin of making himself useful, there was certainly an air about her not too unlike common Japanese schoolgirl estrus, only packing a more lethal kind of heat.

The car finally jolted to a stop, and Watson cranked the lever and called out: "Basement level one! First-level kitchens, winter pantry and wine cellar, boiler room, janitorial closet, elephant factory, rooms of mystery, surveillance and thingamajigs!" He didn't actually have to yell but naturally it went with being important. "Restroom's down the hall to your left, then two rights, Tsuzuki-san, then a sharp left, down a half flight of stairs, at the very end of the hall under the mounted swordfish."

"Thank you, Watson," sighed Tsuzuki.

"What?" said Terazuma. "You mean after all that we only made it to the first floor?"

"Ah . . . yes," said Watson after rechecking the floor number, completely missing the rhetoricalness of the question.

"Oh, cheer up, Hajime," said Wakaba when the tiny butler closed the doors and waved encouragingly as he ground his way back up the shaft. "Think of it as an adventure. How many times do you get a chance to really explore the Castle of Candles? —And at least you and Tsuzuki don't have to wear safari shorts this time."

"That's true," said Tsuzuki.

While Terazuma looked at her as though she had just committed high treason and grumbled about cheering up, Wakaba turned to Tsuzuki, who had been entrusted with the GPS. "So, which way do we go?"

"We have to find some way to get to the fifth level, and since we can't take this elevator—" He gestured to the one from which they had come as he consulted the map. "—we need to find a stairwell or something leading down, so . . . this way." Looking up, he pointed down the one hallway of all those available to them that was particularly dark and ancient, with cold, stone walls and lit only by torches mounted at regular intervals on the walls, and the complete opposite of the clean, brightly lit, modern landing on which they presently stood — and sweatdropped. "You've gotta be kidding me," said Terazuma under his breath. And they all had to admit the situation was rather stereotypical. However, with no choice in the matter and a mission to carry out, they trudged on into the dank dimness.

As they traversed the hallway with only the sound of their footsteps to keep them company, a slow, melancholy melody Western audiences might have mistaken for the MIDI version of "House of the Rising Sun" began to emanate from an unknown source. They rounded several dark corners, doubling back many times and coming in contact with poor layout choices, prompting Tsuzuki to state the obvious, that the place was a maze. When at last they came to a fork, Wakaba suddenly stopped, said excitedly, "Look!" and pointed to a sign hanging high up on the wall. "'Dungeon,'" she read.

"What does it mean?" said Tsuzuki in a Sherlock Holmes-like manner.

"Are we in the dungeon already?" said Terazuma, checking the GPS.

"No," said Wakaba. "Don't you see? We're in the dungeon interface of the map. This is so cool."

The men gave her a strange look as they did not see anything exciting in the word 'dungeon'. "You seem awfully chipper, Kannuki."

She just smiled knowingly. "It's all about perspective. In case you gentlemen haven't noticed, this is just like an RPG."

"What's an . . . arpeegee?" said Tsuzuki. "Is that Italian?"

"And what do you know about role-playing games?" Terazuma asked his partner, ignoring Tsuzuki. "I don't see how your medieval romances concerning a bunch of unrealistic pretty boys could possibly compare to the gravity of this situation."

"Maybe you wouldn't understand, Hajime, if your knowledge of the genre is limited to love sims. I'm talking about the classics: Final Fantasy, Chrono Trigger, Persona. Come on. A portal in the the fabric of space-time, zombies in the basement, a final boss, unrealistic map configurations, dynamic soundtrack . . ." Wakaba clasped her hands in wonderment. "If we're lucky, maybe we'll even get into some random encounters!"

Terazuma rolled his eyes at her naivety. "Kannuki, there's no such thing as random encounters. Anyway, Hakushaku told us to take care of the zombies and find the demon Fluffy. Don't you think something as important as that would have been part of the briefing?"

"Believe what you want," Wakaba said.

"Okay, O fearless leader, where do we go now?"

Wakaba consulted the GPS and after a moment said: "One of these passages must lead to the stairwell, but for some reason the signal gives out around this area and it won't tell us which one. All it says is 'rooms of mystery' in big letters."

"'Rooms of mystery,'" said Tsuzuki. "I wonder what that means."

"It's a mystery," said Terazuma.

"Whatever it is," said Wakaba, "I suggest we split up and meet back here. We can cover more ground that way, and if this is anything like an RPG we might be able to get items in these so-called mystery rooms—"

"But what if we get lost?" said Tsuzuki.

"This is hopeless!" Terazuma said suddenly, startling the others. "We're not going to get anywhere making shit up as we go along. What we need is a good, solid plan. Now, what I suggest is this: we go back the way we came, locate the wine cellar, and sit and plan this thing out thoroughly with a nice octogenarian. Maybe a Cabernet Sauvignon."

"Wah!" said Tsuzuki happily, "for once you and I agree on something, Terazuma. Good plan!" And he turned to head off in that direction.

Wakaba snatched his ear.

"Not while we have an obligation to Hakushaku-sama, it's not. The only place you two are going is down those corridors," she said. "You're shinigami, aren't you? Well? What's the worst that could happen?"

—

Terazuma still thought it was a bad idea, splitting up and letting Kannuki take the GPS with her. At least there was no one to get on his back for smoking down here after the earl had said it wasn't allowed. How else was he supposed to find his way back to the rendezvous point? He lit up from a taper sitting in an alcove, and wondered vaguely if it too wasn't somebody's soul. Well, if it was, he decided, surely that person would understand how important this was. Like Theseus in the Minotaur's lair — or perhaps Hansel and Gretel would have been a more appropriate analogy — he decided he would leave a trail of ashes to guide his way back. Unfortunately they just blended right into the stones. He took a deeper drag to calm his nerves.

In short time he came to a nondescript door. He hated to admit Kannuki might have had a point about the whole RPG thing, but he decided to check it out anyway. He turned the handle and gave it a push—

However, what opened out before him was an ordinary urban park vista: A tiled ground as far as the eye could see, in which were round holes that held straight, planted trees; bright summer sky above and a warm breeze; benches and brightly colored kiosks from which emanated sweet, warm smells that made him feel inexplicably good all over. In the middle of it all stood a couple of small, hard plastic animals mounted on springs and some coin-operated vehicles painted primary colors.

"What the—" Terazuma started. He remembered this place. He used to beg his parents to bring him here when he was a little kid. But what was it doing here, of all places, in the basement of the Castle of Candles?

—

Tsuzuki groaned and bent over as his insides cramped again. This had to be the worst night ever. He should have been at home in bed — anywhere but here, but as usual no one cared. Maybe he didn't make a show of his diligence on a daily basis like Hisoka, but that didn't mean he didn't pull his weight. Heck, he had seventy-seven years on the force. Didn't that entitle him to a little sick time?

Right now, he determined, he could get by if he could just sit down for a few minutes. He opened the next door he came upon, thinking there had to be someplace inside he could rest a while off his feet, or at least get away from the song that kept playing over and over again in the corridor and have some peace and quiet, if only for a few minutes.

As he closed the door behind him, a hundred voices all exactly the same said—

"Tsuzuki!"

Tsuzuki jumped. He looked up and started again. "Hi— Hijiri!" he exclaimed. Standing before him, crammed into the room, were several dozen Hijiris, all staring at him with some variation of happiness on their identical faces. And Tsuzuki for his part didn't know whether to be relieved, excited or very scared. "W-what are you doing here?" he asked, wondering if he should be referring to them as singular or plural.

"I came to see you, of course," said one.

"Yeah, don't be silly, Tsuzuki," said another.

"I said I liked you, didn't I?" said yet another, and then they all started repeating it, crowding closer. "I like you, I like you, Tsuzuki," went the Hijiri chorus.

And Tsuzuki actually kind of liked it.

—

Meanwhile, Wakaba had managed to find nothing helpful down her own corridor. Most of the rooms of mystery she came across held nothing but rampant — and rather disgusting — licentiousness so that she was forced to quickly shut one door after another almost as soon as it was opened.

At last she came upon one with a sign which indicated it was the Velvet Room. A name that sounded perverse, to be sure, but in fact it was draped in blue tapestries and held a grand piano, next to which a pale woman with a large, pointy headdress sang an aria. An old man with a hunched back and unequally-sized eyes approached when he saw her and said, "Welcome to the Velvet Room. I'm Igor. What can I do for you today?"

"Um," Wakaba started after staring incredulously for a few moments, "I'm kind of new down here and I was wondering if you could help me out."

"And what would that be with?" said the man called Igor. He had a scratchy voice albeit one that was not unlikeable. "Astrological advice, perhaps? It is quite an extraordinary moon out tonight, ripe for all sorts of irregularities. Or would you like me to take a look at your cards?"

"Cards? Oh, no," she said kindly. "None of that. Actually, I'm just looking for the stairs that lead down to the next floor."

"In that case, take a right out of this room, follow the corridor down to the second right from the end, and that should take you right to it."

"Thank you so much," Wakaba said with a short bow, and headed back the way she came. Irregularities, huh? That was an understatement. Before she could turn toward to the rendezvous point, however, she spotted a door marked Security across the hall, and opened it to find a small three-headed pug turn one of its cute, squished faces toward her. The others were busy watching the wall of surveillance monitors that stretched up in front of it. Patting the dog on its heads, she took a look for herself in case there was a camera on the stairwell that might confirm her directions. What she saw instead disturbed her. On one monitor, Terazuma rocked blissfully back and forth on a toy horse that was much too small for him, and on another Tsuzuki melted under a throng of Hijiris. "Oh no," she groaned. "Guess I have to go rescue them."

"Urf!" said the miniature cerberus in encouragement.

She reached the Room of Childhood Regression first. The smells of fried food and the sounds of children's laughter were so realistic, and the sky seemed to go on forever, that for a moment she thought she really was in a park in the living world. Then she caught sight of Terazuma and snapped out of it. "'Cause when I look inside my heart," he was singing rather flatly as he rocked on the horse, which was intended for such a smaller person that his bent knees almost touched his chest— "And I tell the truth to me . . . Loud and clear my soul cries out with total honesty—"

"Hajime-chan."

He started and looked up at her with a grumpy expression. "Whaddo you want?"

"It's time to go, Hajime-chan," Wakaba said in a register reserved for children. It felt rather queer using it on a grown man, but when in Rome . . . "Say good-bye to the horsey."

Just as she had suspected, he wrapped his arms around the horse's neck and held on for dear life. "I dun wanna!"

Wakaba sighed. "I was hoping I wouldn't have to do this," she said, "but you leave me no other choice. . . ." And she promptly retrieved a fuda and stuck it to his forehead.

"Ack!" he cried, nearly falling off the horse as it jerked backwards on its spring under his weight. He shot her an angry, violated look. "What the hell did you do that for? Kannuki!"

At least he was back to normal.

Slowly he looked around the park, seeing it as if for the first time. "Where am I?"

"The Room of Childhood Regression," Wakaba explained, crossing her arms. "It took your memories of childhood and recreated them here in order to trap you."

"I see." Terazuma peeled the fuda from his forehead and rubbed the point of contact. "Where's Tsuzuki?"

"Trapped in his own delusions. We have to go get him: I found a way down to the next level."

When they opened the door to the room Tsuzuki was being held in, however, they automatically cringed. "What the hell?" said Terazuma. It was a cacophony of teenage-boy voices all gushing over Tsuzuki. Those doppelgangers that could get close to him were hugging and groping, and all had great, big exuberant smiles on their youthful faces. Their happiness might have been rather innocent in nature for phantoms, but something about the situation was not. Tsuzuki was trying politely to ward them off, however it was obvious to the other two shinigami that he was enjoying the Hijiris' attention more than just a little bit.

When he saw them, he called melodramatically, "Wakaba-chan, save me!"

"It's a delusion!" she yelled back at him, trying to push through the crowd of tightly knit boys to reach him. "They're a product of your imagination. You have to fight their spell!"

"Why don't you just blast them?" Terazuma asked her.

"Are you kidding? There's too many. I'd be wasting fuda."

"Then blast the source. Never mind, I'll do it." And he whipped out his shotgun and aimed it at Tsuzuki.

Wakaba started and kicked him backwards out the door. "Hajime, what are you doing? You can't shoot your own teammate!"

"Why not?" he whined. "He's just going to respawn anyway."

A second later Tsuzuki stumbled out of the room, slamming the door behind him. A used fuda fluttered smoking from his hand. "What was that?" he asked. His chest was heaving and his jacket a little torn. "Where did they all come from?"

"That was the Room of Hundredfold Magnified Unconscious Desire," Wakaba said, pointing to the string of Chinese characters beside the door.

To their surprise, Terazuma laughed out loud. "So," he said as he picked himself up off the floor, "let me get this straight: Tsuzuki's unconscious desire is a teenage boy? Man, I knew it. He is a pervert!"

Tsuzuki turned red as a beet. "It's not like that at all!" he said. "It's just that . . . Hijiri saved me a while back — and he's a really sincere person— I just wanted someone to appreciate what I'm going through."

"Uh-huh."

"I think it's sweet," said Wakaba, "that two guys can be sensitive with each other."

". . . Don't tell me you're one of those girls," said Terazuma, pointing rather rudely at her.

"One of what girls, Hajime?" said Wakaba, putting her hands on her hips. "Come on, we're wasting time here. While you two were playing I found a way down to the second level."

"Thank God," said Tsuzuki as they followed Wakaba back out of the corridor. "I never want to hear the words 'mystery' and 'room' in the same sentence ever again."

As they approached the stairs, Wakaba said out of the blue, "Hey, Tsuzuki, can I ask you a question: Is Hakushaku-sama naked under his mask?"

Tsuzuki blushed. "Why are you asking me?"

"Well, you'd be the one to know, wouldn't you?"

Terazuma gasped. "You are one of those girls—"

"No, he's not," said Tsuzuki. "Why?"

Wakaba shrugged. "Just curious. So, have you ever seen what he looks like? I mean, what he really looks like."

"No. No one sees the earl. Not nobody, not no how. Except maybe Watson, but it's not as though he'd ever tell. . . ."

This time it was Terazuma's turn to ask, "Why?"

"Well, doesn't that seem a little weird to you guys?" Wakaba said. Her tone had taken on a new seriousness, but as was typical, the men just ignored it. "I mean," she reiterated, "doesn't it make you wonder what he's hiding?"

"No," said her partner, "and I don't want to know."

Just then, just as they stepped down off the last step onto the second floor of the basement, the muzak came to a crashing halt, the lights flickered, the air pressure changed, and the walls seemed to warp around them. "Shit." Terazuma looked around. "It wasn't me."

"Relax," said Wakaba, who out of the three of them was the only one to actually beam at the eerie event surrounding them. "I was expecting something like this. I mean, I couldn't be sure by Hakushaku-sama's description just what their presence here would be like, but this is amazing, just like a gate event only smaller—"

"Wakaba-chan, speak Japanese, not Ghostbusters!"

"It's a random encounter!"

And with those words, a trio of zombies appeared before them, their skin wrinkled, their clothes tattered and falling off, glaring at them with dead, hungry eyes and moaning and gnashing their teeth; and behind them crouched creatures from out of the depths of hell whose long fangs dripped with ichor, and who exuded a foul stench and a strong hatred for the human race.

Staring them down fearlessly, Wakaba twirled her halberd over her head and gripped it firmly in a ready position, her mismatched eyes gleaming with the light of adventure as she said, "It's show time!"

—
tsuzuku