"An exorcist?" Terazuma said as he looked at the business card in Wakaba's hand.

"Card-carrying, no less," she said. "You have to be certified to be an exorcist now?"

"Well, you can't just have anyone going around waving a crucifix about, can you?" said Kira as though they should have known better. "It's a dangerous business for any mortal, not to mention the consequences for the rest of the universe could be devastating if you didn't know exactly what you were doing."

"That doesn't explain why you're here, though," Tsuzuki said. "I might be mistaken, but I didn't think these things," he indicated the smoldering beast, "were your forte."

"Window dressing, Tsuzuki-san. I'm after the same thing you three are, right? The demon they call Fluffy."

"But we were assigned to that job," said Tsuzuki with a bit of the irritation at being dragged out in the first place on the one night he felt ill resurfacing. "It seems awfully pointless for Hakushaku to call us all the way out here if he already had someone working the case."

"Hakushaku? Ah." She snapped her fingers. "That clears things up for me, all right."

The other two in their party were starting to look impatient. "And how is that?"

"I'm not working for Hakushaku. I haven't even spoken with him. It was King Enma who sent me. I owed him a favor for all the second chances, so . . ."

Wakaba was surprised. "King Enma? What does he have to do with this? We were told this was a minor demon."

"Yes, well, I'm not surprised," Kira sighed, rubbing the back of her neck. "Leave it to Hakushaku to make it sound like Fluffy was his esteemed dinner guest or something who got lost on the way to the toilet. I'll explain everything. But not here: the walls have ears. And eyes, and everything in between. Come. I know somewhere safe."

With that she led the way down the gigantic corridors, Tsuzuki keeping pace beside her and the other two following close behind.

"How've you been doing since we last met, Tsuzuki-san?" Kira said by way of obligatory conversation. "Lord Ashtaroth hasn't been harassing you about joining his dragon cavalry, has he? I asked him to lay off for a while."

"I haven't heard a word. Actually, we were pretty busy with this occult creep from Hisoka's past for a while; and then Hisoka went and unleashed Kurikara from his prison in Gensoukai, and that shook things up something awful — thought we were going to have some major dimensional paradox on our hands — but it all worked out in the end. Of course, then we had to tie up some loose ends regarding his family curse, which none of us had had any idea about beforehand, so that was a pain in the ass — no pun intended—"

"Yeah," Kira edged in, "I don't really care."

Tsuzuki's shoulders slumped.

"Speaking of Kurosaki, you two see any progress yet?" she asked to the ceiling to make herself look indifferent.

Tsuzuki started. "W-what do you mean, progress?"

"Oh, come on, Tsuzuki-san," Wakaba piped up from behind. "Don't make us go through this again."

"Go through what?"

"Your chemistry."

Terazuma laughed, causing his partner to glare at him. "You two keep on dreaming," he said with a smile. "I don't doubt Tsuzuki's got a weak spot for high school boys, but Kurosaki's an okay kid. Straight as an arrow."

Tsuzuki couldn't help but go for the gibe. "You say that as though you have personal experience. Did you get dumped, Hajime-chan?"

The other's smile dropped instantly. "Come again?"

"Ah, cheer up, Terazuma, there are other fish in the sea."

That tore it. The two stopped on a landing and confronted one another. "You couldn't keep your mouth shut, could you, Tsuzuki? You just had to go there. Fine. You want me to say it, I'll say it! Yes, I like Kurosaki better than you. There, you happy? Because he actually uses that thing on his shoulders, unlike some jackasses I know around here!"

"Wow, I didn't know you had such self-loathing. Is this something new, speaking of yourself in the third-person?"

"That's it. Screw seniority, your ass is grass, Tsuzuki." And with that he grabbed Tsuzuki in a headlock.

"I'm an invalid, you git!" Tsuzuki retorted, elbowing him in the gut. "I'll puke on you!"

"Are they always like this?" Kira asked Wakaba under her breath as they edged past the two men.

"Like you wouldn't believe."

Kira rolled her eyes. "Men can be so infantile."

"Tell me about it. I swear, it feels like I'm babysitting half the time."

They were just heading up a second flight of stairs when Wakaba happened to glance down at the GPS again, only to see it was working for the first time since they had entered the bottom of the basement. That news brought an end to petty squables.

"That makes sense," said Terazuma. "I can feel that damn parasite pacing around again." He rubbed his temple. "I could really use a cigarette. . . ."

Tsuzuki glanced at his cell phone. "Huh. Mail from Tatsumi. . . ."

"Then that means we've reached basement level six," Kira said as he checked it. "We should have a brief respite from—"

She never got to finish as just then she tripped on one of the stairs. It was not a bad fall, but Terazuma was there to catch her anyway, one hand gripping her arm and the other snaking around her waist. Wakaba halted in her tracks and Tsuzuki looked up from the cellphone, both holding their breaths for the inevitable.

But it never came. Terazuma did not transform. Instead he said, "Watch your step, kid," and released her and walked on ahead indifferently.

Not knowing what to expect, and refusing to acknowledge the favor, Kira cleared her throat and followed. But if either of them had looked back they would have caught the unmistakable look of jealousy on Wakaba's face. She huffed past Tsuzuki, any sense of newly gained kinship with the other woman clearly gone as they pushed onward.

—

After all that had happened tonight, there was little more in the Castle of Candles that could surprise the three shinigami. But B6 sure came close. It was as though they had wandered onto the set of some theme park's animatronic boat ride. All around them in the dark alleyways lit with the eerie glow of thousands of red paper lanterns were storefronts ripped from a bygone era. Noodleshops and tailors and fishmongers, old signs with exotic names, everything on a quaint, slightly smaller than life-size scale, the illusion ruined only by the overwhelming stench of chemicals and algae.

Well, that and the characters who inhabited this floor. The streets were teeming with little amphibious men — and women and children — going about their various businesses with hunched gaits and balding pates.

"Kappa," Terazuma breathed around his cigarette, hardly able to believe his eyes.

"The place is swarming with them," said Wakaba.

"I should think so," said Kira, not missing a beat. "This is where they live. The theory is, if they have a place to call their own, they'll be less likely to wander around where they don't belong. King Enma's—"

"Got a fondness for them. Yeah, we heard already," said Terazuma, wrinkling his nose. He added as an aside to Wakaba, "Makes sense to keep them here, anyway. Bet for all his all-mightiness he's not so fond of that smell."

Meanwhile Kira led them to a street vendor, said something to the kappa in the chef's hat behind the bar, and sat down on the bench in front of it. "You'll need to replenish some of your bodies' sugar for the next part of the operation," she explained to the shinigami. "Fluffy's known as a trickster and master of delusions, so your brain needs as much glucose as it can get to be in top working order when we confront him."

"I don't know if I'd really trust any of the food here — er, no offense," Wakaba said, glancing warily at the chef.

That made Tsuzuki look green. "I still don't feel so well."

"I know what you mean," Kira said, "but you can at least be sure the sake and the cucumbers are safe." She indicated the plate the chef put before them. "Kappa maki. From the horse's mouth."

Feeling even more uncomfortable thanks to her choice of trope, Terazuma and Wakaba tentatively took their cucumber rolls in hand.

The chef, seeing a momentary lapse in work, folded his leathery arms in front of him and leaned over the bar. "You are shinigami, here for the demon?" he asked them in a thick, lispy accent.

"That's right," said Wakaba.

The kappa humphed in satisfaction. "It is about time you showed up. We can no longer leave the level because of those undead things he brings here. They give our children nightmares, threatening to eat their brains." The irony of his words seemed to be lost on him.

"There are beings here from all corners of the basement," an attractive woman with long, trailing hair said as she leaned her head toward Tsuzuki.

He turned to look at her and nearly fell off his seat. The woman was actually sitting at the end of the bar, and a long, serpentine neck joined her head to her body. She was not alone; a couple other rokurokkubi nodded sinuously beside her, and now that he was looking for them, he noticed other species of apparition sitting under the awning of a restaurant, and walking the street in small groups.

"We came here to escape the disturbances," said the rokurokkubi, "but there were many who could not make it—"

"Minds addled by the airwaves!" said one of her companions. "Fortunately for us it is a physical impossibility for them to penetrate bee-six."

"Yes, how fortunate," said the other two, nodding again.

That explained at least some of the behavior the shinigami had encountered that night, they must have thought as they exchanged glances. "What, exactly, is Fluffy doing?" Wakaba asked them.

"Trying to break through the firewall."

"Yes, but, I mean, what is this disturbance you mentioned?"

"You experienced it too, didn't you?" said the first rokurokkubi. "The fluctuations in space? Beings randomly appearing and disappearing?"

"It isn't just within the Castle, either," Tsuzuki spoke up, gesturing to his cellphone. "According to Tatsumi, these fluctuations are occurring all over Juuohcho."

"This is bad," Kira muttered under her breath.

"What does that mean?" said Wakaba, at once anxiously and somewhat eagerly. "Does he have gatekeeper-type abilities?"

"That's what we have to find out. Okay, we know he's trying to break through the firewall; that's a given; but how, he's doing it doesn't fit his usual modus operandi. Why, on the other hand—"

Kira shot the rokurokkubi over Tsuzuki's shoulder a cold glare; and with a shrug of her shoulders the woman reluctantly retracted her head.

"Here's the low-down. Hakushaku was holding Fluffy in the Castle pending trial when Fluffy made his escape. He was suppose to appear before King Enma as a material witness in a case involving a batch of cursed bootleg video games. The items in question were under Enmacho's watch after incidents reported on the continent, but somehow someone managed to sneak one in under the radar, sold it to some high school kids, and a string of mysterious deaths ensued."

"And they fingered Fluffy in their judgments," Terazuma guessed.

"Yes, but he claims to have gotten the game from someone else. A colleague of sorts. Enma — God bless him — has half a mind to believe he's telling the truth, in which case it's imperative he get to the source of the operation. Anyway, apparently Hakushaku then expressed some intellectual interest in Fluffy and asked Enma's permission to house him until the appropriate time. . . ."

"Of course," said Tsuzuki. "How better to improve your repertoire than learn from the master of illusion himself."

"And we all know what became of that."

"Which explains why we wouldn't get the whole story out of Hakushaku," Terazuma said. "And why we got called in to take care of his mess. It would look pretty bad if he let Enma down after pulling a favor like that."

"But by your presence here," said Wakaba, "it seems Enma already has found out."

"That's obvious, isn't it?" said Kira. "But it's essential that the whole matter be kept as discrete as possible, before it becomes something more than just an embarrassment and compromise the investigation. Which is where I come in. While you three are at some advantage already being dead and all, I have leverage as an exorcist, and one in the confidence of Lord Ashtaroth at that."

"Why does that name sound familiar?" Terazuma asked.

"He's the prince of hell Tsuzuki is sort of an estranged brigade commander under now," his partner reminded him.

Terazuma spun to face Kira. "What's all this 'power of Christ' crap, then? You mean to tell me after all that you work for the Devil?"

"Not the Devil. A devil," she corrected him. "It's not like I sold my soul or anything. He gives the orders, I deal out punishment to those who go against them. Besides, someone in my position can't really be picky about finding work. The Catholic church isn't exactly an equal opportunity employer, you know."

"Hear hear," said Wakaba.

"So, you're a mercenary!" said Terazuma, waving the remainder of his cucumber roll uncouthly in Kira's direction.

She shrugged. "If you want to put it that way."

"I don't know. This smells fishier by the minute, and I'm not talking about this level."

"Look, I don't particularly care what you think of me. But if we pool our strengths together on this, it should come off without a hitch." With great difficulty that showed on her face, Kira extended her hand to Terazuma. "What do you say, Terazuma-san? Are you willing to put aside our differences if I am?"

"What the hell," he said glumly, taking her hand but avoiding eye contact.

That got a small smile out of Kira, but a look of even greater displeasure from Wakaba. Of course, Tsuzuki didn't want to say it aloud, but it was obvious to him how similar the two were in personality: their stubborn manners and difficulty asking for help. No wonder it seemed to take both of them an awkward amount of effort to shake hands rather than butt heads.

"If you three are ready," Kira said, rising, "I think we should be heading up."

"Be careful," the first rokurokkubi spoke up as she sipped her wine. "This Castle is no place for a mortal."

Kira turned warily. "Who says I'm mortal?"

The apparition smiled a creepy smile. "Deary, I could sense the warm blood running through your veins from a hundred meters off," she purred. Taking a small object out of her kimono sleeve, she tossed it in Kira's direction. "In case you run up against a wall."

"Thanks," Kira said, glancing uneasily at it, ". . . I think."

"No need," said rokurokkubi so nonchalant. "And, deary, loosen up a little, will you? You only live once, you know."

Kira went red at that; but the other three had no time to ponder the meaning of the exchange as she grumbled impatiently, "Come on, come on; we haven't got all night," and walked away with a sudden purpose to put as much distance between herself and the street vendor's clientele as possible. They got up slowly, stretching their exhausted limbs and preparing themselves to once again step into the unknown.

—
tbc