-Location: Hole?-
"Uhg..." Consciousness hits Ton like a hammer to the side of his head. Searing pain radiates from his temple to his ear and only increases as he gets up. He groans, "Oww."
Taking stock of his surroundings, Ton is absolutely certain that he is no longer in the Hole shopping mall basement. There was no sign of the door he opened or the wave of sludge that washed over him. Not even the hallway he'd just been in with the numbered doorways. The place he was in now looked decrepit, like a building long abandoned and left to rot but even more so than the usual state of things in the Hole. The ground was uneven, cracked and broken in places, large slabs that looked like they'd been moved at some point before being dropped. Massive metal pipes, plastic-covered soft grungy tubing, corroded iron girders, walls with struts, and studs visible. It felt like a half-finished construction project left in the rain.
And it reeked.
A familiar kind of raw sewage, wet mud, and rotting corpses kinda smell. The boss's scent. Strongly emanated from the thick sticky reddish-black liquid dripping from him. It was some kinda sludge, grainy and thick and not unlike the stuff he'd see in the bathtub as a kid after the boss had done his weekly shower. He had an unsettling feeling in the pit of his stomach about this. Using his relatively cleaner undershirt he wiped the muck from his face and set about trying to find his comrades.
"Saji!" He shouted at the top of his lungs. One hand cupping the side of his mouth and the over carrying his now ruined undershirt. "Tetsujo! Ushishimada! Damnit guys where did you go?"
There's something niggling in the back of his mind like he's forgotten something very important, something he saw in the dark fluid that washed over him. As he walked he realized that this place is far far larger than it first appeared, starting to look more like an abandoned city, Hole if it were a ghost town. And in places freakishly organic like at some point someone used meat to try and rebuild sections of walls.
He stops and there is a hole in the ground not too far ahead filled with blood-colored bubbling muck. An arm sticks out of the hole and lays limp along the ground. Seeing what is probably a person in trouble he rushes to action.
"Hey! Hold on tight!" He grabs the hand and pulls, bracing himself with his weight on his back leg and not the leg close to the edge of the hole. The pit looks nasty and he doesn't know if the edge is stable or not. The mud makes a horrible sucking sound as he wrenches the person free. Whoever they are they're fairly slim with long hair and absolutely covered in gunk.
Using his undershirt he cleans the person's face and after clearing the layer of grime his heart jolts- "Natsuki!"
He clutches her close and can't help but shout, "Hey! Hey! Hey! Wake Up! Natsuki!"
Then he realizes that she isn't breathing.
"Shit!" He lowers her back to the ground and tries to pull up those CPR lessons from back in the day. Medicine and fighting were the only things that the boss actually taught them. He inhales as deeply as possible then locks lips with her and forces air into her lungs.
"Natsuki! Don't die!" He downright orders as he starts with chest compressions. Using his full upper body strength he pushes down directly on her sticky chest and then releases and counts. One... two… ten… thirty… forty-two… sixty-six… one hundred! "I said breathe! Damnit!"
Natsuki complies with wet coughing that forces red slime out of her mouth and nose.
"Thank goodness!" He sighs in relief and cleans more of the gunk off of her. His shirt now irredeemable is left on the ground. As he looks at Natsuki's naked huddled form turned away from him his mind swarms with questions and the nagging feeling that he's forgotten something important.
"Hey," He says to get her attention as she seems to be very distracted about the whole nearly drowning thing. Ton takes off his jacket and drapes it over her shoulders. "Natsuki, how did you get here? Why are you butt naked? And how did you get to Hole?"
She says something. He knows she's saying something. He's looking right at her and can plainly see her mouth moving and she's even gesturing with her hands. She's saying something but he hears nothing. It feels like there's water in his ears and something he needs to remember. Whatever had happened to her didn't change the fact that they were still lost in a strange and possibly dangerous place.
Compared to the other heavy lifting he'd done that day carrying Natsuki was a breeze. Hell, she was even smaller than Dokuga and Ton knew for a fact that he could bench press the other man without breaking a sweat. He picked a direction and kept walking.
And walking.
And walking.
And he is forgetting something important.
A flash of memory passed by so fast that the only thing that registered was the sound of torn flesh. Ton suddenly becomes aware that he has a splitting headache. For some reason, it feels like it's been hurting for a good minute and he just didn't notice. Natsuki taps his shoulder and he notices that their surroundings are dimmer and the walls are oozing sludge. An uneasiness settles into his bones and he has her hand him one of the knives from his jacket. He carries it in his mouth just in case danger appears and he keeps walking.
The feeling of danger passes and Ton fills the time and silence with idle chatter. Worry gnaws at his gut as they find no exit or any other people around at all. He knew he'd been walking for damn kilometers by this point. Worry turns to dread when he sees a hole filled with sludge. His protests that it couldn't be the same hole that he pulled Natsuki out of are killed by the sight of his crumpled and dirty undershirt beside it.
He has remembered the thing he forgot.
The realization of death feels like the floor falling out from under him. He feels the pain in his head and ear and ah… That's why he couldn't hear Natsuki. The thing in the sludge tore through his head.
They were nowhere. Alone together in the void and fully dressed. He was so very tired.
"You've been here a long time, huh," Words came slowly as his mind grew foggy. "I… wasn't able to help you… I'm sorry..."
The darkness closed in.
Rough slender fingers closed around his hand and squeezed.
With a jolt, they are thrown from the abyss. It feels like his body is full of pins and needles as his surroundings come into focus. They were laying in a hallway full of numbered doors in a pool of blood and back powder. What?
"Ok! I haven't had a trip like that since that time Maki gave me a bad batch of Black Powder." Natsuki's voice croaked as she rubbed her temples.
"Natsuki!" Ton shouted and engulfed her into a crushing hug. "Thank the devil! You're ok!"
She hugs him back just as tight. When he lets go he notices her expression and the fact that he can see right through her to the door behind. Oh.
"Ton..." She says and her smile is tinged with sadness. She pokes him in the chest and he notices that he too is transparent. Weird. Weirder is the faintly glowing blue cord going from her wrist to his on the hand that she'd grabbed not too long ago. "I'm pretty sure we're dead. Maybe ghosts or something?"
That made sense, given the whole weird ass gunky… limbo? (Limbo? That's a word he hasn't thought about in a very long time.) that they were just in. Plus his memories of something taking out a chunk of his skull and slashing up his ear. If the blood on the ground was his then he was extremely dead. But…
"That's… not possible." A touch of the past flashed behind his eyelids of a quiet conversation. A heavy hand on his head and flowery incense. A woman's voice. That may be what happens, but that's not remotely fair. And damn the devils for it. "Sorcerers go to hell when we die. Like immediately. Only humans turn into ghosts."
Natsuki shrugged and an 'I don't know' sound. "Big bro, all I know that this isn't hell and that I definitely died."
"...how did you die Natsuki? Last I heard Doguka sent you on a solo mission. Did something go wrong?"
She stood and turned her back to him. He heard her take in a deep breath then release it. "I was leaving the manor. For some reason... Dokuga insisted that I leave through the back exit. On the way out I ran into the boss. He… licked me. On the mouth. It was weird. Then he told me he wanted me which you know super exciting-"
"Eww! You're like fifteen and he's almost thirty!"
"Sixteen!"
"Same difference! Still nasty!"
"As I was saying! Super exciting! Butterflies in my stomach and everything. Then he kissed me (btw the boss really needs to brush more often like hot damn) and..." She paused. He could see her hands shaking even while hidden inside of her poofy hoodie. "He used En's magic. He filled my insides with mushrooms and cut me to pieces with his knives. He was… smiling. Smiling as he killed me."
She buries her face in her hands and he's there instantly one arm around her shoulders and another on her head. He makes a soothing sound because his words fail him. He wanted to say that the boss would never because… well, the boss half-raised him and the others. Saved their lives and gave them a reason to live. Sure he was pretty cold and blunt but he… Ton, Saji, Ushishimada, Tetsujo, and Dokuga… they all loved the boss and it was clear that they were loyal. That Natsuki was loyal. Why would the boss…
The one who killed me was a Crosseye! I'm sure of it. Risu's voice bubbled up from a traitorous part of his mind. As Natsuki turned to cry into his chest he felt the phantom pains of his knives turned against him by Risu's magic. Powerful rare magic. Yeah… the numbers on Natsuki's smoke readings were pretty damn good and defense magic? Well that's really fucking useful, isn't it? If they'd have met under different circumstances… if she hadn't been a Crosseye and able to use her magic? Well, neither he nor any of the guys would have hesitated to take her head for the boss. That was the stone-cold truth yet something about it made him nauseous.
Natsuki was a nice person. Hell, from what he heard about Risu before his death the kid was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed too. Actually in it for the cause and not the money. They were killed by the boss. The faces on the thing that killed me had cross-eye marks, his brain supplied. Natsuki and Risu didn't deserve to die.
"You can let go now," Natsuki said, pulling away from him. She rubs her eyes and looks very tired. "Alright. So… what next."
He shrugged. "No idea. Wanna find the others?"
"Why not?"
It doesn't take them long to find Ushishimada, Tetsujo, and Saji who are now rather loudly looking for Ton. Which was nice.
"Where'd that dumbass go?" Ushishimada was saying when Ton and Natsuki caught up with the rest of the group. Rude. Ton stuck his tongue out at him.
Natsuki waved her hand in front of Saji's face as he read a sign about where exactly they were. "I don't think they can see us."
"Nope. Let's see if this works," Ton took in a deep breath, "HEEEEEEEEEEY GUUUUUUUUYS!"
No response. Huh. The guys continued with their conversation and Ton shuddered when Tetsujo walked right through him like he wasn't even there. Tetsujo stopped and his shoulders tensed and his eye darted around. Oh! Perhaps? Before he could try again his attention was drawn to the horrible wall of ooze pulsating further up the hall. About around where he'd woken up. Very familiar red-black slime.
"Ewww, you see that?" Natsuki said, pointing at it. Ah good, he wasn't just seeing shit.
"Whooa!" Tetsujo's hand flew to his sword because apparently he saw that shit too.
"What's wrong Tetsujo?" Saji did not see it.
"I-I dunno," Tetsujo was on high alert now. Granted it didn't take much to really set him off. Man carries his sword even to the bath, he's got issues. Not saying that the rest of them don't have issues but Dokuga and Tetsujo were the most paranoid people Ton knew. "But just now something..."
The phantom wall of slime vanished the moment Ushishimada's shout caught their attention. He'd picked up the powder trail and found the door marked with Ton's blood. Door nineteen.
"Shit! Ton we have to do something!" Natsuki shouts as she reaches out for the guys. Her touch fails to even raise the hair on the backs of their necks as they open the door. Ton's nerves feel like they're on fire, his attention locked onto the bloated monster inside of the room, and the meaty sucking noises it was making. It wasn't the only thing he saw. From the blood spatter patterns and bullet holes in the wall it looked like there'd been a gunfight in here recently. Even from this angle Ton could clearly see that it looked like the boss had been partially decapitated, the top of his head flopping a bit as he… ate. The boss was eating something.
"Is that really what the boss looks like now?" Natsuki's voice was barely audible as the pain in his ear returned. His head throbbed and half of his face felt raw and torn. There was static in one of his legs and it felt like his guts were falling out.
Ah, well that's that then.
A hollow feeling slithered inside of Ton as he detachedly watched Tetsujo, Saji, and Ushishimada's excitement at finding the boss turn into unease and confusion and then morph into horror as they discovered what Ton had already figured out. There was something weird about seeing your own corpse. Even weirder to see someone who you genuinely loved just going ham on your carcass like your guts were made of bacon. Something that was almost a laugh escaped Ton's ghostly lips as the puns caught up with him.
Though looking at the boss, he definitely didn't get that big by just eating him. Hell, most of Ton's carcass wasn't even in him yet. There was a lot of blood everywhere. And there was no way the boss could have gotten to this room on his own and as strong as Dokuga was this was pretty damn far to carry that thing's weight by himself. And definitely no way that Dokuga would have made such a sloppy attempt at decapitation if he had reason to harm the boss. So a firefight in which someone hurt the boss and the boss ate the resulting bodies. As well as Ton because... he'd shown up? The boss had still been hungry and he'd shown up and as far as the boss had been concerned Ton was food.
The monster that was the boss pulled Ton's torso closer and seemed to hesitate for a moment before digging its claws into the flesh of his chest and tearing it open to get access to the organs inside. Ton felt that. Pain seared through his ghostly body and his ribs snapped and popped in time with his real ones as the boss tore out his ribcage.
Saji was the first to act. His voice was shaky, begging, and on the verge of screaming as he tried to pull Ton's remains away from the boss. "S...Stop. Stop it already! That's your friend! Have you forgotten that?!"
Was the boss ever actually their friend? Part of his heart that would always remember being beaned in the face with a burger, the one and only time the boss shared food that was meant for him. The fun trips to fancy restaurants. Fighting as a team. But… really it was more the boss tolerated them while they loved him unconditionally. Well sort of. The boss… Kai… saved their lives when they were kids. Gave them a reason to keep on living in these shithole worlds. Not the reason they told themselves or the recruits but reason enough. To be useful. To feel protected. To be provided for and free from want. That's probably as close to loved as a bunch of losers like them could get from someone (something, because the boss was never quite like a proper person now, was he?) that powerful. They used the fear of Kai to use others. And the boss used them. And threw them away once they were no longer useful to him. Simple.
And yet it made the traitorous part of Ton's heartburn with rage.
They'd been loyal! Saji deserved better than to be on the verge of tears playing a pathetic game of tug of war with one of his best friend's rib cage while begging the man who was practically their father to remember that comrades aren't snacks. They'd been kind! Ushishimada should have been at home, helping Ton cook up a hot breakfast for their brothers in arms instead of sinking to the floor in grief. They tried to make things better! He didn't want to see Tetsujo vomit from stress and feel the need to draw his sword against someone he trusted, it was like watching something get irreversibly broken.
THEY DESERVED BETTER!
Like a match in a methane mine heat burned through the numbness of Ton's incorporeal body. (And how dare that bastard actually continue eating his body while the others were breaking down!) There was a fight brewing and the odds are astronomical bad. Neither he nor Natsuki could really touch anything or be heard. Tetsujo was the most ready to fight but he was emotionally shaken. Saji was still in denial and Ushishimada was in a worse state. And Ton knew exactly how fast Kai's horrible horrible tube mouth was even if the monster could barely move the rest of its overstuffed body. Then the odds decreased rapidly when it called upon the magic it stole from Natsuki.
Fuck.
That didn't stop Ton for instinctively reaching for his knives. What did stop him was the large ice-cold gloved hand grabbing his wrist. Colors muted and time slowed enough for him to actually be able to track the movement of that whip quick tube mouth as the monster simply bit a chunk out of Ushishimada's chest. Instantly killing him with Saji following soon after and about as gruesomely. From the corner of his eye a shadow flies out and over the corpses of his friends, pausing briefly and then flying back out of sight.
"Ton!" Natsuki calls out in alarm and he sees a similar shadow wrapped around her.
"Hey!" He shouts turning around quickly, the hand still firmly grasping his wrist. The figure before him causes a shiver to run down his spine. Her face was a skull partially obscured by a gas mask, not unlike the mask of that Aikawa dude (the one who tried to stop the boss who the boss turned into... ), there was even a thick black tube running from her mask that dropped down in loops around her waist like biomechanical intestines. Thick leather armor reminiscent of firefighter gear largely concealing her figure. She towered over him and Ton was not a small man. The black scythe in her other hand felt like a solid threat.
"You are dead," Death said, sounding tired which given all of the recent killings she probably was, "Rejoice. These problems are no longer yours. You can rest, forget, and move on. Your friends will meet again in Hell."
His friends will meet again in Hell? "But I'm still here now. I could help Tetsujo survive."
"Buy doing what? You are one soul against a mountain of angry dead. Even if you did manage to kill the host, and he'd probably thank you for it the poor boy's been trying to stop himself for years… even if you did kill him your living friends are unlikely to survive the birth of that thing. Either they'll be eaten very soon or just after the kid gains its own physical form."
"Host? That thing?" There were puzzle pieces coming together but so much that he still didn't know enough. And why… hadn't they been taken to Hell? Ton had to assume that those shadows that ghosted over Saji and Ushishimada's bodies were their souls getting harvested. But… "Why did you say my friends will meet up again in Hell?"
"You certainly are nosey," Death sighed. One of her tubes looped around him and she let go of his wrist. She altered her grip on Natsuki to a singly less restrictive loop around the girl's waist. "And I still have so much work left to do."
"Ok but-" Ton started only for everything to go dark.
When Ton wakes he's warm and comfortable and kinda hungry. The horror of the last day felt almost like a nightmare. He turns over ready to go back to sleep and maybe have a better dream when he sees it and the dam bursts. On his nightstand is a photo of people he'd half-forgotten and a calendar date that he still very clearly remembered.
Today was the day that his father died. Today was the day his family shattered.
What a cruel place to dump him.
Forcing himself to leave the lovely warmth of his covers he grabbed the framed photo. It was his family… his first one that is. He's at the center of the picture sitting in his father's lap and his father is in turn sitting on the ground and leaning on his pet hog. His mother behind them looking proud. On their left was Ushishimada being picked up by his mom and mighty devils was it weird to see him with hair again. Flanking them their many aunties and uncles and the other kids. Not blood but family all the same.
His eyes burned and tears fell onto the glass of the picture frame. After some hesitation Ton takes the photo and gently folds it before putting it into his pajama pocket. Real or not he wanted to keep it with him this time.
He doesn't want to get out of bed. His inner child offers up the suggestion that maybe nothing bad will happen if he's not there to witness it. But Ton knows better than that.
Ton slinks out of bed and is immediately thrown by how different his body is. So small and soft and unmarred by the stresses of homelessness and starvation waiting in his future. He really is just seven years old again.
He sees his childhood home on the day of the end with the eyes of a battle-hardened warrior and not an already grieving child. The entire farm is tense with the quiet before a battle. A siege is what it looks like as he sees from the window Uncle Ookami setting traps on the perimeter. His Auntie Hotaru's forge putting out tons of Smoke as she pushed herself much harder than usual while Ushishimada raced back and forth from the forge to the field carrying pieces of armor to Auntie Hakuchou fitted the bigger animals with it.
As Ton passes rooms that would normally be crammed with the sounds of people he notices the emptiness. People's things are packed up and there's barely any humans or magicless mages left on the premises. Humans… What was his family's dealings with humans? The answer didn't come readily to his mind, only that there'd been humans and others without magic who came and went for reasons he was never really told. Ushishimada had been older, maybe he knew?
He left the children's house to cross the yard to the main house. Ton noted the absence of the chickens which would normally be crowing at this time or running around begging for treats. The sows and cows were gone too. One of the hunting dogs clad in pointy, scribbled on armor greeted him enthusiastically before being called back over to Auntie Hakuchou's side. Her door, there was no mistaking the elegantly carved wood with the hand-painted singing animals covering it, was steadily dissolving by the door. Unbidden a chuckle came to him at the mental image of a bunch of farm animals getting dumped in the Hole for their safety. Hmm well, certainly whoever the enemy was they probably wouldn't be able to tell the difference between their humans and sorcerers who couldn't do magic amongst so many like them. He didn't know how the farm animals fit into things. Maybe their people could sell animals for human money?
The main house (damn his family had some money and he never noticed) was a house in mourning. Ushishimada's mom was on the couch in the sitting room with his cousin Kokou and her human friend, Akane. Aunt Meushi was putting the finishing touches on some masks for them, a black tiger and red hen respectively. It was as equally clear that she'd been crying recently as it was that the older kids were very much pretending that nothing was wrong. And from the hatchets strapped to the woman's armor, it was also apparent that she expected fighting to start soon.
They greeted him warmly, if concerningly affectionate. Like they may never see him again… and well... he never did see them again did he?
He heads towards his parents' room slowly. Something about the hush making him want to tread quietly. And he wants to put this off as much as possible.
At the almost closed door, he overhears a private conversation.
"At least I'll see the bastard in Hell," A voice like a walking mountain rumbles. Quietly Ton brushes away the tears that started falling fresh. From the richness of the baritone and the subtle clacking of tusk on tusk, there was no mistaking his father's voice for anyone else. The man's breathing sounds labored even from a distance.
A woman's voice… his mother's voice responded. Low and thick and sharp like molasses. "That may be what happens, but that's not remotely fair. And damn the devils for it."
"You know, you can go to jail for saying such things," His father half chuckled and half wheezed. "And Hell's no place for a sweet thing like you."
She snorted incredulously and playfully swatted his arm, "Really? Flirting at a time like this? What a pig."
"Wild boar, thank you very much." He retorted. It was a routine clearly familiar to them. Ton saw through the crack in the door their fingers intertwining. His father's pale chubby ones slotted into his mother's dark work-roughened ones reminding him of a little piano.
His mother leaned in conspiratorially and asked in a tone he strained to hear, "Your magic… could you…?"
His father's magic? To be honest, Ton couldn't remember what kind of magic his father had at all. Nor his mother's for that matter.
"Hmmm no," his father answered after some thought. "That mushroom bastard killed Kokuo. Without a proper anchor… I wouldn't be able to stay myself. I'd only end up causing more harm than good." He sighed wistfully, "Besides, with this kind of magic… it's best to go when your time's up."
"I suppose that's true."
"Tell me again… what happens to humans when you die?"
You? Was his mother…?
"Well, now, unlike you sorcerers none of us have the power to revive the dead. So no one really knows for certain. Lots of folks think that if you are an evil person you go to a hell for a while and if you are a good you get to be reborn as something or someone else. There's also the heavens, where good people go for like, eternal rewards or some boring shit like that. Some of the monks think that if you're like, holy enough you stop being reborn and simply cease to be? Spiritually? Or something?"
"Oh?"
"I don't really get the appeal. Of just ceasing. Why not just live different lives for all of eternity?"
"That does sound nice. Far more lenient than our fate."
"Course there's always stuff like ghosts and limbo and all that."
"Limbo?"
"It's a kinda state where the dead enter sometimes before they move on. A nowhere place where ghosts are born. Angry souls that refuse to rest or simply folks that have some business to finish before they do. No one ever really makes happy stories about it. ...I wish I could meet you again in my next life."
His father hummed, "That would be lovely."
Before he could catch himself Ton sniffled.
"Hey, piglet! Come give yer daddy a hug!" His father boomed like his lungs weren't failing him. Ton pushed open the door to see his mother helping to prop up his father so that the big man's back was against the headboard. Right, somehow his mind impressed the date of his father's death but the method had slipped into the sands of time. There was something extremely unnerving seeing a good chunk of the man's chest just… crumbling. Large portions of it were bandaged as best as possible but the web of cracks extended past the edges, the affected skin dry, irritated, and flakey. Bits fell off when his father breathed just a bit too deeply, creating what Ton could imagine was just the worst bed experience possible. Crumbs in your sheets but grosser. In the places where the magic had completely eaten through the skin, he could see shiny white pockets of fat crisscrossed with fungal hyphae. There is no shortage to the horror that settles into Ton's gut that his father would have likely died days ago if he were a leaner man.
It also doesn't escape him that his mother is dressed for war. Combat boots and sections of scale armor over her hunting clothes. The vital bits, of course, the major organs of the torso and places with large arteries like the neck, upper arms, and thighs. Her crossbow, and a full quiver of arrows, her hunting knife (a beautiful knife he needed to commission someone to make him a copy at some point because it was fucking watered steel!), and a pair of pistols… emergency weapons.
Ton had nothing against guns, he was a damn good shot himself but he'd hunted with his mother. Guns were noisy and dulled your ability to hear after using them. And the smell of gunsmoke dulls the nose (not that you could actually smell anything but the boss when fighting at his side). His mother was fond of saying that any of your senses could provide you with life-saving information so it was best to avoid impairing them unless you had no other choice.
And it looked like his mother was expecting the worst.
At her hip was her mask. It looked like she'd given the black leather a fresh shine. The snarling panther maw was a thing of beauty, something his father thought as well as his tattoo of it still shone proudly on the man's remaining properly intact shoulder. Mask...human. Huh. Actually, if his mother was human then so was his cousin Kokou. Ton supposed having masks in this world was useful to humans, they'd be mistaken for mages and less likely to be attacked or sold. But why wear it to a fight? It wasn't a helmet like Tetsujo's mask, it didn't offer up much protection.
His mother kissed him softly on the forehead and the gleam of her necklace caught his eye. Speaking of things that weren't very helpful on the battlefield… the necklace was more like thick twine dyed black with colorful beads, fine enough. But then there was the claw hanging from it that had to be about as long as a uni-bear claw and curved like a cat's. Ton didn't know if it was real, it kinda looked like it was made of crystal, but it was certainly sharp. Sometimes Ton's brain liked to throw the image of her accidentally getting stabbed or cut by that claw because sometimes brains are assholes like that. It never did as far as he could recall, and according to her, it was a good luck charm. She'd once told him that it saved her life.
A frown crosses his face. Ton had no idea if his mother survived this day or not.
His father gave him an affectionate side hug that looked like it clearly caused him pain but the man was grinning through it.
"Dad… you're dying aren't you?" Ton hates how the voice that comes out of his mouth sounds like a child. He hates that he feels like a child. Hates that he's in the body of a child who can't join the coming fight or steal some healing smoke to save anyone. He hates that they look at him like he's a child even if he technically is at the moment.
He hates what's coming next the most.
One thing he is thankful for is that his parents never lied to him. That he'd forgotten that his mother was human or what they'd done for a living was on him not asking that many questions. His parents didn't sugarcoat it when they confirmed that yes his father was dying. That everyone dies eventually. That his mother may die fighting the bastards who hexed his father. That some of his aunts and uncles may face the same fate.
Of course, Ton knows that death isn't anything to fear so long as you've got a cause worth dying for.
"Do you want to die?" Asked Death as she stood on the other side of his parent's bed waiting for his father to kick the bucket. Instead of the terrifying gas-masked, firefighter skeleton soldier was a tall black-skinned woman. Not Black as in brown like his mother but black as in a crisp winter night during a blackout. Her clothing was also black but more like the black of black jeans washed at the wrong temperature and looked rather cozy.
Natsuki was not with her.
"Your Partner is safe." Death said like she heard his thoughts. "This is not a place for her. I ask again, do you want to die?"
Did he? He looked at his parents and his younger self frozen in time. Ton hadn't died gloriously in an ultimately futile battle against powerful sorcerers while trying to change the world or even protecting something important to him. (And suddenly he feels like he failed his parents at that thought.) He'd been killed like an annoyance by someone he admired. Betrayed. And gotten his comrades killed by the grief that his death caused.
...and Tetsujo was still alive the last he'd seen. It was still up in the air if Dokuga was still kicking or if the bo-if Kai'd eaten him as well. If Tetsujo was still alive he'd certainly try to save Ushishimada and Saji's heads to revive them. Ton knew for a fact that his own corpse was unsalvageable, the massive chunk taken out of his temple certainly contained his devil tumor and without it… he didn't really know how one would go about reviving without it. And…
So long as some of his loved ones were still alive… isn't that something worth staying around for?
"I don't want to die," Ton said and knew for certain. As sure as the worry slithering in his gut. "If I can help my comrades in any way that's what I want to do."
"So that is your choice?"
"Yes."
Reality blacked out again.
The next time he wakes he's in agony. Like his flesh has been shredded and burned and his bones broken. Without opening his eyes he took quick stock of his body. He moves muscle groups in sequence: fingers and toes, hands and feet, the limbs, core, back, chest, neck, face. Everything seemed to be in order so where was that pain coming from?
He opened his eyes to see a carcass.
A corpse was probably the more proper term except it had been torn into like a dead deer left by a pack of wolves. To his mind, Ton felt like it should be called a carcass. It was still identifiable as him, other than the hole in his temple and the slash on one side that destroyed his ear, his face and shoulders had been relatively untouched. His exposed ribcage was still attached to those shoulders by the back muscles. Every other piece of him looked like it had been crudely crushed, squeezed through a tube, and then dipped in acid and chemically cooked. And like? Yeah, yeah that was about right.
Ton sat up and his attention was drawn to his surroundings. He was in the mouth of a really fucking massive cave. Close enough to the entrance to still be able to see what was around him but deep enough that he couldn't make out anything outside of the cave other than the fact that it was daytime. The stone underneath his hands was smooth and damp and he could see little puddles where the floor dipped. Stalactites and stalagmites seemed to frame a rather wide pathway. Getting up and taking a closer look at a stalagmite the thing looked less like a solid rock but more like some black bone partially encased by clear crystal. Investigating, he found that parts of the floor also seemed to be bone where the stone ended.
"Where am I?" He asked the empty air. This was no memory from his past. He'd never got to live anywhere with a nearby cave system to explore.
"The middle of Nowhere," Death said, appearing out of the shadows in a set of grey work overalls pushing a wheelbarrow. "Which is also a place where reality is rather.. worn."
She handed him a shovel. "Frankly I don't understand the appeal of clinging to something so ephemeral and fleeting as life. But then I can't say I've ever experienced it either."
Ton gripped the shovel tightly even though his face betrayed none of the anger he felt towards the deity for making him relive the memory of his parents' end. The white painted skull on her tar-black face let him read her expression some, she seemed vaguely amused by the situation. He raised an eyebrow at her.
"You refuse to give up the ghost," Death said as she leaned nonchalantly against the wheelbarrow. "And you want to help your comrades. We're going to go ask a favor from a higher power. So it's best to bring a sacrifice for this sort of thing."
Oh. Huh. Well then. He took the shovel to his carcass and started loading it into the wheelbarrow.
"So what do you gain from this?"
"Gain? Not much other than you not being my problem until you die again."
At his furrowed brow she continued, "News flash piglet, everyone dies eventually. So why should I care when I get you? But next time your spirit type magic having ass might be at peace and won't make shit difficult for me."
"And Natsuki?"
"You went and bound her to you, soul to soul. She's getting dragged into whatever the result. Now, let's get moving, it's gonna be a heck of a trek."
Death led the way down the tunnel as he pushed the wheelbarrow.
Ton quickly realized that she'd not been kidding when she said they were in for a long haul. Less than an hour into their walk the light from outside the cave vanished. There was something smothering about cave darkness that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. Death does not falter in the blackness, Ton had a feeling that she was of the same nature to it. She guided the wheelbarrow with a steady and passive hand, correcting its course when he strayed but never actually putting in the work to pull it.
"And why should I? It's your bargain, your sacrifice, and your refusal to die?"
Right, she could read his thoughts.
The path was a winding one. Bumpy, uneven, and the jagged stalagmites easily cut him when he accidentally brushed them. And all along where puddles in the potholes and at points pools deep enough that they came up to his waist. His socks and underwear were disgustingly soggy and it made his skin crawl to feel slithering things slide against him when his skin was underwater. And steadily they were going downhill deeper and deeper into the earth.
Ton was absolutely certain that the wheelbarrow was getting heavier as they walked. Like someone added two or three more hims in there. That or just fucking muscle fatigue from pushing a fucking wheelbarrow for what had to be several kilometers. Both were possible.
Either overwork had finally gotten to him at least a day or two in of a nonstop march or there was light at the end of the tunnel. The building heat pointed to the latter scenario. As their surroundings lightened he could see again. The jagged tooth-like stalactites and stalagmites from the mouth of the cave had given way to clear crystal columns and a roof and walls that gave off the impression of a gigantic rib cage and vertebrae where they hadn't been swallowed up by stone and crystal growth. In the pools of water, he could see thick leeches and worms nearly as big as his arms slithering about blindly. Centipedes skittered in and out of cracks in the stone. And his suspicions of there being more in the wheelbarrow were correct, masses of writhing eels (? eels in a cave?) and threadlike worms were having a great time drilling into his corpse. Gross.
Death once again had taken a different form. Though this time she'd shed the pretenses of her humanoid shapes to be a figure made of bone and impenetrable shadows vaguely arranged in the shape of a carrion bird. The battery of at least seven twiggy legs made her movement look less like walking and more like a ghostly glide.
The heat kept climbing, making Ton far more miserable than the strain in his muscles from all the work. He wasn't built for heat. High temperatures made him sweat like a hog and the humidity in the cave didn't help at all. Without stopping he manages to remove his coat and chuck it into the wheelbarrow and feels a little bit of relief from the feeling that he was being baked alive.
Still, they kept walking.
And things started to get ...weird. The ambient light increased from cracks in the stone outside of the path and he could see other pathways reflected at strange angles through gaps in the stone ribs of the cave walls. On those paths were other Deaths in other shapes from hollow white dogs to butterflies made of glass shards guiding other people. Some were him but hims that looked slightly off. There was a him he could see in the gaps of the roof being led by a neon pink clown that was darker skinned, taking after his mother more. To the left, at a forty-five-degree angle, there was a him heavily scarred with long hair following a swarm of iridescent flies. At a ninety-degree angle was a masculine woman who looked vaguely familiar calmly walking by herself without a Death. At a thirty-degree angle he saw glimpses of a wounded person with mutated animal features scurrying quickly like their life depended on it.
And that's not even getting into the fact that water was flowing up and pooling towards the ceiling.
"So..." He started and Death cut him off with a sharp clack of her boney beak.
"This is a thin place. Reality is worn so much that worlds touch and time is all but meaningless. Granted I don't personally experience time, that's just what I've been told by critters that do."
Huh. Interesting.
After an unquantifiable stretch of time felt like it passed they reached the end of the cave. The cavern was filled with an underground lake, both where a lake should be (on the ground) and a mirror copy on the ceiling. At the far end of the chamber was a massive stone structure leaking ghostly light and water that it took Ton a bit to recognize as a lopsided heart.
"This is as far as I go," Death's voice was faint like she was fading away. Or leaving more likely. "Take your sacrifice to the center and present your case to the being who dwells there."
"Alright," Ton says. "Thank you for this."
He does not expect the god of death to playfully ruffle his hair nor her words. "Good luck piglet, I'm rooting for you and yours. Not every day I see a sorcerer who actually wants to change shit for the better. See ya when I see ya."
With that Death vanished.
The wheelbarrow had become a raft. With a paddle. Ton pulled the raft into the black water and then climbed on. His carcass stared unblinkingly at him as he paddled out to the middle of the lake. A shiver ran down his spine and he became very aware that he was being watched. That he was being judged. Uncertain of how to start his case he simply began at the very beginning. His life story, his thoughts, his beliefs, his fears, everything simply spilled from his lips without pause or filter. By the end when he simply had nothing left to say and for the first time in a long while Ton felt… empty. Exhausted. Drained. He couldn't even motivate himself to wipe the tear streaks off his face.
And for a good long time, nothing happened.
And at the very least that gave Ton time to regain his composure. Almost as if it had been waiting for him to get his shit back together something started stirring under the surface of the water. Black loops of serpent rose like hills and rocked Ton's raft with waves. Iridescent scales shimmered in the ghostly light of the fractured stone heart. On instinct, he turned just in time to see the head of a massive eel drop from the heart of the lake above. From its gaping needle toothed maw unfurled a tongue made of worms that in a single lick devoured his carcass. The god withdrew its tongue and shut its jaws with a snap that Ton could feel in his ghost-bones. A cluster of purple eyes watched him unblinkingly and Ton was surprised that he felt no fear. He'd already been judged and if it wanted to kill him it would have.
The god closed its eyes and lowered its head to make its jaw level with the surface of the lower lake. Its breath was hot as the steam of a sauna as it opened its mouth again. At the sight of his mom walking out, Ton stood stunned. She looked the same as the last time he saw her, young and beautiful, and dressed for war. She extended a hand to him that held something that resembled a large pearl. His eyes were threatening to cry again as he took the pearl and found it to be squishy like mochi. It had to be strongly scented because he was able to pick up the smell of pure sugar.
The thing wearing the face of his mother spoke, "I am the King of Worms and the Mother of Monsters. I devour gods and from the ashes of my flames worlds rise renewed. I have decided to grant you three favors."
She pointed at the sweet pearl in his hands, "Eat of my fruit and birth a dragon into your flesh and soul. A gift of power."
She pointed to herself, "Listen to the story of your parents and their place in the world. A gift of knowledge."
She spread her arms wide, "This is the root of the world, from here travel to anywhere and anywhen is possible. A gift of time."
"Alright." He said. Ton was pretty sure he got the gist of what the entity was saying. He popped the fruit in his mouth and was nearly overwhelmed by the sweetness. It was fruity and smooth too like a sweetsop turned up to eleven. He swallowed the thing whole on the off chance that he wasn't supposed to chew it and it settled into his belly like a gallon of warm milk. His eyelids flickered as he struggled to stay awake but to no avail.
Ton sank into a bed of worms. His vision dimmed as the Dragon began to speak.
"This is the story of a human..."
What we learned in this chapter!
1. Death is quite lenient.
2. Ton and Natsuki are Partners.
3. Dragons have many talents.