Part Two: The Second Dark Tournament
Prologue: The Shadow
The enormous stadium crowd was growing restless in their confinement. A full thirty minutes had passed and still the opening band had not preformed. The concert's producers were scrambling to find a stand in with little success. The holdup was caused by the group's lead singer who had locked herself in her dressing room. Despite many mighty efforts, no one could seem to pry the door open. Stage hands were ready to call the fire department, but the priest arrived first. The priest was a middle aged gentleman with hundreds of gray strands slowly overtaking his light brown hair. He wore a black jacket over his priestly attire and on its back was embroidered a most unpriestly yellow circle. Even though it was a most pleasant evening for an exorcism, the holy man scowled sourly.
The band's lead guitarist spotted the priest in the hall and waved him over. The priest frowned even deeper in disapproval of the 'satanic style of dress' (as he called it) the band had chosen as their gimmick. Each of the band members wore a combination of a signifying color (red for the lead singer, yellow for the keyboardist, blue for the lead guitar, and purple for the drummer) and black clothing decorated with fake fur and skulls.
"Where is she?" The priest asked the panicked guitarist.
"In there," The guitarist pointed nervously to the appropriate room.
The audience was chanting the band's name now in the hopes of getting the show to start. The act couldn't wait longer, so the priest shooed the boy away. The guitarist hesitated, but then turned to head back to the stage where his fellow band members waited for news.
The priest looked the door over carefully. Once he had the hall to himself the priest tested the knob. The door wouldn't budge and the metal knob felt like ice to the touch. He gave another quick glance around the hall before knocking gently on the wooden frame.
"Amaya?" The priest called softly through the door. "It's me. Let me in."
After a moment the door slowly swung open on its protesting hinges to reveal a pitch black room. The priest tested the wall switch, but all the lights in the room were dead. He heard a soft rustle in the corner. Slowly he approached a crouched and trembling figure. "Amaya?"
The young woman was huddled in the corner with her back to the wall. She was resting on the balls of her feet with her elbows on her knees, her favorite stance. However, her usually relaxed hands now clutched fistfuls of her hair. The priest could see her hands were shaking as the young woman slowly looked up at him. In a soft frantic voice she relayed the source of her terror.
"I-I-It w-won't st-stop…" She whispered with a terrified stutter. "It w-won't st-stop growing."
Her raven locks, which she had always kept at a short length above her shoulders, now snaked down her back and fell into loops around her feet. Just as the young woman had confessed her blight her eyes (which were normally an almost hypnotic crisp blue) turned to sunrise gold.
Meanwhile in Reikai,
The palace of King Enma was in chaos. Red lights were flashing, sirens were screaming, and its residence all ran around in a panic. King Enma Jr. (or Koenma as he was known to his closest people) scattered all the documents off his desk and onto the floor as he picked up one phone line after another. This level of confusion was not a 'typical' daily activity, (although one might sarcastically call it as so).
"Arg!" Koenma finally screamed in frustration as he chewed on his pacifier. His more adult body took too much energy to maintain and use on a regular basis (no matter how little respect is youthful form gave him) and at a time like this he needed all the strength he could muster.
"For once could the Earth go two seconds without needing saving?" The young ruler cried in dismay. "What is causing those alarms? If it's anything short of the end of the world, I swear-!"
His blue oni subordinate, Jorge, flipped through his makeshift reports. "Our sensors are picking up strange energy signals, sir. Hundreds of them! But we can't tell where they're coming from!"
"What do you mean you can't trace them?" Koenma demanded. "There are only two possible causes, so is it human or yokai?"
"To be frank, sir, neither!" Jorge said before dropping his stack of reports in frustration. "We don't know!"
Then as suddenly as they had appeared the strange energy signals vanished without a trace. The alarms all quieted leaving the cause of the distress unknown. There was a moment of dead silence as everyone in the palace gave in to the dramatic pause.
"…Jorge?" Koenma asked quietly as the noise started to pick up again and people went on with their assigned tasks.
"Yes Koenma, sir?" Jorge replied timidly.
"Get Botan. Have her investigate the cause of those energy signals." He ordered. "And I'm taking away all your vacation time for the next hundred years." Koenma said bitterly before gathering up his scattered papers.
"Yes sir." Jorge sobbed and made a special note to write to his mother about how the universe just wasn't fair to a certain big blue oni that worked as an aid for the Enma dynasty.
Father Patrick looked at his adopted daughter with a mixture of uncertainty and fear. Her power serge episode had ended and she managed to regain some composure. Amaya sat on his oak office desk examining the strands of her long strait hair with inhuman golden eyes. Her skin had paled to a moonlight color giving her both an alien look and peerless beauty.
There was a gentle tap on the window signaling Patrick to let in Amaya's "extended family".
"We came as soon as we heard." Akihiko in his human form said as he stepped into the room. His servant, Chiyoko, followed right behind him. Chiyoko took one glance at Amaya before sweeping her up in a hug.
"Oh! Poor little monkey!" Chiyoko cried picking the girl up. "You've always had terrible growth spurts."
"I'm fine, Chiyoko." Amaya sighed.
Akihiko roughly yanked his loyal retainer into order before turning his attention back to Father Patrick. Natural born tricksters and masters of disguise the tengu duo were dressed sharply in business suits so that anyone who peaked into the school's administrative office wouldn't be the least bit suspicious.
"It could be a side effect." Akihiko reasoned and Father Patrick nodded. The suggestion didn't need to be elaborated. Everyone knew instantly to which 'event' the tengu was referring to, but it was not the most happiest of recollections. Akihiko added more to their dread when he continued, "There's only one person that would know for sure." The three gentlemen paled at the thought.
"Do we have to?" Father Patrick asked knowing he was going to regret the answer.
"Do you have an alternative suggestion?" Akihiko retorted. Chiyoko responded by hugging Amaya tighter.
"Unfortunately," Father Patrick replied as his mood instantly sank. "They don't cover this kind of thing in my parenting books."
Several hours later…
"And so you come to me." Macha smirked at the pitiful mortals kneeling before her. One was a mortal vessel, the others a chaperone and her two former servants.
Father Patrick had absolutely refused to conduct a heathen summoning ceremony on his school grounds, but Akihiko was already regretting this alternate arrangement since the goddess was sitting on his throne at the tengu temple. The goddess motioned girl forward and tipped Amaya's chin to her so she could examine the girl's face very closely.
"Something is coming." The goddess whispered. Amaya's eyes returned to their normal blue shade and she slumped backwards. Chiyoko caught her and laid the girl down on the floor gently. They all saw that once again divine power was flowing freely through the girl's body. Macha traced the girl's face gently with an odd expression in her eyes. Finally the goddess sighed and pressed her thumb to the girl's forehead. There was a momentary silver glow and then everything went quiet.
When she finished sealing the girl's powers, Macha stood and faced the wall behind her, but it was not the wall's historical depictions that drew the goddess's attention. She looked at the most recent events, past events, and possible future events with her mind's eye and muttered, "A storm that began centuries ago." She turned to once again face the trio of over protective morons.
"It's puberty." She said bluntly and braced for the wave of disbelief. As expected there was a universal pause.
"That's it?" Father Patrick asked slightly disappointed by the anticlimactic diagnosis. "I thought she was finally out of that phase in life?"
"Simply put, but-" Macha sat back down on the tengu king's throne. She kept one eye on them and the other closed to see as much of the girl's future as possible. She pointed at the priest accusingly. "You weren't listening," She scolded. "I warned you to never forget whose decedent she was." Then the goddess hit them over the head with the bad news that she had seen.
"She can't stay in the human realm anymore," Macha relayed. "None of them can"
"Them?" Nobody missed the plural form of the sentence.
Macha sighed, "Koenma is not going to like this very much."