The pair spent most of the rest of their time in Hiroshima holed up in the file room at the field office, combing through every drawer and box and folder. Members of the team working the investigation on Miyajima stopped in to report every now and then, offering a welcome break from the monotony of file hunting. Akiyama gave her full cooperation. All in all, it was an uneventful three days. Except for that looming darkness that seemed to hover around every corner.

Thursday had come and gone, and neither Daphne nor Rin had been able to put a pin in what it was. Every time Daphne searched for it, it wasn't there. Every time she felt it and looked in its direction, it disappeared. Daphne's only consolation was that Rin could feel it too.

"I hope it'll go all right," Rin said as they stood on the Shinkansen platform. "Now that we're leaving."

"It was never really our investigation, Rin," Daphne said. "Not officially." The unauthorized photocopies she'd made of the suspicious reports were burning a hole in her backpack that very moment. She wanted to get on the train and pass the stupid things off to Mephisto as quickly as possible. "We said we'd look into it. We looked into it."

"Yeah, and we found a bottomless pit."

Daphne swallowed. He was right.

She couldn't get her eyes to shut at all on the Shinkansen. She nearly drove herself crazy counting the stops on the local train until the one for their neighborhood. She didn't wait for Rin as he struggled with his luggage on the platform. She didn't even wait for him to get his front door key out of his pocket when he had trouble with that. She broke the doorknob off instead.

"Jesus, Daph."

"I want to be home," was all she said.

Rin squawked something about robbers and security and a bunch of other nonsense Daphne didn't listen to. It would have been idiotic for anyone to break into their house—regardless of a missing doorknob. She went upstairs, dropped her backpack in the hall, and headed for the bathroom, cranking the shower all the way to hottest setting. She plugged the tub, sat on the edge, and watched every inch as the water filled it.

"What the hell are you doing?" Rin asked, coughing on the steam when he came into the bathroom.

"Whatever is going on in Hiroshima has to do with this presence, Rin," she replied. "We can't ignore it anymore."

"I'm not ignoring it. What are you doing with the tub?"

"Recreating the hot bath at the ryokan. Do you feel like the presence ever left us?"

He was quiet. The shower sounded loudly on the water in the tub. Then Rin said, "No. No, it never did."

"I'm going to draw it out."

"I would appreciate it if you wouldn't…"

"I'm not going to sit here and do nothing."

"Daph. Stop it."

Rin reached over and shut the water off. He nearly reached after the plug to drain the tub as well, but Daphne grabbed his hands before he could. They regarded each other for a moment through the steam.

"You're exhausted," Rin said, sitting next to her. "You've been working nonstop for a week. You decided to fill up the tub with the shower for Christ's sake. Please don't do this now." Daphne looked away. He kept talking. "If you draw it out, what then? You're gonna fight it? We don't know anything about it. Neither of us is in a good state to face a demon as powerful as we think that one might be. Don't be stupid."

She glared at him, but he held his ground.

"I. Can't. Do. Nothing," she repeated.

"I'm not asking you to do nothing. I'm asking you to wait."

He didn't really give her any choice. Pulling Daphne to her feet, Rin led her to the bedroom. As soon as she saw their bed, her energy drained as she realized just how tired she was. After that, she didn't need more convincing. Quiet, she got ready for bed and climbed in—the familiar sight of that wedding picture of her and Rin on Miyajima striking one last note of sadness on her heart before she drifted off.

Rin didn't go to sleep. He needed to talk to somebody, and he didn't want to leave Daphne alone, but he couldn't talk on the phone in bed, so he sat up, texting Yukio.

We're home. Safe and sound-ish—he sent.

It only took a few seconds. Yukio was always good for a late-night chat.

Ish?

Hiroshima was bad. Miyajima was worse.

Any major injuries?

No, but

Rin stopped typing. But Daphne was acting a whole hell of a lot like she had when he'd first met her. He didn't know what he expected Yukio to do about it. It wasn't like Yukio had done anything the first time. Rin wasn't even sure what he'd done. Thinking about it, he hadn't done anything either. Daphne had come to terms with things herself. What scared Rin was that things might not actually have been fully resolved. He'd seen hints of it before, but nothing on the scale of breaking the handle off the front door had happened in a long time.

Regardless, it was between Rin and Daphne. He didn't need to drag in Yukio.

Rin backspaced the "but".

No. I'm not sure how much Mephisto wants this stuff talked about, but I'll ask him tomorrow and fill you in if I can he sent.

Sounds good. Glad you're both all right.

Me too. Night.

Night.

Sighing, Rin set his phone on the bedside table. In the darkness, he glanced down at Daphne, already asleep. Part of him wanted to wake her up, ask her if she really was okay or what was going through her head, but he didn't. What she needed was sleep. He'd ask her tomorrow.

Rin settled down under the covers. He shut his eyes for a moment, but even in his own bed that uneasiness still hovered around him. Rolling over, he snuggled close to Daphne and put an arm over her. She stirred, waking for a moment to take hold of his hand. It was strange almost how much safer that made him feel—like if hadn't moved closer to her, something bad might have happened.

It was another ten minutes before he could get his eyes to close. And ten minutes still before he fell asleep.

Spirit had not anticipated just how large Assiah could be. There were so many more beings, so many more demons, so many more places than she imagined. She had only had to leave her island to find out.

She did not know why she had decided to follow the dark one and the light one when they had departed, but she had. She felt bound to them somehow—not physically, perhaps, but emotionally, spiritually. Somehow she understood that they were beings similar to herself, and she knew for fact that they were searching her out just as diligently as she was searching them. The idea that that could stop just as suddenly as it had started was so abhorrent to her, she had actually destroyed the small, fur-covered body of the demon she had stolen in her outburst. She had not meant to do that.

Finding another body had been easy: a swarm of tiny, black demons with large green eyes had been floating near a decaying log at the time. She took one of them. It did not struggle or scream like the other had.

She steered it after her beings. She stayed with them. She observed their every movement, followed their every footstep all the way to a place that smelled so very much like them it nearly overwhelmed her olfactory core. She understood instinctively that this was their home.

Spirit made her way inside, and it was difficult. Barriers had been erected, but she had chosen her body well and a small, low-level demon such as she was disguised as eventually slipped through the cracks. She found her beings upstairs, asleep. They spent so much of their time doing that.

Spirit shed her skin, but kept the tiny demon close at hand, ready to slip back inside if needed. She settled her vaporous body along the headboard, watching as her nearness seemed to stir expressions across the faces of her beings. It was then that she noticed the photograph on the small table next to the bed. An image of her beings on her island.

Spirit smiled.

Similar to herself indeed.