"Attention," the robotic voice of the alarm echoed through the halls of Judgment. "All available personnel respond to massive brane breach in Sector—"
At the urgency in it, Senrima turned her eyes away from Tsuzuki. It was just for a moment, but just a moment's opportunity was what he had been preparing for.
"BYAKKO!"
The White Tiger exploded into their world in a puff of cloud, the sudden change in pressure making Tsuzuki wince as it threatened to shatter his eardrums. Senrima cursed as she let go of Tsuzuki's arm, and reared out of the way of the tiger's fangs and claws.
Tsuzuki backed himself up against the nearest wall, his whole body feeling bruised, left arm hanging all but useless. His tuxedo in tatters. He must have lost the Count's mask while Senrima was using him as her personal battering ram. But better to be visible than unwittingly stepped on. And Tsuzuki knew Byakko would do everything in his power to shield him.
In the tiger's roar was the whirlwind. Only Senrima, the Thousand-League Horse, could outrun it. She galloped in circles around them, leaping off walls that collapsed beneath her weight, until she could get near enough to Byakko to close in for the attack.
Rearing, her hooves came down on him like forging hammers, with shockwaves Tsuzuki could feel reverberating through his healing bones, through his skull. He grabbed at his head to try to keep the sound out.
And must have screamed. Through the head-splitting ringing he heard Byakko's voice: "Tsuzuki! Hold on—"
A swift kick of those metal hooves to the muzzle forced Byakko to the floor. But he recoiled quickly, his feline reflexes making up for his size. When Senrima's feet came down the next time, the tiger twisted and caught one of her forelegs in his jaws. With his own weight and bulk, he wrestled the horse down, trying to throw her off her feet and down on to her side. But exposing his throat and belly to her teeth and vicious hind legs in the process.
And meanwhile, ripping apart the floor around them as they sparred. It was no good, Tsuzuki saw, to pit a wind god against another wind god, let alone when Senrima so clearly had the advantage of speed.
But he knew who might slow her down.
"Black Warrior of the North," he spoke the words in a rush to the ground. The din of the other two gods' fighting drowned out his voice, but it didn't matter. His guardian would hear him. "Ancient of days, thunder in the deep—god, just hear my prayer and come to me, Genbu!" Please come, before I pass out.
The ground gave a violent heave beneath them, as if from the explosion of ordinance deep underground.
Then the floor was splitting like a cracked egg, the massive beak of the monster tortoise beneath rising out of the chasm like a newborn titan from Gaia's womb.
Senrima managed to wriggle out from Byakko's hold, thinking to charge up her power in a run while the tortoise slowly hoisted itself up out of the ground. But the black snake that was Genbu's other half whipped up out of the abyss and cut her off, forcing her to dodge both its and Byakko's attacks instead.
The building had barely held one shikigami. There was no way it was going to hold three or four, let alone Genbu on his own. The simple swing of his tortoise head punched holes through the floors above, raining down concrete and drywall and the sparks of snapped wires. Sprinklers hissed around them—those attached to ceilings that were still standing—trying to put out the clouds of fine dust that rose from the shikigami's footsteps, but it was a futile effort.
"Bring it all down," Tsuzuki said, not knowing if the shikigami could even hear him over the sound of their destruction. Genbu and Byakko would know in their hearts what he wanted them to do. "Tear it down. Till nothing recognizable is left standing."
Whether Taimou retrieved the Kiseki or Genbu and Byakko brought the Hall of Judgment down on top of him, either way Tsuzuki would get what he wanted.
Someone grunting above him shot through Imai's pain and brought him back to the present. It was Nonomiya, tugging on his shoulders and trying to drag his dead weight . . . somewhere.
Not that Imai cared at the moment. The scene raging above their heads pretty much nipped any other thought in the bud, and nearly made his heart stop in existential fear. This is my vision!
Except he saw everything much clearer now that it was unfolding in real time. Somehow the tunnel's roof and the corridors above them had collapsed, and the sky overhead was like the aftermath of a nuclear blast or a volcanic eruption. Against that bloody sky, a primordial dragon raged, some long-necked, scaled monstrosity that looked like it belonged on a temple from the days when mankind had very real gods to tremble before. A giant, shaggy black lion with horns and wings attacked it doggedly, fighting the dragon's red fire with black flames of its own.
It was not an ideal situation by any estimate. Like being on the ground floor of a real-life kaiju movie. Anyone nearby was in very real danger of being burnt to a crisp, if they weren't trampled underfoot first.
He must have screamed or attempted to, because Nonomiya sighed in relief. "Ahhh, you're awake. Can you move?"
Imai tried to wiggle anything he could, even if just his toes, but he felt like his tissues had been replaced with lead from the chest down. Even shaking his head was difficult. "Negative." A pang in his side flared, the pain radiating throughout his body and making his vision spot. "I think I got shot—"
"You did, but those aren't the kind of bullets you're used to in the living world. Sorry in advance about this."
Before he could ask what she was apologizing for, Imai found himself being hoisted upright and off his feet by the collar of his shirt and jacket. They bit painfully into his armpits, but somehow the recognition that he was being hauled up by canines as long as his forearm had a way of making him overlook the pain. Then he was being hugged to some huge furry body, like Chewbacca but with much bigger claws and . . . hoofed hindquarters?
"Yali, get us out of here!" Nonomiya shouted over the din, climbing onto its back. "Take us back to the Peacekeeping office!"
"What about Kazuma, Miss?"
Imai made the mistake then of turning his head to look at his sempai, and instead came face-to-jaws with an oversized saber-toothed lion with antlers. Looking down at Imai with a grimace that he hoped was a smile. Just as he hoped the fact that he couldn't feel himself peeing his pants meant that he hadn't.
"I'm sure those are her wishes, too!" Nonomiya looped one arm tight around Ukyou and held onto her shiki's short mane with the other hand. "Shin knows what she's doing. But if we don't get Dr. Sakuraiji to a place of safety and away from Ashtaroth, her efforts will be for nothing."
Ashtaroth? Was that the name of the dragon? Where had Imai heard that name before? Was it the villain in some monster movie, or something Asai had mentioned to him before Imai died?
Then the ground was falling rapidly away beneath his feet, and his heart and lungs felt like they had been left behind with it. The red dragon saw them getting away and moved to stop them, its prehistoric head closing on them faster than they would be able to get away. Nonomiya screamed for Yali to go faster, Yali protested that he'd never had to carry three people at once before, and Imai just prayed to whatever gods would listen that the lion-muntjac-thing's meaty paws didn't drop him. He could feel Ashtaroth's breath hot on his feet—
Then the black lion sunk its teeth and claws into the shoulder joint of the dragon's wing, and wrenched. Ashtaroth roared, more in frustration than pain, and fell back toward the earth, where she could recoil for a defensive attack. For a split second, Imai thought he saw the black lion's fiery eye track the four of them, while it growled low in its throat and snorted steam.
But it wasn't a malicious stare, more as if to make sure they were OK. Imai was just glad one of those monsters seemed to be on their side.
Then they were flying over the ruined crater in the center of Juuohcho, watching the tiny, grotesque figures of demons crawling over the grounds where cherry trees had not long ago bloomed eternal. Imai recognized some great coats among their number, fighting back, and was simultaneously impressed by his colleagues' arsenal of magic and combat skills and guilty that he was unable to help.
It wasn't long before Yali set down on top of the building that housed the offices of Peacekeeping and Summons. Yali propped Imai up against an air conditioning unit before crouching down to let his passengers off his back. Nonomiya debarked immediately to get the sit-rep from one of her colleagues, whose own cockatrice shikigami was busy firing some sort of sound missile at the enemy below.
When she came back to help Ukyou, Imai finally had a chance to ask her: "What about Kazuma-sempai? I didn't see her make it out with us. We can't just leave her behind with those things."
Nonomiya looked at him with surprise, and then pity, in her eyes. "You don't know, do you?"
Well, it seemed pretty obvious to Imai that he did not.
"That black lion who saved us back there, that's Kokushungei, Shin's shikigami. They, well, switch bodies when Shungei is summoned. . . ."
Was she saying what Imai thought she was saying? "So, wait . . . that was Kazuma-sempai?!"
Nonomiya nodded gravely. "For all intents and purposes."
No wonder the black lion had looked at them the way it had. Now Imai felt bad for thinking it was a monster that wanted to kill them only less than it wanted to kill the red dragon. He tried to push himself to his feet, but had to give up after some considerable discomfort and renewed bleeding. "Hey. What happens if she can't defeat that dragon? Does she . . ."
Nonomiya shook her head of the question entirely. "We can't think about that right now. I need to get to the command center and get Dr. Sakuraiji safe indoors.
"Yali." The shiki snapped to attention at his mistress's voice. "If I leave you up here with Detective Imai, do you think you can shield this side of the building? I know that's a bigger configuration than I've asked of you before—"
"I shall give it my most concerted effort, Miss."
"Hey, sempai," Imai tried before Nonomiya had a chance to leave him completely. "Think Peacekeeping might have any sniper rifles or stationary guns in its arsenal? I know I can't move much right now, but I hate to just sit here and be useless."
Despite the chaos and carnage below them, Nonomiya laughed. "I think we might be able to arrange something."
Seeing Ukyou spirited away from the battlefield by the yali, Muraki could breathe a little easier, and concentrate fully on the task at hand. He would have to trust that the shinigami spoke the truth when they said they wished to keep her safe from harm.
Once the threat that Ashtaroth posed was eliminated, he could go and retrieve Ukyou, and take her away from this place. And to somewhere neither Hell nor Meifu would find her.
He would arrange her care with Oriya. Oriya would know what to do. His love for Ukyou—to speak nothing of his love for Muraki—would not let him refuse. And what was more, Ukyou trusted him. Oriya understood her in a way that no one else could. Under that arrangement, Muraki could finally bow out of their lives for good.
Attacking Ashtaroth's wings had proved a smart strategy on the Black Lion's part. As it clung to one wing by its teeth and claws, Muraki aimed his next blow at the other. The longer they could keep Ashtaroth confined to this crater, the better Ukyou's chances of escape.
He reached out to his summoned one's mind and became its eyes. At Muraki's direction, its tentacles shot forth across the width of the crater and stuck fast to Ashtaroth's unguarded side. The first hits acted as guides for the next, its sticky appendages pulling at feathers and scales, jolting everything that they touched with stinging venom. Dragging Ashtaroth toward the creature's event horizon, even as it used her to drag its own shimmering, hyper-dimensional bulk further into Meifu's plane.
Ashtaroth panicked. She tried to fight back against the tentacled fiend, thrashing and biting at it, but only became more hopelessly entangled. One wing bleeding into the Black Lion's searing maw, the other was just one good yank away from snapping, and now that anemone monster was threatening to pull her jaw out of its socket as well.
It may have been a bit preemptive, but Muraki allowed himself a grin. One he hoped Ashtaroth saw. He reveled in her terror in the face of certain damnation, and he wanted her to know it.
This was his payback for everything she had ever inflicted on or held over him or made him do, as the recipient of her "gifts". And how sweet it was. To not only be free of his debt to the bitch-queen of Hell after nearly twenty long years, but to watch his former mistress suffer slowly.
And Ashtaroth knew just what lay in store for her if that creature of Muraki's succeeded in sucking her into whatever Tartarus of deep space it called its home—or worse, if it consumed her, as she feared it intended to do. There was only one avenue of escape she could see, and it would not be achievable without extreme pain.
With a roar to prepare herself for what was coming, Ashtaroth pulled at her captor and whipped her tail with all her might. The razor sharp scales that sheathed it hacked through tentacle and feather and flesh and bone, but one blow was not sufficient to free her from Muraki's creature entirely. Though the pain that erupted in Ashtaroth's side was worse than anything she had experienced in more than four thousand years, she slashed and hacked with her tail again, and again, until she succeeded in sheering off her wing.
Then she blasted the tentacled thing back to its own dimension, shaking off the last of its severed appendages that still clung vainly to her scaled hide.
"Muraki Kazutaka. . . ." That abominable name was as steam rising from her curling lips. "You will suffer dearly for that."
But first, the Black Lion. Ashtaroth's resurgent rage stoked the furnace within her. A well-aimed and concentrated blast of her breath singed Shungei's eyes and fur, forcing even that fire-breather to loosen her hold; and once she had, a few good, heavy blows from Ashtaroth's paws were enough to put the big cat down for the count.
She turned—just in time to see Muraki starting to disappear in a halo of white light.
No! She couldn't let him get away this time. One way or another, this would end tonight.
Muraki knew keenly just how close to freedom he had come when that tail curled around his ankle and yanked him violently back to Meifu. He braced himself for the impact of concrete to the back of his skull.
Instead, Ashtaroth caught him in her massive paw, pinning one arm so tightly to his body that Muraki feared the dragon, in her rage, would impale him with it.
"DI-I-I-I-IE!" Ashtaroth screamed, coiling for the fatal strike.
But Muraki still had one hand free. One hand to reach deep within Ashtaroth, to the source of power that burned hot and pure like a nuclear reactor. Even if he lost his life in the execution, if he could drain enough of it and discharge it back all at once—
Ashtaroth's fangs sank deep into his throat. Muraki could feel the scrape of them against bone, blinding pain and pressure, then—
Nothing.
No pain. No power. He knew then that his spinal chord had been severed, and that the wet warmth he felt against the side of his face was not Ashtaroth's saliva but his own life pouring from his body.
Strange, almost laughable how quickly his mind made peace with the inevitable. Even embraced it, despite knowing it meant that he had failed. All the regrets he expected to have at this moment were nowhere to be found. Every plan rendered suddenly inconsequential. He could give up now. He could rest.
Muraki's last thoughts were of Ukyou. All that he had done for her, all that he had done to her—if Enma was indeed a merciful being, then let my life be enough. Let it end with me.
Let me be the last to suffer for my existence.
It was too easy. Between the combined forces of Kurikara's holy fire and Rikugou's manipulation of time, those soldiers of Hell's army that came within reach of Hisoka's shikigami never stood a chance.
But their sheer number still concerned Hisoka. Like ants pouring out of a hill, there was no telling just how many of them there were, and no stopping them from replenishing their forces so long as that wormhole remained open.
And then there were Meifu's demons. Enma-cho's own guards and ministers, its youkai residents, too many of whom were taking up arms against their human colleagues, or stabbing their own comrades in the backs. Even if Ashtaroth called back her forces, her army would be enriched at Enma's expense tonight.
The thought stoked the indignation and disgust in Hisoka's belly that he had been trying to suppress since the start of the invasion. Only now he wasn't sure if it was Yatonokami's or Kurikara's.
Perhaps it was both their rage he felt, surging within him, as he plunged his blade through the back of a tiger-headed guard attacking a shinigami.
"K-Kurosaki?"
Kanawa Hanako sat stunned and wide-eyed on the ground, her bow beside her. "Where are your sisters?" Hisoka asked her.
"Around here somewhere. I think." But it was clear by how she averted her eyes that Hanako didn't know. She could only guess, and hope for the best. "We got separated."
Hisoka scanned the battlefield for the other two triplets with no luck. But knowing what he did about them, Hisoka wouldn't count them out. No doubt they were somewhere nearby, putting their archery skills and all those tricks they used to cheat and win at inter-office competitions to a more righteous cause.
"Kurosaki-kun . . . your eyes . . ."
Of course. At first Hisoka had thought it was his two shikigami who had frightened Hanako—with the flaming sword and rainbow bird-halo, he probably resembled some terrifying angel—but it was his face Hanako was staring at. His glowing green eyes. The serpent's eyes. Maybe, the thought crossed Hisoka's mind, what she really wanted to ask was which side he was actually on.
But there was no time to explain. Nor did Hisoka particularly want to. "Go," was all he told her, and that was all the encouragement Hanako needed to scramble back to her feet, grab her bow, and clear out of his way as quickly as possible.
"Ah—" Something shot through Hisoka and he reeled, dropping to hands and knees.
"Hisoka!" Rikugou felt it instantly, and sprang into defensive action, shielding Hisoka with his long feathers. But even he had trouble discerning what was wrong. "Have you been struck?"
"Not really. . . ." Hisoka couldn't describe what had just passed through him as a pain, but "twinge" didn't seem a strong enough word either. More like a twang, like a bowstring snapping. He felt the whiplash of it, the sharpness of it, the initial relief of liberation.
Then, surprisingly, a deep sense of loss. "Muraki's dead."
"Are you certain?"
The Astrologer, seer of all, had to ask if Hisoka was sure? Why, Rikugou? Relieved I won't try to use you in my bid for revenge again? Hisoka pushed back his sleeve, needing to see the evidence with his own eyes.
But it didn't add up. The scars of his curse were still there, written into his skin. What does that mean?
He had been praying for this outcome for six long years—and that was only if Hisoka counted the years he had been dead. Of course it would take a while for the reality of it to sink in. Except Hisoka had never felt Muraki's absence with this level of certainty before. The candle flame that had haunted him was finally out.
The last thing Hisoka was expecting was for that to piss him off as much as it did. Damn it! Somebody else got to him before I could!
And I didn't even know he was here.
Hisoka could hardly believe it. A world without Muraki. And now he would never be able to pay Muraki back for the pain he had inflicted, the humiliation, the crime—would never see Muraki on his knees before him, begging for Hisoka to let the torment end, never hear that man beg in vain for forgiveness. That pleasure—no, that right had been stolen from him! The injustice of that was almost more than Hisoka's heart could contain.
And Yatonokami reveled in his anger. The Sword of Night hummed beneath his right hand like a purring cat, its dark heart pulsating. Hisoka could feel Kurikara's warning to control himself coming.
Then, just as quickly as the rage had come, numbness overwhelmed it. "There's nothing I can do about it now." All those things Hisoka wanted of Muraki—if he were honest with himself, he must have known he would never get them. Shouldn't it be enough to know that man was gone, finally gone, and would never hurt another living soul again?
Maybe one day that knowledge would be enough to satisfy him.
But just then Hisoka spied Keijou across the battlefield in his Peacekeeper great coat. It took only a second to recognize Focalor beneath his smug grin, another for Kurikara and Yatonokami to agree on what needed to be done.
Muraki may have escaped Hisoka's justice, but the devil still had penance left unpaid.
Fighting side-by-side and at times back-to-back, there were no shortage of demon foot soldiers for Kira and Natsume to dispatch. The golden flash of Kira's blade, the purifying cloud of each salt round Natsume fired—he was starting to wonder if they should have kept count of their respective kills, made a friendly game out of it.
"Watch out!" Kira shouted, and threw herself on top of Natsume as a spiky chariot, drawn by two only rhinoceros-sized dragons, rattled by.
It seemed to Natsume that, as the one already dead, he should have been the one to leap into harm's way for Kira. But all he could muster was a breathless "Thanks, I owe you one" as she helped him back to his feet. "Or several."
"Don't mention it. After tonight, I think we're better off just calling things even."
Natsume went to reload, found he was out of ammo, and left the shotgun where he stood. Time for the grimoire in his back pocket. It flared to life when he opened it, a revolving sigil of orange light suspended over the pages as the magic book awaited Natsume's first command.
"Nice," Kira said.
"You know," said Natsume, "if you're looking for something to do after you die, there's always openings for new shinigami. Someone with your skill set would come in real handy."
He may have said so in a lighthearted manner, but the offer was completely serious. Natsume would have traded one of his limbs for the chance to have Kira as his partner. And thankfully, she understood that. "I'll give it some consideration. Hopefully I've got a few more decades before that question comes up for real, though."
Natsume shrugged. "I can wait. I've got nothing against older women. Unless you think a mortal like you and a shinigami like me . . .?"
"I'll take a hard pass on the necrophilia, thanks."
"I can wait," Natsume repeated to himself under his breath, when the sudden appearance of Agent Keijou grabbed his attention. "Hey!" Natsume called out to him. Across the field, their eyes met. "Where've you been, man—"
But he could see something about Keijou was different as the man turned and stalked their way. Kira grabbed Natsume's arm. "That's not your colleague anymore."
To Keijou, she said, "Got yourself a new body, I see, Focalor."
Keijou laughed at that. Or, that was to say, his body did. It was Keijou's voice that spoke, but the inflection was way off-character. "Can't fool you, can I, Kira? Like what you see?" The devil spread his arms, his Peacekeeper's coat flaring around him. "This one is a bit more meaty than the last two. And the best part is, it's self-healing! No more rotting corpses for me. We can finally finish this thing between us on a more level playing field."
Sure, Kira thought, if by "level" he meant the flat ground. Because there was nothing level as far as she could see about his ability to keep coming at her until she had nothing left. She tightened her grip on her sword.
Just as Natsume decided to take off.
Damn it, was Kira's first thought, wait for my signal, why don't you?
But she could see what Natsume was trying to do. Draw the devil off her, make Focalor go for the moving target, and try to put as much distance between himself and the living woman before he made his first attack.
It could just as easily have backfired, and left Kira facing Focalor alone without backup. But the devil fell for the diversion, spewing innards at Natsume like a chameleon fires its tongue.
A spinning disc of arcane symbols deflected the attack like a physical shield, but Natsume rocked back on his heels. Not so much from the force of it, but from disgust. "Whoa, grody! Was not expecting that."
While the devil's head was turned, Kira saw her opening. She slashed at Keijou, aiming for the neck.
Focalor moved at the last moment and her blade sliced through his shoulder instead, lodging in the clavicle. And when Kira tried to pull her sword back for another go, Focalor grabbed the blade in his fist and held it there. The edges bit into his palm, hissing and steaming where its blessed metal met his possessed blood. Kira tugged with all her might, but she was only human, and mortal, and it was such a small thing for Focalor to stop her and keep her right where he wanted her.
The panic must have shown on Kira's face. Focalor grinned. He reached for the hilt of Keijou's sheathed sword with his free hand—
Then grunted and covered his face as he was harassed by a hundred little cuts from an invisible attacker.
That provided Kira the distraction she needed to jump back, and recover her strength and her courage. She looked over to see Natsume, his hand over a page in the book, staring at Focalor unblinking as his lips moved in incantation. If he could keep up his assault, Kira could probably land a few good blows. The two of them could theoretically whittle away at the devil until, best case, they could trap him and banish him back to Hell.
But Kira was afraid. She knew how quickly shinigami healed from injuries. Combine the attributes and abilities of one of them with a devil's powers, and the only one likely to be slain here was her.
Before she had a chance to act, a V of flame slashed across the field, separating Focalor from the two humans.
"Go, get away from here!" Hisoka said to Natsume and Kira. "I'll take care of this one." There were plenty of other demons to fight, and this time, if he could help it, Hisoka didn't want anyone in the immediate vicinity who could be gravely injured or killed when he unleashed his shikigami's power.
Focalor swore as the exorcist slipped away. He had been looking forward to tasting her blood, but it was only a minor setback. Once he had dealt with the Kurosaki boy, he could find her again.
Focalor shrugged and his wings unfurled like a black sail from Keijou's back. Not flimsy things, like Okazaki's rotting body had produced, but tough and strong, reinforced by the shinigami's power. The cuts his vessel had suffered began to knit themselves back up immediately.
Invigorated by that feeling, Focalor turned to face his new attacker, and smiled when that eternally young face brought back memories of St. Michel Preparatory School. Both the delicious and the bitter. "Kurosaki Hisoka. We only need Tsuzuki to join us and the gang will be all together again."
Hisoka recognized him behind Keijou's face; Focalor was certain of that from the hatred burning in the shinigami's glare. "You possessed one of ours."
The devil took one look at the eerie glow to Hisoka's eyes and smirked. "You're not exactly one to school me on possession, Yatonokami. Just what generation of the Kurosaki line does this make, and you've only now gotten a toehold? Oh, sorry. 'Toehold' is probably in poor taste when speaking to a snake."
That struck a nerve, judging by Hisoka's grip tightening on his sword's handle.
"What do you think you're doing, fighting for them?" Focalor spread his arms and laughed. "We're of the same mold, you and I. Spirits of catastrophe. Poisoned wind, poisoned waters. Come to the other side—the side where you belong—and together we can turn this field of asphodel into a field of bones."
Focalor spared a flicker of his attention for the phoenix circling overhead. That thing could be a problem, if Kurosaki sicced it on him.
But the longer the boy took to answer, the more confident Focalor became that his words were getting through. The serpent within him was older and stronger than Kurosaki had any idea. After all that time slumbering in his cells, gathering strength, he would not be able to suppress its evil. The devil could all but smell the sin in Hisoka, the wickedness, the potency of his desire to cause suffering and destruction. All it would take for Yatonokami to rebel against its weak master was the right provocation.
"What, no answer?" Focalor teased. "Shinigami got your tongue?"
"We are decided," the answer came at last.
"We?" And such an aristocratic "we" it was. Focalor was confident it was Yatonokami who had spoken. "And what is it that we have collectively decided?"
"That you must be destroyed for your transgressions, Focalor. As Sargatanas was destroyed."
Focalor's smile twitched, but he held on to it. Surely that couldn't be the snake's decision too.
But if it was, then all it meant was that Yatonokami had finally stretched himself too thin through all those Kurosaki heirs. He had begun to empathize with them. It would be a shame to lose such a powerful repository of evil to the other side, but if that snake had such a yen for extinction, Focalor would gladly help him reach it. "What are you going to do, boy? Exorcise me? My vessel does not possess the strength of will to resist me as Tsuzuki resisted Sargatanas, and your reibaku will not throw me out. Assuming I will even allow you a moment's peace in which to attempt it."
"I don't need the reibaku to purify you," Hisoka said. He drew back his sword in a ready stance.
Then there was only one thing for Focalor to do. Teach this impudent pup his final lesson. Focalor thumbed Keijou's sword just out of its scabbard and charged. Hisoka, confident he could withstand the devil's attack, stood his ground.
But Focalor was not done exploring Keijou's tricks. Before he could get within striking distance of Hisoka, he vanished, teleported, and reappeared behind the boy with his sword held aloft, ready to bring it down on Hisoka's crown and cleave him in half. Then, Focalor mused, the boy would really be of two natures.
But something was wrong. He watched as Hisoka spun into a crouch beneath him, and thrust his own sword up into Keijou's midsection. It all happened so impossibly fast, it seemed forever before Focalor registered the pain. Meanwhile, his own katana seemed stuck in the middle of its descent, as if he were trying to cut through tar.
A time dilation! Tch, cursed beast! So that bird didn't have to touch Focalor to deal the blow that sealed his fate.
Now, too late, Focalor understood the reason for Kurosaki's sword to be aflame. He could feel the righteousness of the dragon whose qi slithered along it, like the cleansing fire of Heaven. It had been millennia since he had felt the heat of those flames.
Still, Focalor had his trump card to play. "You cannot exorcise me! You cannot cleanse me away, serpent," he spat the word at Kurikara, "without destroying the soul I hold hostage! I know you can feel him, boy. You see how deeply I have dug my hooks into your comrade."
For a moment, he thought he saw Hisoka waver.
Then the voice arose from within Focalor's body: Do it, Kurosaki! He won't ever let me go! Damn that Keijou—those were Focalor's plans Keijou was spilling to his foe, exploiting Kurosaki's power of empathy. You have to end us, Kurosaki, the only way you can! Please!
Please. Let me go to her.
No! Focalor dug his claws in deeper, trying to silence Keijou's consciousness by inflicting on it even more pain, but the effort was to no avail. Keijou's plea had served its purpose. Hisoka steeled his soul again, and set Kurikara free to do his work.
Then the inferno. The searing heat of a fire that by rights ought to have belonged to Hell, but burned without cesation as only supreme love could. Focalor felt it all, his very being ripped apart, atom by atom, as the Dragon King flared up off the blade to encircle him, and swallow him and his host whole.
Tsuzuki, you sorry fool.
With every further shikigami he summoned, Taimou could feel her processing power halved.
But no matter. She had caught on to the pattern in the encryption. Whoever was working behind the scenes to keep her out of Enma's systems was mortal and limited enough in their imagination that after only thousands of cycles Taimou was confident she had found an exploitable weakness. After that, it was a simple enough matter to break through.
ACCESS GRANTED.
Data flooded Taimou's mind. Pure, uncorrupted, and vast. A record of every human life that had ever passed through Enma's gates—and more. So much more. Whatever Tsuzuki thought was waiting for him inside these computers, Taimou could not believe he had expected this. If he had, surely he could not be serious about destroying it. It was as if the entire Universe was an open library to her, and whichever subject she wished to know about she had only to ask and it would be delivered to her.
"Welcome, Taimou. O Faceless One. Mistress of Shadows."
Taimou's eye swiveled about, searching for the source of that voice. She had been certain she was alone. At very least she knew that voice did not belong to her master.
Tatsumi? No, surely he was still in the firm grip of his memories.
Then she saw him. A man in a lab coat, middle-aged and bespectacled, with the scraggily hair and stubble and socially-awkward smile of one who spends far too much time on intellectual pursuits and far too little on personal upkeep. He brushed one of the server towers with the palm of his hand as he emerged from the shadows, as one might do to reassure a frightened pet or child that all will soon be alright.
"How did you get in here?" Taimou asked him. Then remembered the server room was not as secure as it had been when she first arrived, thanks to Senrima.
"Oh, we all have the proper clearance." That from a lanky undergrad with an earbud in one ear and a don't-give-a-shit expression on his face.
We?
"The question is," the youth said, snapping his gum between his teeth as three more lab-coated figures materialized around Taimou, "how'd you get in here?"
"I don't think she went through the proper channels," said a petite woman with butterfly clips in her hair. "Do you, Chief?"
"You know what we do to interlopers," said yet another, a short old man with a walrus mustache and bolo tie. He spoke with an authority that the other three lacked, and still Taimou did not think he was the chief mentioned.
That title belonged to the fifth and last figure, a tall, lithe woman in black lace tights, whose face remained obscured by the shadows but whose vast intellect Taimou could feel like a poor imitation of her own. This human woman knew things that other humans did not, secrets that would have destroyed the minds of lesser mortals.
"We banish them," this woman said, staring right through Taimou's eye, right to the black hole spinning in her soul.
Still, the idea was laughable. "Banish me? Taimou, the Unknowable? The Ungraspable? Impossible."
Bubblegum-youth whistled. "Shouldn'a said the magic word. Chief just hates to be told anything's impossible."
To his right, scruffy-ponytail guy chuckled. Butterfly-clips sighed and rolled her eyes at her colleague's big mouth.
"It tends to just get her fired up."
"Taimou the Unknowable," said the chief, "we banish you from this place, in the name of All that is known and shall ever be known. We recognize you, and we banish you.
"In the name of Great King Enma, Lord of the Dead," the old man and the petite woman joined their voices to hers, "by whose Wisdom and Mercy we serve, and in the name of the Ten Who Sit In Judgment, we judge you and banish you!
"And in the name of Yama, the First Dead, and first conquerer of Death," the five chanted in unison now as an unearthly glow intensified around each one, "we, the Five Generals, bind you and banish you. We banish you, Taimou, lowly servant of the Imaginary World, to whence you were called!"
Too late, Taimou saw that they had surrounded her and caught her in the center of a pentacle. When they spoke the words of banishment, rays of light connected each of the Generals to rest of his or her colleagues.
Clever humans. This was her kind of magic—mathematical magic, as old and as simple as the original programming of the Universe itself, and supremely powerful. Even she was not immune to it. And for that reason, Taimou could not help but be impressed.
Before her qi vanished from this plane to be reassembled in Gensoukai, Taimou left the Five with the haunting echo of her laughter.
Slowly the fire-engulfed roofs faded to black, and Tatsumi's heart calmed within him. It took a moment to recognize his surroundings, another to understand why he was having such trouble comprehending where he was and what had been done to him.
Taimou. She hadn't put a scratch on Tatsumi, but she had scarred his mind well enough that even now, in the safety of the server room, he could not completely shake the vivid afterimages of his death.
A hand was pressed to his forehead. He flinched from it.
"Are you alright?" a voice unfamiliar to him said. "You were burning up."
To put none to fine a point on it. Tatsumi adjusted his glasses.
And came face-to-face with a young woman with butterfly clips in her hair. Butterflies. Symbols of memory. How appropriate. Something about her reminded Tatsumi of Watari, though he could not say what or why. Could it be as simple as the lab coat she wore?
"After what you must have been subjected to, I understand if you need a moment to collect your thoughts, Mr. Tatsumi," the woman went on when he could not find his voice. "But you are safe now, at least for the time being. Taimou's returned to her dimension. However, it seems Tsuzuki has gone and summoned more of his guardians to the party. . . ."
The way she spoke to him, it was as if they had met before and were old friends. But surely it wasn't just due to his current mental fog that Tatsumi couldn't remember her name or where he had seen her. Surely not at one of the Count's parties. "I'm sorry. Do we know each other?"
The woman smiled, and consulted the tablet computer in her arms. "We haven't officially met but we have an old acquaintance in common. I'm one of the Five Generals charged with overseeing the Mother Project."
So that was the connection. Watari had been a part of her team, once, though he claimed he had little recollection of it. Some trace of him must have remained, some Watari-shaped hole in their group, that had tricked Tatsumi into thinking he recognized this woman's face.
The floor gave a sudden shudder beneath him, and Tatsumi started when the whole room began to move. From the upward pull on his stomach, Tatsumi surmised they were descending. "What's—"
"Not to worry. That's just the emergency containment protocol."
"Down the rabbit hole we go," laughed a sarcastic young man with earbuds in, snapping his bubblegum, before he was shushed by a short, mustachioed old man in a bolo tie.
Paying them no attention, the young woman said to Tatsumi, "I'm sorry that we can't let you out at this time, but rest assured you will be safe with us until the danger has passed. In the meantime, I suspect we'll be getting to know each other quite well." And she cocked her head and smiled. "Tell me, Mr. Tatsumi, what sort of games do you like to play to pass the time?"
Tsuzuki felt the loss the moment Taimou left him. It was as if someone had reached their fingers into his mind and ripped her violently from his brain. And with her, any chance he might obtain the Kiseki.
Guilt and angry frustration rushed in to fill the void left behind. Tsuzuki felt his heart would burst with it. There was a dynamo churning within him, and if he did not vent some of that energy, he feared he may lose all control of it.
Suzaku.
Sohryuu.
Tsuzuki must have spoken the words to summon them, but he did not remember doing so. Only wishing fervently for their guidance, for their aid. When I'm surrounded by enemies on all sides, it is you who clears the way in front of me.
Suzaku, the Red Bird of the South, whose fire blazed as a manifestation of all the anger and hate and hurting he felt inside. And Sohryuu. . . .
The Blue Dragon rose high into that ruined sky like a water spout, the release of his qi pouring from deep in Tsuzuki's soul a blessed relief. But perhaps not the relief Tsuzuki was looking for.
Something had changed since Tsuzuki was last in Gensoukai. Sohryuu's arrival did not center him as it usually did, but tipped his soul into a reckless spin, like a comet suddenly plucked from its distant orbit and thrown down toward the sun.
Sohryuu's whiskers curled back in a rictus of grief and confusion as he hissed Tsuzuki's name. Tsuzuki could all but reach out and touch his sickness. He knew that his own mental state only magnified it, locked the two of them in a downward spiral that could only end in insanity. And it saddened him that Sohryuu had trouble just knowing where he was. Even Suzaku and the other two circled warily, fearing that they may have to intervene if the Blue Dragon, the greatest among them, were to suddenly turn on his master. The tension in his coils was such that it was a real possibility.
"I know," Tsuzuki assured them, assured Sohryuu. "I've given you nothing but silence for so long, with no explanation for it."
Sohryuu's eyes locked on to Tsuzuki like the eyes of a wild beast, cornered, and staring through him, straight to his heart. As if to judge Tsuzuki. For all he hadn't done.
"I know you're hurting. I hurt too. And it sickens me to know that I've been the cause of it—"
Tsuzuki couldn't go on as tears rose up and threatened to choke him. He squeezed his eyes shut.
He felt the muzzle nudge its way under his arm, comfortingly cool. Sohryuu's lips pulled back away from his teeth, their slick edges hard against Tsuzuki's side, but he no longer feared that they were bared at him. I will balance the scales for your suffering, was the feeling he received from Sohryuu without so many words. Set me loose upon your enemies.
"No. They've all suffered enough. I've hurt enough." And still I cannot seem to end it on my own.
Nor can I ask you to end it for me. Not without putting you through even greater distress and indignity. "There's only one you need to bring to me now."
"Name him," said Suzaku, "and vengeance shall be yours forthwith."
A solemn promise. And Tsuzuki did not doubt her eagerness to carry it out in his name.
But Tsuzuki shook his head, as Sohryuu raised his sinuous form to join her in the sky. It wasn't about revenge. Not anymore. It was a correction Tsuzuki wanted.
"He must come to me this time. And you four will convince him that it is the only way—because only when I have his undivided attention will I call you off. He must decide what it is I am to him, once and for all. And if I'm worth the price of keeping."
Do you see this, Enma? Can you read my trouble from it?
No lies this time. I won't be satisfied until I've heard the truth from your lips.
The truth of why we have to suffer.
Ashtaroth laughed. Not out of cruelty or irony, but as she hadn't laughed in a long time: out of pure elation.
Muraki Kazutaka was dead. And that abomination he had summoned was back whence it came. This time, for the doctor, there would be no coming back from his injuries. Not if she had anything to say about it.
But Muraki was Tsuzuki's ilk, and for that reason Ashtaroth ground his lifeless body beneath her foot for good measure. A waste of potential, but when a dog couldn't so much as look at one without biting one's hand, it had to be put down.
No matter. One less foe to worry about. One less reason to watch her back.
"ENMA!" the dragon roared, her voice carrying over Juuohcho's grounds like a shockwave. "I command you bring Sakuraiji Ukyou to me or I will raze your kingdom to the ground! You know you cannot hide her forever. I have a contract. She belongs to me!"
"I might have to disagree with you there."
Ashtaroth's head spun around at that calm voice. Who is that? Who has spoken? What right had he to be so unaffected by the horror that surrounded him, so confident? Did he not know to whom he was speaking? She would show him!
But when she laid eyes on the speaker, she was unimpressed. Just a middle-aged man, wearing a smoking jacket and a laughing okina mask. As frail before her powers as any mortal human.
Yet, for reasons she could not explain, some icy finger of dread dragged up Ashtaroth's spine when she looked at this man. He had the stillness of death about him—though that, she supposed, could merely be from being a bureaucrat in the Land of the Dead. And yet. She had the unsettling impression that if he removed his mask, her heart would cease to beat from sheer awe.
"Who are you," she spat at him, "to speak to me this way?"
The man smiled wider. Or perhaps it was a trick of the mask. "Here, they call me, simply, the Count."
"Hakushaku." It was clear now. Nothing to worry about after all. "You're the guardian of the spirit candles."
The Count nodded once. "That is what they call me. However, I had another name once. A proper name."
Ashtaroth did not have to search her memory long. One name rolled off her tongue and slipped seamlessly into another. One she had not heard spoken of in a very long time. No—
She would have made as quick work of him as she had of Muraki, but the Black Lion, though slashed and singed and hanging on to this world by a thread, had found some last reserve of strength and clamped down on Ashtaroth's hindquarters, locking its jaws and refusing to let go.
"Hakutaku." Ashtaroth growled and dragged nearer. But the man just stood there, one hand casually in his pocket, staring her dragon form down. "That's impossible. You," she spat, "the White Beast?"
"The very same," the Count said, and removed the mask.
And the face behind it was not so hideous to look at. In fact, it was quite handsome. Despite the dark hair and purple eyes, Ashtaroth thought she recognized something of Kazutaka in it. A trickster's face.
"You were expecting a snowy pelt and half a dozen more eyes, perhaps?" the Count/Hakutaku said. "But I am the White Beast of legend, and I know your secret name. Inanna, the Conquerer. The Usurper. As I know all your kind's secret names. I know the very thing that could destroy you in an instant."
Ashtaroth did not doubt he did. No one had called her by that name in a very long time, no one had dared, and never with an enunciation so intimate and so close to her very essence that it made her shiver. However, "You died—"
"So it would appear, wouldn't it?"
"Then you cannot use it. You haven't the power to destroy me, Hakutaku."
"No," he conceded, sadly. "But he does. And I told him everything."
Ashtaroth could feel whom the Count meant the instant he spoke. She spun, heart in her throat—
And froze.
There he was. Enma. The very man, the god, she had come to destroy. In his robes of blood-red silk, and his supreme stillness. And he was so beautiful and so fearsome in the same breath, she could not move a muscle, though everything within her wanted to run, run away, as far as she could away from him, and never stop till she passed the ends of the Earth.
But she couldn't run. She couldn't stop him. Without any hesitation, without any malice, he gently reached out his hand to her—
And vanished.
The crater vanished. Enma-cho, the Black Lion, the dragon Ashtaroth—all gone. Only the girl remained.
Two girls, identical in all but temperament and destiny, skipping side-by-side through a garden Paradise, in a world that's new. One just older enough to know better. One just younger enough to trust unconditionally.
That's right, Inanna remembers now. This is her older sister. Her sister who was once so dear to her—before she became the Queen of Night, and queen of everything Inanna wanted. Great beauty, power, respect. A kingdom all her own. A kingdom where nothing ever grows old.
Her sister whom she hated more than anything else in the universe, who humiliated her and strung her up like a carcass to be butchered, all because Inanna had the courage to defy her. Her sister, who made her die a thousand deaths and took from her every living thing she ever loved, all because Inanna dared to stand up for herself.
Her sister whose love she misses more than anything—whose love, Inanna only realizes now, as her sister turns to look back at her, is the only thing that can stop the tears that never cease flowing.
"Sis. . . ." That simple word, in a language she hasn't spoken in eons.
Then Ereshkigal smiles and everything is forgiven. Forgiven because there is nothing yet to forgive, and no reason yet to fight. All the envy and hate and revenge will come later, if it ever comes at all. She holds out her hand for Inanna to take, forms her true name on her lips, and all other thought
.
The plan had started out strong. The shinigami, caught unawares by their attack. And what was more, that fool Tsuzuki had provided the perfect distraction to split Enma's forces and weaken his own world's defenses. Unwittingly, it seemed, he had paved the way for what ought to have been Hell's triumphant invasion.
But Zepar was a realist. Watching Ashtaroth, his queen, fall like a mountain crumbling in slow motion, a lifeless husk, watching Focalor burn in Kurikara's flames until there was no trace of him left, Zepar recognized the writing on the wall.
They were losing. It may not have been obvious at first glance, but the army of Hell was shrinking, its forces thinning by the moment. And Zepar knew it was only a matter of time before someone came for him.
Rather than stay and share Focalor's fate, he made a quick retreat toward the portal home. No one stopped him. Hardly any demons seemed to notice he was heading the other way, and those who did more than likely would not be seen in Pandemonium again.
Suddenly Paimon's offer didn't sound so bad. Restore Hell to what it was before it became a repository for dead sinners. Go out into the World Above and mess with the living directly. A devil of Zepar's persuasion could get behind that. Damned if he wasn't fucking good at it. Meanwhile, in Pandemonium, there would be more vacant thrones than ever after tonight, needing high-ranking asses to fill them.
So what if Zepar had to grovel at that monkey-boy's feet for the privilege first? Anything was preferable to a one-way trip to oblivion.
Kurikara and the Sword of Night propped Hisoka up as he dropped to one knee, just trying to keep his heart from beating out of his chest.
Not with his own pain, but with Keijou's. He had felt it all so keenly. Everything the Peacekeeper had experienced in his last moments before Kurikara obliterated his soul. What tortures Focalor had inflicted on him, the guilt of slaying his own colleagues tonight. The tiniest sins from Keijou's past that Focalor had made him relive and relive until they were like millstones grinding Keijou's ego down into submission and self-hatred.
Yet somehow Keijou's forgiveness was the heaviest burden of all. Forgiveness and understanding for Hisoka, for destroying him and his partner Agrippina. Hisoka didn't think he deserved it.
Tears sprang hot to his eyes, but under Yatonokami's influence, it seemed as though they belonged to someone else. Don't wallow in this, the serpent murmured within him. It isn't worthy of you. You didn't even like him.
But that only made Hisoka want to cling to this ache more. To keep it inside his heart. If only so it would remind him he was still human. In that sense, it was a good ache.
"He asked you to do it," Rikugou reassured him. "You did him a kindness, in the end. He knew it was the only way to be free."
"I know." But that didn't make it feel like any more of a kindness.
Kurikara was silent on the matter, but Hisoka sensed the dragon shared none of his regret. Hisoka envied his shiki for that, that Kurikara could see things in such stark black and white where Hisoka could not escape grayscale.
Muraki.
Even now Hisoka didn't know how to feel about his death. Relief that that man was gone? Or like he had been robbed?
Or bereft, as if Hisoka had lost the one person who truly understood the darkness he had been harboring in his person all along? Muraki used to tell him they were alike. And the more he had, the more Hisoka had denied having anything in common with that monster, telling himself that was just Muraki taking pleasure in getting under his skin, tormenting Hisoka even in death.
But hadn't Hisoka known, deep in his soul, how true it was? He was a monster. Just not the kind Muraki had believed him to be.
"Hey, Kurosaki," Terazuma wrested him from his thoughts as he and Wakaba caught up. The former detective took one look at Hisoka's face and asked "You okay?"
The fact that he wasn't referring to Hisoka's shikigami, or his obvious possession, spoke volumes about Terazuma's own perceptiveness and care in the midst of so much chaos.
So Hisoka owed it to him to straighten his face, and turn his thoughts to the fight still to be won. "I'm fine. You guys have news about Tatsumi and Tsuzuki?"
He already knew what they would say by their guilty faces. Wakaba looked at her partner. "We didn't get that far. . . ."
"Kannuki felt the Hell portal open up and we made an executive decision to come back and close it. Got back none too soon, too, if you ask me."
Then, for all anyone knew, Tatsumi had been left to deal with Tsuzuki and Taimou on his own all this time. There was no telling what state the secretary was in now.
As if all thinking the same thing, the three turned to look at the Hall of Judgment. The ziggurat-like cupola was gone, collapsed in on itself, a huge blue dragon circling like the center of a hurricane in its stead.
"Is that . . . Sohryuu?" Wakaba whispered in awe.
Hisoka had been present a few times when Tsuzuki summoned the Blue Dragon in the Living World—he could still recall being a conduit for Sohryuu's manifestation on their first case together—but the shikigami's size and powers must have been constrained in those instances.
Now, it appeared, the reins were off. Sohryuu was every bit as massive tonight as the last time Hisoka had met his dragon form in Gensoukai, and all the more terrifying and radiant with his element swirling about him.
And it was worse. Suzaku was with him, her flames setting alight and melting all that they touched, spread by Byakko's breath, while a giant tortoise that Hisoka knew must be Genbu brought down more of the building with every rumbling step.
"He's summoned all Four." Hisoka's words were heavy with despair.
"Four shikigami at once? Or does this make five now?" If anyone knew from personal experience the level of concentration it required to stabilize and control just one at any time, it was Terazuma. "Un-fucking-believable."
In other words, Tatsumi had failed. In other words, what hope did anyone have of stopping Tsuzuki now? Before he tore either himself or this world, or both, apart? If they even got close, they would be torn apart by those shiki. Unless. . . .
Hisoka took a step in that direction.
But Terazuma's grip on his arm stopped him. "You got a plan, kid?"
Not a one. But what Hisoka did have were two very powerful shikigami, including a dragon that not even Sohryuu on his own had been able to beat.
What was more, he was Tsuzuki's partner. If Hisoka couldn't get through to Tsuzuki, and Tatsumi had already failed in his attempt, then who else was there who stood a chance?
"I have to try," Hisoka told Terazuma.
"You could die for real. Sohryuu doesn't mess around. And I don't trust those other three either. Just because you somehow survived being blown up by Rikugou—"
"But if I can't get him to listen to me, only Enma will be able to put this right again." And they both knew what that would mean. "Tsuzuki can't afford for me to sit this out!"
"Maybe it would be better to let him go this time."
Hisoka knew there was truth to that, but "He's hurting! Would you give up on me if I was in that kind of pain? Would you give up on Wakaba?!"
"Go with him, Hajime," Wakaba told her partner, seeing the indecision on his face. "Go help Tatsumi. I'm going to stay here and close that portal." She hefted her naginata in her hands to reassure Terazuma that she would be fine without him.
"We'll watch her back," Kira said, jogging up to join them with Natsume close behind.
"Don't worry. With us on the case, those demons won't be getting anywhere near Wakaba-chan."
Hanako had been firing off arrows nearby, and chose that moment to offer her assistance. "I'm coming, too," she said to Terazuma and Hisoka. "I want to be able to say to my sisters, when I see them again, that I put my bow to good use."
That was enough to make Terazuma's up mind for him.
As for Hisoka, he was glad for the offer of help. He just wasn't sure how much the other two would be able to do. Or if they would only become a hindrance to him when they finally caught up to Tsuzuki.
Only when he was sure that all trace of life and consciousness was gone from the dragon that used to be Ashtaroth did Enma withdraw his hand.
And looked at it.
There was no blood—there was never any blood—but he felt the emptiness of the void left behind by the slaying. Another god, lost to the ages. How long, do you think, before none of us are left?
Above him, the Count's projection of himself slowly clapped. Impressed, or expressing sarcasm? Enma would not have expected less than both.
"How fares your charge?" he asked the Count.
Who rocked on his heels. "The Castle of Candles continues on, unharmed. Naturally."
Such confidence, such self-assuredness. Enma wearied of it every time he was exposed to it. Though he supposed by now he had become as inured to the Count's vain shows of impertinence as to the lick of a loyal mutt.
"How fares yours?"
That was the real question. Enma turned his head in the direction of his throne room. Even with ton upon ton of rock and concrete in the way, he could feel the energies gathering. The darkness of the emotions that raged in Tsuzuki's heart, the destructive potential of the shikigami he had summoned.
"Seems everyone wants your attention tonight," said the Count with a mock-pout. "It's almost enough to make me jealous."
They both knew something like this would happen, but the Count dared not ask Enma why he allowed it. He knew better than that by now.
Because of that other energy signature they both felt. Surging as bright as all those candles in the Count's castle combined.
When the time comes, Enma reminded himself, and not a moment before.
"Are you sure this is a gamble you can win?" the Count asked him.
"Do you think I would risk so much if I were not?"
Rather than respond, the Count reaffixed the okina mask over his face. The perpetually amused expression on it laughed down at Enma the way its owner hadn't the temerity to. At least, not in a very long time.
Notes: Uhh, I know there's some things to unpack here regarding the Count, and I will get to them eventually, just . . . not this chapter.
Inanna is the earlier, Sumerian iteration of what would become the goddess Ishtar or Astarte, and eventually the demon king Ashtaroth. The things Ashtaroth says her sister did to her are references to the myth of Inanna's descent into the underworld.
Kanawa Hanako hails from the New Year's episode of volume 4 of the manga, the Five Generals (who are otherwise unnamed) from the Gensoukai/Kamakura arc in volume 12.