Providence once again found the three in the basement of the Castle of Candles running for their afterlives. Luckily, zombies are not incredibly fast, and they hoped that at a sustained jog even Tsuzuki could manage they might be able to make it through this complex of tunnels seemingly made by giants to the sixth level with nothing more than the loud gurgling sound lapping at their heels, or at least to some place safe.

They stopped at one point to take a breath.

"Where the hell are they coming from?" Terazuma said. "The way this place is built, it sounds like they could be all around us."

"I'll check the motion detecting radar," said Wakaba, taking out the GPS.

The other two stared over her shoulder. "That thing has a motion detector?"

"How come that works just fine?"

They watched as the tiny red blips on the screen came closer, a great mass of red following behind at the borders of the radar. "One hundred meters and closing," Wakaba said. "Eighty."

Terazuma peered into the dark with his hand raised as though shielding his eyes from it. "Do you see anything?" Tsuzuki asked.

"Sixty meters . . . fifty meters . . ."

"Nothing!" Terazuma said.

"They're right on top of us!" Wakaba said suddenly.

"What?" Tsuzuki started. "That's impossible! What happened to the other fifty meters?"

"Heads up!" said Terazuma suddenly and aimed his shot up, just as one of the zombies came flying through the air toward them, its distended arms reaching. It was stopped mid-scream as its head was blown to pieces. Then Tsuzuki grabbed an enthralled Wakaba by the arm and took off again down the corridor, Terazuma reloading as he backpedaled after them.

As they ran, the hallway opened up to a cathedral-like chamber of gigantic columns that seemed to extend beyond their sight in every direction, including up. They cut this way and that between the columns, trying to shake their pursuers, all the while hoping an exit lay somewhere on the other side. The call for brains was not lessening behind them.

Suddenly, the path was blocked before them. Zombies that had been alerted ahead of their position filled the corridor in an almost smugly calm manner in the dim, knowing they had cornered the warm-bodied shinigami. The three retreated, thinking they would try to find a way around the blockage, but were inevitably cut off. With nowhere else to go, the shinigami found themselves crowding into one of the crossroads, unaware that they were treading on a large carved diadem bearing strange symbols. The zombies completely occupied their attentions.

"They've got us completely surrounded. . . . Again," Tsuzuki said, brandishing the rusty but useable sword he had nearly tripped over a while back. "Any suggestions?"

"I don't know," said Terazuma. "I'm fresh out of ideas."

Wakaba pressed her hands to her temples, now officially panicking. "This is it!" she said. "We're never getting out of here! Game over, man!"

"Pull yourself together, woman!" said Terazuma, taking her in both hands and shaking her by her shoulders. "Remember you're a shinigami!"

"Hajime," she said staring, still being shaken, "you're touching me and Kuro-chan isn't coming out!"

"You're right! What the hell is going on?"

"Maybe we should try harder!" Wakaba tried, and proceeded to press herself against her partner in ways that were not entirely innocent. "Good plan," Terazuma agreed, grabbing her rear with both hands.

"I realize you two may never get another chance to do this," Tsuzuki yelled back at them, "but would you mind waiting until a time we don't have ten thousand bloodthirsty zombies trying to tear us apart!"

"He's right," said Terazuma, holding Wakaba to his chest dramatically like he was the hero of some post-war monster movie. "It's the final countdown. They may tear us down, but we'll go down fighting. Nothing's gonna stop us—"

"As long as you've got my back, I feel I can take anything they throw at me," said Wakaba, pulling out her MAC-10s.

"Just aim for the head, partner."

The three prepared themselves for the flood, weapons out and poised for gratuitous displays of carnage. The zombies dragged slowly nearer and closed them in, baring menacing grins at the promise of tasty flesh.

Then, quite abruptly, they stopped. One by one the corpses' growls died down and they stopped in their tracks. If it were even possible, their decaying faces seemed to look around with worry. As one, they suddenly turned around and retreated, even faster than they had come, screaming as they went. Some of them shimmied like spiders up the columns out of sight.

"They're retreating?" said Wakaba, staring incredulously after them.

"Just when we were getting started," said Terazuma.

"I don't like the looks of this," Tsuzuki said in an ominous stage whisper. "They dug too deep. Drums . . . drums in the abyss!"

As though on cue, the ground shook and a different roar could be heard over the terrified monkey-like screech of the fleeing zombies. Seeing it as their chance, the shinigami took off for what they thought was the exit again. But as they neared, they saw the portal illuminated with a fiery glow. They slid to a halt.

A great creature maneuvered its bulk through the doorway, roaring and shaking its head — which sported two very large and wicked tusks — back and forth as it did so. It was massive, like two bull African elephants taped together to make one giant bull elephant with six legs. Its muscles rippled with each step under the immense strain of moving its awesome bulk. Its flat nostrils flared with anger at being awoken from its slumber of ages, its tongue testing the air for the scent of the perpetrators. These details were a little hazy, however, seeing as its entire body was engulfed in flame, from its massive feet to its narrow eyes.

The shinigami gaped. This particular night, rather than quit while it had a good thing going, had decided for consistency's sake to once again go from bad to hopeless doom.

"You've gotta be freaking kidding me!" said Terazuma, one step away from tearing out his hair.

"You don't think there's a chance it's here to help?" Wakaba tried feebly.

In response, the beast caught them in its sights, opened its bony maw, and sent a blast of furnace-hot breath in their direction. Wakaba had a defense shield up in an instant to deflect it around them; but the gauntlet had been thrown, and there were no two ways about the fiery beast's intent. "I'd take that as a no," said Terazuma.

The beast made its way toward them, gnashing its jaws and swinging its tusks and belching fire, which the three dodged and deflected, counterattacking with charms and shotgun slugs that had about as much effect on its advance as flies on a charging rhinoceros.

"We're just spinning our wheels here! We have to beat this thing somehow," Wakaba yelled after narrowly dodging a flaming tusk, "before we're all burnt to a crisp!"

"How much you wanna bet it's another one of Hakushaku's little guard dogs," Tsuzuki said between shield charms, which crisped between his fingers with each direct hit. "The corruption must have hypersensitized it or something. If we can just get around . . ."

"I don't care what it is," Terazuma growled. "In case you haven't noticed, it thinks we're the bad guys — like everything else in this damn castle."

"I'm with him on this one, Tsuzuki," said Wakaba. "Better it than us."

A plan was rapidly forming itself in Tsuzuki's head. "Just follow my lead," he said as he reached for a handful of fuda from his inside breast pocket and concentrated on his target. "How about a little fire retardant, scarecrow?" he said as he let fly a rapid volley. The paper slips burst into a sticky gray foam when they hit the beast's front left leg square on.

The fire went out of the appendage with a hiss and a cloud of black smoke; and the fiery beast let out a rumbling, low-frequency whimper of disbelief as it reluctantly toppled over the cooled and hardened leg.

"Right, I can take it from here," Wakaba said, her confidence returning, as she leaped into the air and raised the halberd now glowing with a spell materialized by a pentagram to plunge it into the beast's thick skull. "Men!" she yelled, as though it were a simple kendo match.

For a moment it seemed like she had connected.

Then, finding some great reserve of strength, the beast roared its rage to the vaulted ceiling and reared high up into the air, picking its two front legs — which could now be seen to wield deadly scythe-like claws — off the ground, and finding it an opportune moment to unfurl its mighty wingspan. The halberd was reduced to vapors in Wakaba's hands as a new surge of white fire followed suit. Startled, she was nearly thrown wide by the beast, but managed to leap clear and join the others, falling to one knee out of breath, her school uniform skirt singed. "Okay, now it's mad," she said.

"Things just keep getting better," said Terazuma sardonically. "Quick, change me into Kokushungei!"

"I can't! We've already established he won't respond to my advances!"

"I know, but seeing as we're screwed, can't you just hold me anyway?"

"Leave this one to me." Tsuzuki pushed up his sleeve like a character in an action anime. "It's time to fight fire with fire!"

Terazuma turned to him like he was daft. "Are you sure that's really a good idea?"

"You got any better ones? Besides." He smiled devilishly. "It's always worked for me before."

The other two exchanged glances and shrugged. Together they raised a barrier while Tsuzuki did his thing.

He clasped his hands together and closed his eyes, concentrating on the interweb of time-space as he began to chant in a low voice: "Roaring red flame who rules destruction and rebirth, piercing the heavens on wings of devastation, reveal thyself before me—"

His eyes snapped open. "Suzaku!"

The swirl of fire that usually surrounded him failed to appear and what little wind resistance he had managed to conjure dissipated. No great fiery phoenix. No nothing.

Tsuzuki stood still in disbelief.

Terazuma shook himself out of a stare. "What just happened?"

"I don't know. I've never had any problems like that before." Tsuzuki tried snapping his fingers. "Come forth, Suzaku!"

Nothing.

"Thy master humbly entreats thee. Please," he tried with a whine. "This is no time to bear a grudge. Breath of solar wind, yadda yadda — appear before me, Byakko! Come on, don't fail me now, you son of a—"

Meanwhile, he didn't see the beast advancing toward him, nursing the one foreleg he had incapacitated for the moment and raising the other to strike him down in revenge. Lucky for him, his two coworkers were able to pull him out of the way in time to miss everything but the stifling breeze cast by the descending arm. The beast roared again at being foiled and set off after them in its grotesque insectoid sprint through the tight forest of pillars as the three once again ran for their lives.

"I don't get it," Tsuzuki was saying. "Why won't they answer my call? Unless this is a situation for one earthenware pot—"

"That won't work either," Wakaba told him. "It's the same thing with Kuro-chan; he won't come out no matter how much I touch Hajime. Somehow, the connection with Gensoukai has been severed on this level."

"But that's impossible!" said Terazuma.

"Yet somehow it is happening."

"I don't believe this. . . . You mean we're all on our own with this one?"

Confirming his worst fears, the beast suddenly appeared through the corridor beside them, nearly broadsiding them with another eardrum-shattering scream.

It looked like this would surely be the end, when suddenly the monster recoiled as it was splashed in the face with water thrown from no one knew where. Squinting its eyes in pain, the beast tried with its forefeet to wipe the water from its face, but the liquid, like an acid, continued to hiss as it corroded a way through the stony outer layers of flesh.

While it was distracted, a dark but distinctly human figure inserted itself between the trio and the beast. "Shinigami," it said derisively, the voice androgynous, "don't you know you're out of your league?" The person seemed as ominous as the monster, dressed all in black vestments that fluttered in the hot wind and backlit by the blaze, but by the way he faced the beast it seemed he wasn't there to stop the shinigami. At least, not for the moment.

He unsheathed a sword that shone like a star in the bright light, meeting the beast head-on with the confidence of a lion tamer as it sought to eliminate the new threat. "Yes, that's a good boy . . . I'm the one you want," the newcomer said steadily as the beast, as though bewitched, kept its hungry eyes trained on him and turned its attention from the shinigami.

Then it struck, its jaws snapping loudly shut like the jaws of a steel trap as it tried to bite the newcomer. The newcomer, however, nimbly dodged it — once, then twice — then swung his sword. Rearing up to avoid the blade, the beast swatted at its attacker in a manner that, from the perspective of the other three, resembled a cat playing with its prey.

"Now's our chance," Terazuma yelled to the others. "If we hurry, maybe we can reach Fluffy without any more distractions."

"But we can't just leave that guy to fend for himself," said Wakaba, looking torn herself.

Of course, Kannuki was right, he thought; though if they stayed, it might turn into a slaughter. Their slaughter. "Damn it . . ." Terazuma growled. He sent a fuda flying like an arrow straight to its mark, and just in time, as it deflected the wing that nearly crushed their heretofore rescuer.

Tsuzuki dashed forward to a better striking distance, put his hands together and uttered a binding spell. A translucent white light enveloped the beast, whose surprise was mirrored on the newcomer's fire-lit face. The beast's instinct was to fight it with all its strength, and it took immense focus on the part of Tsuzuki to maintain the field of resistance.

Taking advantage of the opportunity, the newcomer gathered his resolve and raised the sword again. "Lord, give me strength," he muttered into the base of the blade, "to defeat the armies of darkness that corrupt these halls . . . through your angel Michael, help me to seal up the door to whatever hell they have opened, and restore the order of the righteous. The power of Christ . . ."

The handguard spread open and the blade elongated with a mechanical shing, transforming into an upside-down cross.

"The power of Christ . . ."

The beast's eyes narrowed as it turned to face the newcomer defiantly.

"The power of Christ compels you!"

With those words, and blade gleaming in the fiery glow, the newcomer flew over the beast's head and brought the pommel of his sword down hard on the juncture at the back of its skull. A long, tense moment passed, and the shinigami held their breaths. Then the beast went ragdoll, collapsing chin first on the stone floor. The fire that had raged along its tough skin dimmed to a ripple of embers but did not go out.

Satisfied, the newcomer pushed a lock of long hair out of his eyes and sheathed his sword, whistling at the gargantuan body that now lay almost motionless before them but for a slow inflation and deflation of the stomach.

"Well, that thing won't be bothering us for a while," the newcomer said. "I'd reckon it should be chasing rabbits for a good four or five hours at least. We'll be far away from here by then."

"What are you, Luke Skywalker?" said Terazuma. "You are not going to tell me it was that easy."

Their savior shrugged, and turned to them so that they were able to see him in a better light.

Or rather, to see her, for the face and figure were clearly those of a young woman — a fair-complexioned and mysterious gothic beauty — though her curves were dampened by the cut of the long, solid black, priest's vestments, and her light hair was cut short like a boy's in the back. "Hello again, Tsuzuki-san," she said in a dangerously smooth voice, "Enma-cho's super-elite."

Tsuzuki waved back feebly. "It's been a while. Not long enough, actually . . ."

"You know this guy?" said an incredulous Terazuma, not without some displeasure at having to be rescued.

"We sorta worked together on a case. . . ."

"I can understand your presence here," the young woman continued, ignoring him, "but what were they thinking sending the Summons Division to fix Hakushaku's mess? Really, you people have no idea what you're up against."

Terazuma went red. "Excuse me? Look, we didn't ask for your help, and we were doing just fine up until a few minutes ago, so why don't you get lost and let us struggling salarymen do our job, huh?"

"Um . . ." Wakaba began uneasily.

The young woman turned to glare at him. "Is this how you thank the person who's just saved your ass?"

"Hey, it was mutual, pal! But fine, whatever," Terazuma grumbled. "My ass thanks you."

The other frowned. "Considering the circumstances, I'll let your rudeness slide this time; but you'll be wise to watch your tongue in the future. Allow me to introduce myself," she said with a flip of the hair. "My name is Tsukiori Kira, exorcist extraordinaire — dispatcher of ghosts, demons, and all manner of undead, at your service. My card. . . ."

—
hasta luego