I hear about how much flak Apocalypse gets for how happy the Bonds ending is compared to every other ending in the franchise. Then I realized that it had to be a happy ending. If Nanashi didn't make that contract with Dagda, then Flynn would have gone with the Neutral ending, which is already a good ending by SMT standards. But because of Nanashi's meddling, Krishna was unsealed and the three-way war got tons of people killed. Nanashi had to get a better ending than Flynn, or else everything he did was pointless.
On the subject of Apocalypse, I read SMT4's Demonic Gene manga. I didn't like it, but the ending was similar to the Massacre ending. Flynn, who is some extradimensional entity in this version, is dissatisfied with the outcome. So he goes to a void where seven balls of light are floating, and he sends one up, and it turns into a new world almost identical to the last, just like what Nanashi does.
I'm playing Dx2, and it's okay. It's addictive, but not satisfying. The overall plot doesn't go anywhere, and the subplots are recycled without the same depth as the originals. The Liberators are more like a bunch of quirks slapped together than characters; SMT1's Law and Chaos heroes had more development. The Acolytes are generically evil; they don't even seem to have a core philosophy, unlike Nihilo and the Messians. The big reveal about Einherjar and Astaroth is underwhelming; it's out of nowhere, impacts nothing, and doesn't really capture the idea of 'small fraction of the war between Law and Chaos.' Astaroth being lawful and not being Ishtar is weird. I think I'd be a lot more interested if they had canon characters as cameos; I like Fire Emblem Heroes because they have everyone. I guess the appeal is having new demons, but the turnover rate is so high that I can't enjoy that. Still, the new 3D designs are good; Illuyanka looks incredible.
I'll get Grimoire of Souls when it comes out, but only if it's free.
Woo hoo, Simon and Richter are in Smash now! I found out when The Onion ran an article about Smash characters intimidating their opponents by intentionally wounding themselves, and Simon's was handing over the Vampire Killer and asking for a whipping.
Just as a heads up, some characters who appear to be OCs will actually be canon characters. And any SMT or Castlevania is fair game. Yes, that includes Persona.
If any character uses religious curses when they have every reason to avoid Christianity, remember that unless noted, everyone's speaking Japanese. I choose to use religious curses because there aren't many other mild English curses; 'crap' and 'ass' can only go so far. Avoiding religious curses would force everyone to choose between, essentially, 'sugar' and 'shit.'
As a disclaimer, the views of the characters are based off of what I think they would hold based on their life experiences, and are not necessarily my own. I don't like making characters mouthpieces or strawmen, and I think it's especially annoying when it's not even relevant. Little things like favorite foods or least favorite subjects don't count.
Who knows what:
The demon summoner in Haruhata: Kazuya is the only one who knows it's him. Yoko and Arikado knows of him.
Dracula's reincarnation is alive: Soma, Mina, Yoko, Julius, Arikado, and Hammer all know it's Soma (or just the Castlevania cast).
The Demi-Fiend in Haruhata: Only Naoki knows.
The Agency is doing something in Haruhata: Yoko, Arikado, and the agents know what they're doing. Soma and Mina just know that they're there.
The Hunt Begins
"Justice is an integral pillar of society; one does not comprehend how important it is for wrongs to be righted until they have no one to depend upon save themselves. When someone else inevitably attempts to fill that void, endeavor to aid them in their mission. However, know that they are just as human and fallible as you, and that power will corrupt them. It is your responsibility to both aid and check them."
-How to Survive the End of the World, by Kazuya Kawamoto. Chapter 10: Living with Other People. The rest of the passage was inarticulate ranting about how he never deserved to be arrested, not even for taking bribes.
The funny thing about rumors is that every time you hear one, you get the feeling that you've already heard it. This doesn't just apply to bits of adultery gossip or ghost stores that are little more than fill-in-the-blank games of Mad Libs, such as, "Did you hear that _(name of person) ran off with their _(occupation)? _(exclamation)! How _(adverb) it was of them!" or "The ghost of _(celebrity) haunts the _(noun) in the _(noun), and _(verb ending in s) anyone who _(verb ending in s) it!" This also applies to rumors such as, "Our town is actually a spaceship built by the ancient Mayans," or, "Wearing the emblem of the local high school will protect you from being attacked by a man wearing a paper bag over his head." You've never heard a rumor for the first time.
In the city of Haruhata, the primary rumor was that at night, something lurked the winding streets, abducting the unwary. What exactly it was that was doing the abducting varied with the telling. Elementary school students assumed that it was yet another ploy by their parents to keep them from roaming about after curfew, and generally heard that it was monsters who ate bad children. Junior and senior high school students spread it like a ghost story in hushed voices, and spoke of ghosts, aliens, and demons from hell that wanted aimless revenge, dissection, or souls of the damned, and not always in that order. Adults chatted about serial killers and youkai, beings that generally didn't need a reason for whatever they did.
What gave that rumor such fertile ground was the fact that there was evidence. Something was happening. People were vanishing. The newspapers had plenty of articles that their readers were free to skim over during breakfast, use for pet litterbox lining, or even pin to walls next to maps and bits of colored yarn. While the papers generally had less lurid content than the rumors, hardly anyone contested the skeleton of facts they presented. The cases started around November. Victims ranged from the ages of fifteen to fifty; three in five were male. An average of one person per week went missing, but sometimes it spiked to as many as seven or eight. Many families and roommates of the vanished gave statements about how their _(relative) was a good _(noun), even if _(pronoun) would often go out at night. They all agreed that on the night of their disappearance, their _(relative) had left the house and never came back.
Naoki Kashima, like many civilians, couldn't remember when he first heard about the missing people. Looking back, he felt ashamed that he did nothing, especially when strange murders in the park was the first warning sign of the end of the world.
However, Naoki could pinpoint the moment when he started caring.
It was another frigid January afternoon, according to the internet. Naoki didn't allow himself to feel the cold if he could help it. He'd had the Wadatsumi Magatama in him since October. The Misama Magatama had the drawback of making him languish in the warm dorms and steamy baths, and while the Masakados Magatama protected him from ice magic, it didn't do a thing about mundane cold. The only thing he had to worry about with Wadatsumi was sticking his fingers in a socket or being struck by lightning, and even then it just hurt like hell.
Naoki sat at his desk, clad in a threadbare sweater that he didn't need, eating a freshly made sandwich. It was chicken and lettuce on rye, with a thick layer of mustard spread on the toasted bread. It crunched deliciously between his teeth, the cool layer of chicken melding perfectly with the still-warm bread.
Even though he was enjoying a meal, Naoki's senses were on edge, honed to catch his roommates' footfalls. It wasn't hard for someone used to ambushes to listen for footsteps, especially when the architecture was so convenient. A flight of stone steps led to the main entrance of the dorm, flanked on either side by two wings. Naoki's room was on the second floor of the east wing, its only window facing the steps, giving perfect acoustics for an eavesdropper. Those same qualities made it annoyingly loud when students went out partying on weekends, however.
Scarcely ten minutes before, Naoki had finished swapping his desk for his roommate's. He'd picked the one belonging to Daisuke Higawa partially because he was a jerk, but mostly because Kazuya and Soma would notice. Kazuya hated it when anyone as much nudged a single one of his books out of place, and Soma kept his desk so messy that it would have taken forever to reassemble the mess. Naoki had an excellent memory, good enough to memorize the layouts of entire dungeons, but there were too many pieces to bother with. Daisuke wasn't a very neat person, but his desk had fewer moving parts than Soma's.
Naoki was halfway through his sandwich when the sound of old, expensive boots on stone steps filled his ears. You could tell a lot about a person by their shoes. This pair, for instance, was a pair of walking boots designed to last the wearer a lifetime—or two, if necessary. They were probably ridiculously expensive when they were bought, but the price was negligible compared to the cost of a lifetime of worn-out shoes. It spoke of an owner who never had to worry about buying anything, but worried all the same to stay that way.
The building's electronic lock clicked open. There was about five minutes of silence, allowing for the wearer to change their outdoor shoes into indoor slippers, and then the door in the hallway creaked open. There was a flop, and then a slap, and then another flop, the telltale sign of someone walking on the balls of their feet in slippers too big for them.
The electronic lock to the room opened. "Hi Soma," said Naoki without looking up.
"Hello, Naoki," said Soma Cruz, putting his shoes down on the rack. Soma was very tall and wiry. He was in the parkour club, and he always had a habit of walking and running on the balls of his feet after practice. "How was your day?"
"Good. How was yours?"
"Good." Soma sat down at his desk and opened one of his handheld games, probably tower defense. This was normal for them. From what little they saw of each other, Naoki liked Soma; he kept his mess on his own section of the room, didn't make a lot of noise, and he could intimidate Daisuke into backing down whenever he tried throwing his weight around.
Not ten minutes later, the building's lock clicked open without warning. This time, even with Naoki's strained ears, he could barely make out soft taps on the tiled floors. The dorm lock opened, and in walked Naoki's second roommate, shoes in hand.
His boots were expensive and built to last, like Soma's, but for completely different kinds of terrain. They were thick, heavy wedges of rubber, leather, and metal, designed to crush snow, rocks, and small children underfoot. There were three kinds of people who bought these kinds of shoes. The first were people who used them. The second were people who wanted people to think that they were the kind of people who used them. The third were people who wanted a pair of snow boots and thought that expensive stuff was better.
"Hi, Kazuya," said Naoki.
"Good afternoon, Naoki," said Kazuya Kawamoto. Kazuya looked generally unremarkable. He was about average height, average build, and no visible muscles or paunch, but the way he moved set Naoki's nerves on edge. No one who could walk so quietly in those rubber monstrosities could be normal.
Kazuya immediately sat down at his desk and opened up a sleek laptop that he claimed to have built himself. This too was normal.
Naoki finished his sandwich. He looked around for something to pretend to do while he waited for Daisuke's arrival, and settled upon a textbook. Japanese composition was boring, but he didn't have to pay attention. All he had to do was wait for the sound of… of…
What did Daisuke's shoes sound like, again?
Naoki gave a quick glance at the outdoor shoe rack. Half of the shoes belonged to Daisuke, and those were bought that year. Only one pair was Naoki's, and he'd had that pair since middle school. Daisuke had leather sneakers that made high-pitched bangs, snow boots that made comforting thudding noises, sandals that snapped as he walked… which pair was missing, again? Ah, yes, the fancy pair of black boots that made dramatically loud taps on almost any surface.
Naoki could describe Daisuke's shoes, but what did they sound like?
When was the last time I heard them?
When was the last time I saw Daisuke?
A jolt of adrenaline filled Naoki's veins, as if he had drank one of Kazuya's espresso shots without permission and heard the door open behind him. He hid his face as best as he could from his roommates and checked his laptop for news articles.
Come on, come on, Naoki thought to himself, as his outdated laptop slowly opened the web page.
Finally, Naoki found the missing persons list he was looking for.
Natsumi Kuroba, age 25, last seen December 24.
Kenji Yamamoto, age 42, last seen January 3.
Daisuke Higawa, age 19, last seen January 13.
Naoki looked at the calendar. January 22. Daisuke's been gone for over a week, and no one noticed? A hot trickle of shame ran down his face. Soma's always off with his girlfriend, and Kazuya can't be bothered to take his nose out of his computer. If anyone should have noticed, it would be me.
As if moving on autopilot, Naoki shut his laptop, and prepared to leave. He took his wallet out of his pocket, removed every card with his name on it, and pretended to put them in his drawer while he shoved them in the pocket dimension where he kept his dozens of Magatama, hundreds of sundries, and millions of Macca. He then stuffed his mostly empty wallet in his pocket and grabbed his shoes off the rack.
He only had one pair of outdoor shoes, but thanks to Lucifer, he only needed the one; for reasons never quite made clear, Lucifer made everything Naoki wore at the start of the Conception indestructible. His shoes weren't even scuffed by Beelzebub's curse zones, his shorts held together even when slashed with Flauros's sword, and he could clean his underwear by holding it in fire. That wasn't to say his clothes made good armor; other than his shoes, all they protected was his modesty. His clothes didn't rip or tear because they were very elastic; the cloth simply deformed around blades, to the point where you could wrap one of his socks around a cleaver and still chop bone. Naoki guessed that Lucifer fixed his clothes because he was always watching him, and it would be boring to see him run around scavenging for clothes. But he still couldn't figure out why Lucifer pinched his shirt and jacket.
"Going somewhere?" asked Kazuya.
"Getting dinner," lied Naoki. It was already getting dark out.
"Don't forget your jacket."
"Thanks," said Naoki, grabbing a nondescript hoodie. "Bye."
Soma turned to Kazuya. "You do know that was your jacket, right?" he said.
"Eh," shrugged Kazuya. "It's cold out. He needs it more than I do."
X
It was only natural that this serial disappearance case would baffle the police; had they not been baffled, it wouldn't have been a serial case. The police of Haruhata city weren't exactly incompetent; their arrest record was exactly the national average every year (which did get them audited more than a few times). The problem was that the only cases that ever make headlines are the ones that aren't solved, which is why police always look less competent than they really are. In this case, however, even the police knew that they were outmatched, so they called in some experts.
The Agency of Supernatural Investigation, one of Japan's top-secret government organizations, saw a perfectly mundane series of serial murders. However, since their organization's funding was mostly siphoned off of the National Public Safety Commission (with permission), they couldn't refuse to help without a proper excuse. However, the crack team of experts they were expecting were busy with the actual occult cases.
So they sent in the rookies.
"It's standard procedure," said Agent Fireball, the senior agent in charge of Hermes Squad. He was a tall man in his fifties, with graying red hair and calloused hands. He was driving Yoko from the station to the squad's headquarters in his car. "For cases like these, when we're fairly certain that the police can solve it on their own, all we need to do is send some people to pretend to work. Obviously, that's a waste of any half-decent agent's time, so we send the new meat."
"And obviously, something went wrong, or else you wouldn't have hired me," said Yoko. "So, if all of you were just there to take up space, how did you manage to tape a demon?"
Agent Fireball scratched his nose. "I said that's all we need to do, not all we do. We've been running our own investigation. Cases like these are perfect training missions. Since the police will catch the culprits no matter what, and we're rank amateurs, everyone knows that nothing we do will have any impact. The rookies are free to screw up and make mistakes without having to deal with the guilt of failure when a new victim shows up."
"Sounds like those rookies are going to be in for a shock on their first real mission," said Yoko grimly. "Stick them in the middle of nowhere with no safety net. That's how you find a real field agent."
Agent Fireball gave a faint chuckle as he stared at the traffic light. "Oh, I think they'll be fine. You'll see when we get there."
The squad's headquarters, as it turned out, was a single apartment in the same cheap apartment building that housed the agents. "We get almost no funding," explained Agent Fireball as he unlocked the door. "They say it's because we have no real responsibilities, but I say working with nothing is good training." Yoko silently approved.
None of the rookie agents even looked up when the door opened. Most of them were watching the newest Phoenix Ranger Featherman Cyclone episode and griping about the new direction the show was taking. Some were playing games on their phones, others were giggling and gossiping, and one was even picking the pretzels out of a bowl of chips.
Agent Fireball cleared his throat. "Attention!"
The agents turned around, but none of them got up.
"Something happen?" said a short agent.
Agent Fireball sighed. "Weren't you paying attention, Agent Ninja?"
"Uh…"
"Agent Reaper, tell Agent Ninja what's going on."
A blue-haired young man choked on the pretzel. "Uh…"
"Ei-chan, you idiot!" said a blonde young woman. "He told us this yesterday! He's-"
"Agent Dragon, please refrain from using real names," said Agent Fireball curtly. He looked around. "Who here was listening when I gave you the memo?"
The dozen or so agents looked at each other. Only a handful raised their hands.
Agent Fireball sighed. "I'm drinking tonight," he muttered in a low voice, and announced in a carrying voice, "HQ hired this witch to… crap, I mean, HQ hired this woman who uses magic. Remember?"
There was a chorus of quiet yeses.
"I'm Yoko Belnades," said Yoko. "Pleased to meet you."
There was a chorus of hellos. A petit young man stood up and shook her hand. "I'm Agent Lily," he said. "It's okay if you forget my name. You'll get it eventually."
Mostly everyone reluctantly got up, shook her hand, and introduced themselves in a blur of names and faces. None of them looked completely well; some walked with limps, others had surgical scars.
"Now that that's in order, it's time to tell our new…comrade what we've been up to," said Agent Fireball. "Any volunteers?"
The agents all looked at each other, but said nothing. Agent Fireball sighed and pointed at Agent Dragon. "Your turn, Agent Dragon."
Agent Dragon turned red. "Uh… Okay, so it's like this. We're-"
One agent with an arm in a cast stood up and pointed at Yoko. "Two months," he growled. "Two months, we've been busting our asses out there, looking for evidence, and when we finally hand some nice, ironclad proof, they send us a mercenary?"
Yoko crossed her arms. "Better than nothing, don't you think?" she said calmly.
"Do you have any idea what we've been through?!" yelled the agent.
"Of course not," said Yoko. She was used to this sort of behavior from clients. "That's why I'm asking."
Agent Fireball raised his hands. "All right, calm down, Agent Cowboy-"
"We need backup, damnit, not just one gun for hire! You weren't the one mauled by a werewolf, Fireball!"
"Yes, Cowboy, and you're not the one who had to fight a giant mecha with nothing but a ballpoint pen and a vase of hydrangeas," Agent Lily retorted.
"Why you-"
"Agent Cowboy, Agent Lily, stand down," said Agent Fireball firmly. The two rookies glared daggers at one another, but sat back down. "Ms. Belnades, allow me to explain."
Yoko crossed her arms. "Please do," she said.
Agent Fireball took a chip from the bowl. "We might not have gotten anywhere with our assigned case, but these months have certainly not been wasted," he said. "All of us have gained valuable experience."
Yoko raised an eyebrow. "What kind of experience?"
Agent Wolf gave a mirthless chuckle. "What the boss means is that we're unlucky," she said. "We've been sniffing down every trail but that kidnapper. Last week, we busted a drug smuggling operation. The week before, some rich businessman turned out to be a werewolf. And don't get me started on the King of the Netherworld."
"Normally, we'd earn some credit for irrelevant cases, even if they aren't supernatural," said Agent Fireball. "Except every time, for some stupid reason, we couldn't report any of them."
"The head of CyCo was too rich to touch," said Agent Reaper.
"The English Professor who was a vampire didn't leave a body," added Agent Dragon.
"And the King of the Netherworld threatened to sic his legions of succubi and incubi on us in our sleep," added Agent Lily. When he saw Yoko's look of disgust and horror, he added quickly, "It was a misunderstanding. He didn't hurt anyone; he just wanted to go drinking in a human bar every now and then."
"That demon was the only piece of hard evidence that we were able to scavenge since we got here," said Agent Fireball. Before Yoko could ask, he added, "And no, my word is not enough. This is a government agency, after all; we need to fill out about a dozen forms to declare a closed case. The only thing they can take my word for is their test scores."
Yoko crossed her arms. She took in the wounds and bandages on the squad, but the results were inconclusive. "How do I know that you're not trying to make yourselves look better to-"
DING-DONG!
"Pizza delivery!" said someone at the door.
At this, every listless face in the room lit up like Roman candles. Agent Lily practically jumped out of his seat to answer the door.
"Hi guys!" said the pimply teenager carrying a large stack of boxes. The squad had clearly gone all out; there wasn't just pizza boxes, but fried chicken, sodas, and some of those molten chocolate cakes. The teenager stretched and cracked his back after depositing his load onto Agent Lily. "You guys get quarter price for everything," he said. "Least we could do for saving us from the rampaging space rhino; we would make it on the house, but you know we have to make a living, too…"
"Thank you, Kimura," said Agent Fireball, who paid with cash.
Agent Cowboy gave Yoko a smug grin. "Believe us now?"
"How do I know that you didn't bribe him?" retorted Yoko.
Agent Cowboy's grin melted. "Listen, you condescending witch, we were doing just fine before you came waltzing along. We've taken down dozens of monsters since we started. We don't need an outsider's help taking down this demon; we must have—what's so funny?"
Yoko hadn't realized that she was smirking. "You don't get it, do you?" she said. "Do you have any idea how hard it is for a top-secret government agency to hire a mercenary?" When there was no response, she explained, "You're entrusting me with some delicate information, so you start with a background check, which can take months depending on the efficiency of your bureaucracy. It's also almost impossible to find reliable information in the occult business, so you're going to have to sift through a lot of slag. Then you need to take steps to ensure my silence, which I am not at liberty to explain. Then, and only then, can you pay me, and explain how and why there's a hole in the budget the size of my fee, which I will not divulge. You want to know why they bothered with me?"
Agent Lily raised his hand. "Is it because the time, money, and effort put into your hiring is still less than that of a real agent, and so you're disposable?"
Yoko shrugged. "Close enough. It's because no one ever wants to deal with what I was sent to deal with." Yoko took in a deep breath.
"I'm not here to fight a demon. I'm here to fight a demon summoner."
X
Haruhata City wasn't a metropolis on Tokyo's scale, but it was large enough to have its own population of punks, hookers, Yakuza, delinquents, pimps, gangsters, foreign mafia members, and people who stayed out too late at night. Students at the University were given maps that ranked the districts by danger level, ostensibly to keep them out of trouble, but mostly as an overt way of showing them where the night life was.
Naoki, as a rule, tried to avoid such places. Back when he was a poor high school student on scholarship, he was careful to stay out of Tokyo's shadier spots for fear of being mugged and losing his dinner money. Now, as a poor college student on scholarship, he was careful not to stray into the seedy regions of the city for fear of being mugged and revealing his monstrous strength.
Daisuke, however, embraced the back alleys and abandoned warehouses that dotted Haruhata's landscape. Every night, he was out on the town, getting into fights and running from the cops. He'd disappear for days at a time, crashing at a friend's house or recovering at the hospital, then turn up like nothing had happened. And he would always brag about his many victories over the other punks in the city, to the point where Naoki was tempted to challenge him to a fistfight to shut him up.
But this was the first time he'd been gone for so long without telling anyone. Naoki might not have liked Daisuke, but ignoring his disappearance would haunt him with guilt for the rest of his life, just like-
Nostopdon'tthinkaboutthem,notyourfault, theywerewrong, shekilledinnocents, hekilledyourfriend, they'realive, they'realive-
But I killed them.
They'realivethey'realivethey'realivethey're-
There was a noise like two graham crackers being rubbed together, and Naoki realized that he had been grinding his fist against a brick wall. He gingerly removed it, allowing red dust to spill out of the inch-deep indent.
"Stop it," he muttered to himself. "It's in the past."
Naoki's first stop was a supermarket, for a baseball cap, a compact mirror, and the smallest bottle of black paint he could find. Once he was out of sight, he put on the cap and marked his face with the paint. Naoki wasn't an expert in disguise or subterfuge (his primary method of infiltration was, after all, regularly saying, "All hail Nihilo/Mantra," "Those Mantra/Nihilo are very stupid/cowardly/dishonorable/weak, wouldn't you agree?" and "Yay for loneliness!"), but he read books, and one plausible-sounding book about a conman-turned-mailman stated that when you have one very distinguishing feature, like gigantic ears or a large rubber nose, the mark you're conning will only remember that detail. Naoki had considered inking a dragon or tiger, but realized that he didn't have the artistic ability, and instead settled for tracing his currently-invisible demonic tattoos.
Confident that no one would recognize him, he stalked off into the streets.
It didn't take long for him to find a gang of punks hanging around. They were around his age, and all of them wore matching yellow scarves over their mouths. One swung her baseball bat menacingly as he approached.
"Good evening," said the leader in an intimidating growl. She looked several years older than Naoki. "What's it going to be then, eh?"
"I'm looking for a guy," said Naoki in his negotiation voice. "Daisuke Higawa. You know him?"
"Never heard of him in my life," said the leader smoothly.
"Then I'll just have to kick your ass until you tell me."
The words were out before Naoki could stop himself. Inwardly, he cursed. He was so used to negotiating with demons that he almost forgot how to talk to normal people. Threats worked like a charm with demons, who respected aggression and power. And since they made good on their threats more often than not, they could read the difference between bluff, bluster, and danger. Humans just saw a skinny, uppity punk who'd watched too many movies. Same with bribery; demons happily sold their lives and rights for chicken feed, but humans would just look at you funny. At least, Soma had when Naoki tried to get out of trash duty in exchange for a chocolate bar, two ginger teabags, and a pretty rock he found on the side of the road (the fact that he accepted was beside the point).
The delinquents bristled. "Lookin' for a fight, are ya?" said one, swinging her bat in what she thought was a menacing manner. "Well, if it's a fight you want, it's a fight you'll—GET!"
She charged at Naoki, telegraphing a horizontal swing. Naoki bit back his reflexive focus-dodge-punch routine, and embraced the challenge of fighting nonlethally. The style was slow, clumsy, unpracticed, and impractical for anyone who couldn't shrug off iron bars, but no one could be seriously injured.
He deflected the bat at an angle, knocking its owner off balance. A soft push to her knee was all it took to knock her on her butt. The second attacker charged at him, telegraphing his downward swing; Naoki slid forward and stopped an arm's length away. The punk couldn't stop in time and his momentum carried him stumbling into Naoki's open chest. Naoki grabbed him with both arms and spun around lightly, then pushed him gently into the third punk, who was smart enough to attack while his back was turned, but not enough to hide her footsteps.
"You can't defeat me," said Naoki. "Now will you tell me?"
"You haven't fought all of us," said the leader, standing up, and signaling her flunkies to stand down. "You're no ordinary kid; that's clear enough," she said to Naoki. "Let's see how you handle this!"
The leader charged at Naoki with her bat, but that was a feint; Naoki tried blocking her with his body again, but she moved back and struck his shoulder. He grabbed the bat with his other hand with lightning speed and yanked away, but met no resistance.
There was a bang and a clatter as the bat hit the wall. It took a moment for Naoki to process the fact that the leader was stupid enough to let go of her weapon in the middle of a fight. His eyes flitted away from his opponent for a fraction of a second, which was a mistake. The leader took his moment of confusion and used it to bury her heeled boot in his solar plexus.
Before he could stop himself, Naoki countered with a punch. He tried to pull back and soften the blow into a push, but all that did was send the leader flying into the opposite wall instead of ripping a hole in her ribcage.
"Oh, crap," Naoki said under his breath. He froze like a deer in headlights. "I…I'm so sorr-"
There was a soft, leathery sound below him, and Naoki's ankle felt tighter than usual.
CRACK!
WHAM!
Naoki's left foot shot into the air like a startled sparrow, and the back of his head slammed against the pavement. It didn't hurt; knocking him over was mostly a matter of leverage and weight instead of strength. Before his legs hit the ground, something coiled around his neck. The leader limped over to him, and planted her foot ominously over his balls. In her right hand was a wooden dowel connected to a leather rope; it took Naoki a moment to realize that she was garroting him with a jump rope. "Give up?" she growled. [1]
It would have been easy for Naoki to break free. You could crush boulders against his neck and balls (a fact that he had learned after a particularly traumatizing day when he tripped while jumping into the tunnel between the Third and Fourth Kalpa and fell spinning the whole way), and this girl was a lot lighter than the Oni who tried to dogpile him.
But he really had nothing to gain from winning this fight. "Fine," he pretended to groan. "You win. Take whatever you want. All I need is my underwear, my shoes, and my socks." Then he paused. "Oh, and this jacket isn't mine. I need to return it."
The leader removed her foot. "Sit up; I can't take this thing off when your head's on the ground." Naoki obeyed, and the leader gently uncoiled the jump rope. He rubbed his neck.
"Now, take off your clothes, or we take them off for you." Without breaking eye contact, the leader wrote something down on a piece of paper, and handed it to the worst fighter, along with a wad of bills. "Coffee run. The closest shop is that way."
Naoki unzipped his jacket and shrugged it off, pretending to shiver at random intervals. He removed one item of clothing at a time and handed it to the eager flunkies. "I'll take off my shoes and underwear, but you can't keep them," he said.
"What makes you think you can make us?" growled a flunky, as if Naoki hadn't left her bruised on the ground.
"You can keep your clothes once we're done with them," said the leader. "And please don't take off your underwear. No one is as sexy as they think they are when they're naked."
One punk grinned when she found Naoki's wallet inside his jacket's inside pocket—until she saw what was in it. "Just 1864 yen?!"
"I'm a starving student; that's like three or four cheap meals for me," said Naoki, mentally patting himself on the back for stowing his money away beforehand.
"Cough up more," said the leader.
"I can't," said Naoki.
"Then how about I hit you more until you give us something you don't have?" said the leader in a dry voice.
There was a moment of silence. "…I can take a hint," grumbled Naoki. "You don't know the guy I'm looking for, and threatening you was a waste of time."
The leader nodded and crossed her arms. "What made you think that we had any idea who this… Daisuke Higawa was?"
Naoki shrugged. "He spent all his free time picking fights in the shady side of town. I figured that he'd be infamous by now."
"And naturally, the best course of action was to walk up to a group of complete strangers and pick a fight?" said the leader icily.
"…In my defense, it worked out pretty well the last time I tried it," Naoki said to himself. In retrospect, it probably only worked for Ms. Takao since she was one of five humans (five with an error margin of one; Naoki and Hijiri both identified as human but had nonhuman bodies, so there were four humans if you didn't believe that it was your mentality that made you human, six if you did, and five if you didn't believe but didn't know Hijiri was actually a Manikin) in the entire Vortex World, infamous enough to have her own nickname, and was associated with the leader of a major faction.
The leader put her palm to her forehead and sighed. "What do you think this is, a movie? Did you really think that just because you know how to fight, you could just pick one punk-looking chelloveck off the street, and they'd take you straight to the nearest mob boss?! Get your bleedin' rassoodock out of the sinny, you nadmenny malchick!"
Naoki was fluent in about a dozen demonic languages, including the weird ones like Middle Avio-Raptor and Archaic Western Haunt, but he'd never heard anything like that. "…What?"
"Get your head out of the theater, you arrogant boy," repeated the leader scornfully.
"In what language?"
"Don't you know that's how all the punks in Tokyo talk?" said one of the lackeys.
"But I'm from Tokyo," said Naoki.
The lackey rolled his eyes. "Obviously, you're not a punk."
Naoki decided that it would be wisest not to mention that he had been arrested once, gained the respect of a gigantic gang of muscle-brained killers by beating a few of them to death with his bare hands, gave the metaphorical middle finger to everyone who tried to impose their ideals upon him by crushing their dreams underfoot, and had more tattoos than the average Yakuza member.
The leader waved off the question. "Never mind that," she said in a teacher's voice of forced patience. "The 'underground,'" (the leader used finger quotes), "isn't some small, close-knit community. We're just a small-time shaika, not runners for one of the big syndicates. I don't know a single member of the Yakuza, we don't associate with rapists or murderers, and most of us don't use our full names. Put it this way; do you know every single person in your school by name?"
"…You have a point."
The worst fighter came back from the coffee run and handed everyone their drinks. To Naoki's surprise, he gave him a small black coffee. "Cheapest hot thing on the menu," he said without looking at him.
"Thank you," said Naoki, glad that he chose the lightning weakness instead of fire. The coffee tasted terrible and did nothing for him, but it was a sweet gesture, more than what his physics professor did last week when she demonstrated how electrical conductivity varied with temperature by dragging the entire class outside in the snow.
"Don't thank me, thank her."
"Thank you," Naoki said to the leader.
"Don't thank me; you're the one paying for it," said the leader, sipping something that smelled like chocolate. She handed him his shirt. "You can have your clothes back now. Get out of here."
Naoki dressed himself quickly and walked away in hopes of finding some more receptive punks. He could hear the lackeys engaging in the age-old ritual of laughing away intense fear or trauma.
"What a poogly bum, am I right?" said one.
"The boss set him right and proper, didn't she?" said another.
"I thought you were done for, and then—BAM! Like stepping on a banana. Hope his rot bleeds out."
"He fought kind of weird, don't you think?" said the second. "Like he was in a kung fu movie or something."
"He's strong," said the leader grimly. She rubbed her back. "Strong enough to punch me into a wall, and he pays us to go away? I've only known one person who would do that."
There was a long pause.
"That's where you give us a name," said the second one.
"Yeah, and a long monologue about how that person shaped your life and killed your parents, and now you're hunting for them," said the third one.
"You know very well that P and M are alive," said the leader curtly. "And I don't plan on sharing my soliloquies."
Everyone sipped their drinks.
"…Boss?" said the first one.
"Yes, Sei?"
"Why don't you tell anyone your name?"
"Remember why I told you to never reveal your last names?" said the leader.
"Because… if anyone wants revenge, they can just use the phone book and attack us or our families?" said Sei slowly.
The leader nodded. "I knew to only use my first name back when I led a gang in Tokyo. The cops were so scared of me that they arrested every single person who shared my name, even little girls and old women."
"…Really?"
"Of course not. You'd see something about that in the news."
For the rest of the night, Naoki searched. He received no answers, and only slightly more friendly words, one from a tall foreign man in glasses looking for the station, another from another foreigner with a nice goatee and a long duster looking for the university, and the last from a very lost middle school girl who was crying in a back alley.
By the time he slumped into bed, he was no closer to discovering Daisuke's whereabouts. In fact, he had even more questions than before.
"I've battled demons and gods. I faced nine incarnations of death, and conquered every one of them. I've crushed the Lord of the Flies and the Voice of God beneath my feet, and bound them to my service. I'm the Demi-Fiend, and my power is far beyond the limits of humans."
"So how the hell did that girl get the jump on me?"
X
"I'm here to fight a demon summoner."
Had Yoko made that announcement to a more experienced group, there would have been silence. Jaws would have hung open, pencils would have been dropped, and everyone would have stared at her in horror.
Instead, Agent Cowboy just said, "So what?" and there was a murmur of agreement.
"She's right," said Agent Fireball gravely. Every agent stopped to listen. "Demon summoners are one of the worst enemies we can face. They're not as strong as ghouls or witches, and they don't spread like vampirism or lycanthropy, but they're…" Agent Fireball trailed off, and said in a more normal voice, "You know how in almost every video game, there's an extremely frustrating boss that's frustrating not because it's strong or has a ton of HP, but because it has an annoying gimmick? Like… do kids these days still play Metal Gear Solid?"
There were a few murmurs of yes. "Fighting a demon summoner is like fighting The End."
Gasps and shocked mutters filled the room. Less than half of the rookies understood, but those who did more than made up for the slack. Yoko recalled her grandfather telling her about a legendary monster controlled by one of Dracula's human servants, but that didn't seem relevant.
"Wait, so you're saying that fighting demon summoners is like fighting death?" said Agent Reaper.
Agent Fireball shook his head. "I could have phrased that better," he admitted. "The End is the name of an infamously difficult boss from Metal Gear Solid 3. His gimmick is that he's a sniper who behaves like a real sniper. He runs, hides, and shoots when you least expect it, and you have to beat him at his own game by sneaking up on him. The fight with him can take days."
"Or you can just skip the clock two weeks," Agent Ninja muttered to Agent Dragon.
"They made three of those games?" said a shocked Agent Reaper.
"So if a demon summoner is an annoying gimmick boss, then what's their gimmick?" asked Agent Lily, raising his hand. "What makes them so terrible?"
"Good question," said Agent Fireball. "Summoners can operate remotely. They don't need to by physically present to command their demons, so chasing their demons gets us nowhere. In fact, they don't even need to be in the same town. Much like a sniper, really. We call them Queen Bees."
Agent Reaper sputtered. "Demon summoners are cheerleaders?!"
"Of course not," said Yoko. "I mean, the last one I dealt with turned out to be captain of the cheer squad when she was in high school, but that's not important right now." Yoko tried imagining Celia Fortner with pom-poms doing backflips, but gave up.
The rookies looked at one another. "So, uh…"
"Why Queen Bee?" said Agent Fireball. "Bees have a hive system. The queen of the hive poops out eggs all day, and her worker children do all the work. Similarly, summoners don't need to work as long as they can conjure up more minions."
Agent Cowboy scoffed. "So, they're a bunch of shut-ins? That doesn't seem too-"
"You think it's just robbing supermarkets and making bowls out of frozen soup?" snapped Yoko. "You need sacrifices to summon demons. Every time you make a demon scrub your toilet or make you a sandwich, someone dies. That's why demon summoning is one of the five explicitly illegal schools of magic."
Thank God for that loophole, Yoko added to herself. Technically, Soma's Power of Dominance was a form of summoning, as it bound demons to his service. If Soma's ability was ever leaked to the Agency, Arikado was planning to plead that he didn't break any laws if murder anyone (they already agreed to credit/blame Julius for the deaths of Graham and Dmitrii). If that didn't stick, they were hoping that he'd be punished leniently since he didn't gain the power willingly.
"That's not even getting into what someone could do with that kind of power," Yoko added. "Want to know why no one wants to fight one? Once a summoner finds out that they're being hunted, they can hunt us back. It's no longer a game of cat and mouse; it's a game of cat and cat. And they have the advantage. Summoners have an almost inexhaustible army of tireless soldiers, spies, thieves, and assassins. If we kill one of them, there's a dozen out there to replace it, all fueled by human lives. Fighting their demons gets us nothing but blood on our hands."
There was a dead silence. Even Agent Cowboy looked scared.
"All right, you've convinced us," said a frightened looking Agent Ninja. "But… how do you know they can do that?"
That was her family's fault. Yoko had spent many an evening as a child on her grandmother's knee, hearing stories about the hidden history of the world. When she lost interest around junior high, her family assigned her extra homework and holiday essays. Her family never neglected to educate her about Dracula's hordes and the trail of destruction he laid across Europe (and how their ancestors fought heroically against them). But thanks to them, she knew the tale of Hector Laforeze.
Technically, Hector wasn't a summoner; he was a Devil Forgemaster, which was basically the same thing, except with levels in blacksmithing in addition to black magic. Rather than summoning monsters, he created them. But the principle was the same.
Of the five people who killed Dracula in the fifteenth century, only Hector and Alucard didn't pass their skills on to their descendants; Alucard because he had no children, and Hector because he deemed his powers too dangerous. According to Grant's diary, Hector had said that his abilities had the most potential for abuse. If one of his students wanted to ransack a village, they could just send a single demon to terrorize it without putting themselves in harm's way; someone with Trevor's techniques, Grant's skills, or even Sypha or Alucard's magic would have to risk their lives and reputations. Hector told Grant that if any student of his teachings used Devil Forging for evil, he'd never forgive himself.
On the other hand, he did pass down his skill in forging magical weapons. Apparently, he didn't mind if his students robbed someone with one of those. The only thing he objected to was riskless evil.
"Experience," said Yoko succinctly.
"Fortunately, they're vanishingly rare," continued Agent Fireball. "Most summoners are murdered by the very demons they conjure. That's enough to put off any sane person, and the rest don't often survive past their first summoning. Unfortunately, the high turnover rate just leaves the smartest and the most powerful." [2]
"And HQ thinks that a demon summoner's behind the kidnappings?" said Agent Hurricane.
"Not necessarily," said Yoko. "Although, it would make sense. Under most circumstances, you need human sacrifices to summon demons, and you can use demons to abduct people for sacrifices."
"Like a reverse Catch-22?" said Agent Dragon.
"… Sure," said Yoko.
Agent Fireball shuddered. "God knows what that summoner is doing. They could be anywhere, plotting…evil."
X
A few days after Yoko announced her presence, Soma and Mina met for dinner in the basement. They sat next to each other on an old couch, eating rice bowls with pork and vegetables.
"So… how's premed?" asked Soma.
"Good," said Mina. "How's prelaw?"
"Good," said Soma.
There was a pause as the author realized that they know nothing about either of those fields outside of movies.
"Okay, I know you're still worried about what Yoko's doing, so let's cut to the chase and talk about that," said Mina, taking out a notebook. "I've made a list of all the weird cases around here. I've been too busy for details, but… you know, premed."
"Mina, you're a godsend," said Soma.
"The obvious one is the disappearances, but that's probably not it, since it's been in the papers for over two months," said Mina.
"What disappearances?" said Soma.
From the sea of his souls, there was a long-suffering sigh from one of the Stolas, the wise owl demon. The disappearances thou saw in the paper of news, Master? Stolas said in what Soma thought of as his 'Alfred' voice. Soma let his souls call him whatever they wanted as long as it was distinct, and most of them called him things like 'Soma,' 'Cruz,' 'Kid,' 'Boss,' 'Leader,' or even 'Sugarcakes' or 'Jerkface.' Stolas was one of the few who referred to him as Master, with a capital M. Soma didn't like being called Master, because it made him feel like a slaveowner (which he was), but it made them feel comfortable for some reason. Soma had asked them to change it, but then realized it was hypocritical of him. Thou broke thine fast with porridge and gingerroot tea, whilst thou read books of the chemical sciences? Stolas added helpfully. Twas one fortnight ago, two days hence?
"Oh, right… those disappearances," said Soma.
Mina gave him a funny look. "I didn't say anything."
"Never mind; just talking to a soul."
Mina shrugged. "Anyway, the one I'm leaning towards is the blood bank robbery. According to Ayakashi Monthly, it's vampires."
"I doubt it," said Soma. "I mean, I'm not saying it wasn't vampires; who else would rob a blood bank? But I can't see Yoko being hired for a case like that. Vampires prefer live prey. If they're forced to stoop to dead blood, they're either pacifists or too weak to hunt."
"But if they were weak and desperate back then, they might not be anymore," said Mina.
"True," said Soma. "So that's a maybe."
Mina made a star mark next to that bullet point. "Iron golem sightings in cities?"
"Too vague to confirm or deny," said Soma.
Mina made another mark. "Someone's been setting weird fires at banks, and robbing them before the fire brigade gets there."
"What's so weird about that?" said Soma.
"No fuel, no salvaged equipment, nothing on the security tapes. Just spontaneous combustion."
"Probably supernatural then," said Soma. "But no way of knowing if that's Yoko's case."
"I guess not," said Mina making another mark.
By then, they had finished their dinner. After checking the halls and making sure that no one was coming, Soma took out a pair of wooden skewers, a bag of marshmallows, a bar of chocolate, and a box of graham crackers.
"Now's a good time for dessert?" he suggested.
"When isn't?" said Mina.
Ukoback, get ready, Soma said to the little flame devils.
Aye-aye, boss!
To a casual observer, Soma appeared more skilled in magic than Yoko, since Soma had dozens of different spells and Yoko had less than ten. But both Soma and Yoko agreed that Soma was cheating.
The Power of Dominance technically didn't allow Soma to use magic; he always had the potential. While it was technically true that, say, the Flame Demon soul gave him the power to shoot fireballs, it was still hypothetically possible for Soma to cast that magic without that soul. He'd just have to learn it like everyone else.
Casting a spell normally required the user to focus on everything they were going to do, in very specific terms. When Yoko cast her icicle spell, she didn't just think 'make five icicles and launch them;' she had to condense water from the air, gather it into the shape of spikes, freeze them by removing the heat, divert the heat to a safe distance, sharpen the icicles into points, etc.
Soma's souls streamlined the process by doing the grunt work for him. All Soma had to do was warn the souls in advance and focus his power on the general idea of what he wanted to do. His souls did the rest.
Soma held out his hand. A tiny flame formed at his palm, and hung in midair where he placed it.
"One of your better party tricks, I think," said Mina, spearing a marshmallow and holding it over the little flame.
"What about eating lit candles?" said Soma.
"Anyone can do that," said Mina.
"Pretending to be a piñata and making American pennies appear when you hit me?" said Soma.
"Too hard to watch," said Mina.
"… Entering mirrors and freaking out people by pretending to be a ghost?" said Soma.
"That's… not a party trick," said Mina, removing the marshmallow from the flame and rubbing it onto a graham cracker.
"Okay, how about making curry appear whenever I want?" said Soma.
Mina licked the stake with relish. "I still like this one better. Anyways…" she opened her list with one hand. "I also found a massive conspiracy linking… a former Foreign Minister, the current Defense Minister, the four Archangels, the American Ambassador to Japan, the SEBEC corporation, a secret task force run by the Kirijo Corporation, the Chief Technical Director of the Cybers Corporation, the Chief Technical Director of Karma Research Incorporated, a general in the JDSF, a school principal, two teachers, Mayan aliens, an escaped mental patient, at least three different cults, and… the Last Battalion?" [3]
"…They're really reaching on this one," said Soma, rekindling the flame.
"I didn't think so, either," said Mina, turning the page.
"Even if it was real, the government would never send a mercenary," said Soma. "If it implicates government officials and the military, it's best to keep that on the inside."
Mina left that unmarked. "How about a cult called the Brotherhood of Beelzebub?"
Soma groaned. "Not another cult…"
"Maybe this one won't try to kidnap you and try to resurrect Dracula," said Mina with shaky optimism. "I mean, how many people know that you're his reincarnation?"
Soma shrugged. "According to Arikado, it's a common rumor in the supernatural community, but there's so much misinformation that it's just as likely that it was you, Hammer, or Graham. The Belmonts and Belnades 'debunked' my involvement; the official stance is that I'm an innocent bystander and Julius killed Graham."
"Good," said Mina, looking relieved. "Apparently, it's more of a men's drinking club than a cult, but it's still possible that they could pull something off by accident." She made another mark. "Someone robbed a crematorium."
"Okay, that's just disgusting," growled Soma. In a burst of white-hot light, the hanging flame tripled in intensity. "It's one thing to… wait, did they steal money, ashes, or dead bodies?" he added in a normal voice. The flame returned to normal.
"Ashes," clarified Mina.
"It's one thing to rob a blood bank, but ashes?" continued Soma in that same growl. The flame once again exploded with white-hot light. "That's the last thing you leave your family after you die. It's not even worth any money; all you're doing is desecrating the dead and trampling over the grieving family. What kind of a sick person would do that?"
"Isn't it worse to steal someone's organs?" said Mina.
"Well, that's bad, too, but at you're saving someone's life with those," said Soma, deflated, the hanging fire reflecting his emotions. "And I guess it's more out of greed then sadism; robbing the dead for the money isn't as bad as doing it for no reason."
Mina made a mark. "Sightings of a ghost in a hotel?"
"…We really have no way of knowing for sure which case she's after," said Soma. "For all we know, there could be a press ban, and it might not even be in the papers at all."
Mina sighed. "I guess not. Yoko didn't give us any leads."
"This is a waste of time," said Soma, standing up and putting out the fire. "Let's go ask Hammer. He has actual underground contacts."
Mina glared at him. "You know, I spent two hours putting this list together," she said in a hard voice. "The least you could do is sit down and listen."
"Okay," said a cowed Soma, sitting down and rekindling the flame with a wave of his hand.
Mina turned the page. "A wealthy and respected member of the community harassed by a flying green demon that shot icicles at it?"
Soma barely heard Mina. A noise like crackling fire filled his ears, and a flash of orange light tinted his surroundings. His souls panicked.
Master-
Sugarcakes, you'd better-
There's something-
Boss, look out-
Sir, I implore you-
BEHIND YOU.
Soma stood up and looked behind the couch, and his heart rate exploded. Kazuya Kawamoto was kneeling on the ground, lovingly scratching the mane of a large blue lion with a snake's tail. The lion's snake tail wagged like a dog's. "Who's a good doggie, yes you are, yes you are…"
Mina would have made a break for it. As much as she didn't want Soma to be hurt, he could handle himself a lot better than she could. Then she realized that for all she knew, there could be another demon lurking in the hallway, and she didn't have any means of defending herself. The safest place was with her superpowered not-boyfriend. Not for the last time, she cursed her uselessness.
Soma would have taken the demon by surprise. All the conditioning he'd experienced in Castlevania and Celia's castle pointed to killing monsters; they had a habit of trying to murder him if he ran. Normally, taking the first strike wasn't always the best idea; dodging and memorizing patterns was a much better plan. But Mina, a normal person without his experience or athleticism, was right next to him, and he would never forgive himself if he dodged and she was hit.
Alas, Soma's shadow had fallen over Kazuya's eyes, revealing their presence.
Kazuya looked up. His eyes roamed from the hanging flame, to Mina, to Soma. "Oh, no, don't mind me," said Kazuya sardonically, the bliss of love and pride flashing into surprise, and then hardening into a mask of stone. "Please, carry o-"
Unfortunately, Kazuya never got to finish that sentence, because Soma threw a plate of curry at his face.
TO BE CONTINUED!
How will our heroes react to this shocking revelation? Will Yoko and the agency find Kazuya? And who is this mysterious but attractive girl who can somehow beat up one of the strongest characters in the entire multiverse? Find out at least one of these things on the next chapter of A Game of Cat and Cat!
[1] The leader vs. the Demi-Fiend. There is a legitimate reason for why a nobody can stand up against the Demi-Fiend, and I'm not just trying to give my Mary Sue a 'powerful' introduction by Worfing one of the strongest people in SMT.
[2] Rare summoners: Yoko and Agent Fireball don't know about the Kuzunoha family of demon summoners.
[3] The conspiracy: All of these are references to SMT games. I considered adding the Conspiracy of Persona 5, but I decided that they'd have been exposed by a reputable paper, and it would be redundant to report them.
Originally, the story took place in Sumaru City. I wanted to use that because I was familiar with it, and I could easily find locations for the characters to run around.
The problem with Sumaru City was that too many competent people lived there. The police only brought in the Agency of Supernatural Investigation because they know supernatural stuff is out of their league; Katsuya Suou the police sergeant has taken supernatural cases before, and he has magic powers himself. Even if the police went ahead and called in the Agency without his input, there's also the Kuzunoha detective agency, Baofu and Ulala the people-finder team, etc.
Persona 2 will have an impact on this story. I can't say how or when yet. When the culprits are revealed, I will write an omake for what would happen if the story took place in Sumaru City.
OMAKE: One Question
The top floor of the Obelisk was like a clay oven. It was, after all, the closest place in the Vortex World to the false sun of Kagutsuchi, but still Naoki shivered. This was not surprising. Demonic possession is never a pretty sight, especially when the face of your homeroom teacher turns into something like the unholy spawn of a brain scan chart and an inkblot test.
The tip of Naoki's horn tickled, warning him that someone else was in the room. He turned around and saw them.
The two people responsible for his transformation, the little blonde boy and the old woman, stood right there, as if dressed for the funeral of everyone in the world. "Oh my," said the old woman in a tone that sounded more like she was reluctantly scolding an errant grandchild for eating out of the cookie jar before supper. "It appears that my little master has agreed to answer a single one of your questions."
Naoki's eyes widened. Let's see, I don't really know what's going on—what the hell was Hikawa doing? Why am I a demon? Why does Isamu hate me now? Is there a bathroom in this plac—no, no, not that one!
"Lakshmi, quick, which question should I ask?!" said Naoki suddenly.
Lakshmi shrugged. "If you want wisdom, that's more of Sarasvati's schtick. I say you should ask where your teacher went, but that's just me."
"Odin, you're wise and only have one eye, say something!" said Naoki.
"Secret of power," rumbled Odin.
"…Hell Biker?"
"How to stop my baby from stalling all the time," said the skeleton motorcyclist, caressing his precious, precious bike.
"Loa?"
"Where to find some rum. Or chocolate," said the spirit in a skull.
Before Naoki could ask the opinion of Onkot or Parvati, the old woman cleared her throat.
"The question has already been determined," she announced.
Naoki shivered, barely allowing his hopes to rise…
"You have wondered why you woke up without your shirt or jacket," said the old woman. "My little master likes your abs and wishes to continue staring at them."
Before Naoki could decide whether or not that was a compliment, the duo vanished.