Mitsuri found herself in Asakusa, a location that had been chosen subconsciously by Susamaru, who by pure chance had wound up as the person who led the second level of dreaming. She said to herself as she looked around, "Ah, now this I'm more familiar with. It's good to be back in Japan."
"Hey, Mitsuri!"
Almost on cue, Mitsuri turned around and greeted the voice with, "Hello, Kyoju-" However, she stopped herself when she saw Kyojuro standing before her as she realized that she was talking to a dead man. She froze and began to panic, wondering how Kyojuro had seemingly managed to come back from the dead.
"You seem shocked by something," he said to her. "Are you surprised to see me?"
"What… How…?"
"I walk in dreams," Kyojuro explained, confirming that his projection was not only invasive, but also aware of his status. "Most dreams involving James in some capacity usually get me tagging along for the ride at some point."
Mitsuri, horrified to see Kyojuro despite knowing he was dead, ran away, thinking that she was hallucinating, or maybe even seeing a ghost. "This can't be real," she thought to herself. "There's no damn way this is real! He's dead! I saw his body! He can't be standing in front of me! How is he alive in a dream?! Is he a hallucination?! A ghost?! What the fuck is he?!"
Kyojuro called out to her, "Hey, Mitsuri, wait!" When she did not listen, he lowered his arm and said to himself, "I'm not here to stop you…" He then sighed and turned around, walking back into the crowd as he shook his head and told himself, "I may have to stop you soon, though…"
…
Hideki looked around and saw James walking towards him. He recognized him from the earlier level of the dream and asked him, "Hey, I saw you earlier…"
"You did," James replied, deciding to use a variant of his Mr. Charles tactic to this specific level of the dream. "I'm sorry I wasn't able to stop that guy from putting you under."
Hideki then realized, "Oh yeah… Now I remember… Somewhat. We both got put in a dream."
"Exactly," James nodded. "We're in the dream of that guy who attacked us now. We gotta be careful, since he could be anywhere."
"Is he gonna try to steal my information?"
"That's the idea." James then asked him, "Inside this dream version of Asakusa, where do you think you would store such information? I want to be able to guard it properly."
"Hmmm…" Hideki then looked at a three-story wooden building across the street from him that housed a noodle restaurant and inn. "I'm not exactly sure why, but that inn right there piques my interest."
"Alright," James replied. "Come on. Let's go inside and check it out. If we find the information they want in there, I'll stay behind and guard it. You can do whatever you want, but whatever you do, don't kill yourself to wake up from the dream."
"Why not? Isn't that how you wake up from these things?"
"Not in a dream caused by the needle they used," James explained. "I fear that they could have used a really strong sedative in whatever was inside that needle. If it's strong enough, merely dyin' inside the dream won't wake you up. Instead, you'll be trapped in limbo. I assume you know what that is, right?"
"Yeah," Hideki nodded. "My instructor for this told me it was vast, unconstructed dream space."
"Exactly. It's very hard to get out of there even for someone as experienced as me, and for someone like you who hasn't done this a lot, it would be almost impossible to escape. For now, stay alive, and I'll let you know what we'll do once we take care of these intruders."
As the two of them walked inside the restaurant, a projection acting as the owner said to them, "Welcome! Take a seat anywhere you like and we'll be right over!"
"Thank you," replied Hideki as he looked around. One seat in particular near a wall interested him, so he pointed at it and told James, "Right there."
"Good choice," James replied before the two sat down across from each other. As they did, James noticed that Hideki looked at a rather specific part of the wall next to them. However, there was seemingly nothing indicating there was an opening of any kind in the wall. "Whatever those plans are," James thought to himself. "If he's even lookin' at the plans, that is… It's hidden behind this wall. His instructor must have told him not to make the safe holding his secrets too obvious. I'll have to tear into the wall to see what he's lookin' at."
"Is everything okay? You're staring at the wall a lot."
"Yeah," James replied to him. "Do me a favor and distract the owner of this restaurant. I gotta open up this wall real quick."
"Open it up? How the Hell are you gonna open it up? There's nothing to open up."
"This is how," James replied as he pulled out a knife. "Now go distract the owner."
"Alright," Hideki replied before he got up and began walking towards the owner to chat with him.
As he did, James slowly cut into the wall with the knife, doing his best to make as little sound as possible. He felt his knife strike something hard in the wall, and began to slowly peel back at the wood to see what it was. "Let's see what we got here…" He could feel at least one projection staring at him, so he began to work faster. He peered into the hole he made and saw a metal safe inside the wall that had been locked with a simple key lock. James looked under the table and found a key on the floor, quickly reaching in and unlocking the safe.
As soon as he did, he heard someone shout, "Hey asshole! What are you doing to my wall?! Stop ruining my fucking restaurant!"
James quickly grabbed a folder inside the safe without looking to see what it contained before turning around and seeing the owner of the restaurant march up to him and take a swing at his face. He quickly dodged the punch and stabbed the man in the neck before getting up and kicking him onto the floor. He grabbed the plans and told Hideki, "We gotta go!"
"Right behind you!" As they both ran out of the restaurant, Hideki asked him, "What did you find?"
"I found a folder with some papers in it," James replied. As they ducked into an alleyway to avoid being spotted by several customers who were chasing after them, James opened the folder and was disappointed by the contents inside. "Aw man…" Unfortunately for him, these papers did not contain the plans for the dam at all, and were instead unrelated secrets Hideki had in his mind. "You got multiple secrets hidden in this dream."
"Multiple?"
"Yep, you sure do." James then gave the folder to Hideki and told him, "Hide this. Carry it with you wherever you go. Do not let anyone who isn't on my team have this. They could be someone trying to steal 'em."
"Understood," Hideki replied. "Where are you gonna go?"
"I'm gonna keep lookin' for your secrets and keepin' them so these assholes don't steal 'em," James explained as he walked away. "I can find you later. Don't worry."
As James walked away, Hideki looked at the folder and sighed, telling himself, "Just what do these people want from me?"
…
Tokuhei and Reiko were walking along another street in Asakusa, taking the time to talk among themselves about a few different things. "So you spent that long with the Fifth Lower Moon?"
"Yep," Reiko nodded. "Me and my brother were with him for what felt like an eternity looking back. Other siblings came and went. We were in fact the only siblings who were actually siblings when we were inducted into his fucked up little family. Rui always desired having siblings since he never had any as a human, and his spider demon family was the closest he could get to that."
"It sounds like he didn't have a good grasp of what siblings were supposed to be like," Tokuhei observed.
"You're damn right he didn't. In a way, he was actually jealous of me and Rinji because we were actually siblings before we became demons. He desired what he had between us, but he could never attain it."
"And then one day you two escaped, right?"
"We had to get help from one of our older sisters in the group." Reiko sighed as she looked at the night sky. "We were hoping to escape with her, but in hindsight, perhaps she herself knew that she would never leave the mountain. She sacrificed herself to let us escape undetected, and Rui punished her by tying her up in webs and leaving her out to burn to death once the sun came up." She took a deep breath as she remembered what happened during her escape. "She was so brave… Even to this day, I still ask myself what she would do when I'm in a tight spot in a battle."
"Now that's powerful…" Tokuhei then stretched his arms and admitted, "I'll admit, I find myself asking that too about my parents and my older twin brothers when I get into a shitty situation in battle. It's been six years since they died, but even today, it feels like just yesterday that I found them all dead after a demon had ravaged my home."
"I'm really sorry," Reiko comforted him with a pat on the shoulder. "It must sound hollow coming from a demon like me."
"No," Tokuhei assured her as he turned around and smiled. "It's not. Reiko, you're not like the one who murdered my family. Not at all. You're a braver woman than even some human men I've met."
Reiko chuckled and told him, "Thank you, but… A part of me still can't forgive myself for what I did before I began hunting my own kind."
"That's in the past. Sure, if you were still doing it or if you were just sitting on your ass and doing nothing, I would hold it against you. However, you're actually going out and saving lives by hunting all these damn demons. I think that's atonement enough, especially given that you have such a big target painted on your back by Muzan. With all the risks you've taken and everything that's happened since then, I think you've atoned more than enough."
"A lot has happened…" Reiko's mind then suddenly went to what happened to her on the cruise ship, and she stopped in the middle of the street as she began to take deep breaths to calm herself down. "Oh no.. Okay… Okay…"
"Uh…" Tokuhei asked her, "Hey, um… What's up? Are you okay, Reiko-san?"
Reiko then cleared her throat and turned around to face Tokuhei. "Oh, um… Nothing. It's nothing. Come on, let's keep going, Tokuhei." The two then began to walk again, though they remained silent for about half a minute after Reiko's odd experience.
"So, um, back to what I was saying earlier…" Tokuhei then looked around to see if anyone was watching them or if he could recognize anyone in the crowds of people. "Ever since my family was killed, I've pretty much known nothing but swinging a sword. Whether it was practicing, learning a breath, taking the final selection, or hunting demons, my whole life for the past six years has been about me and my sword."
"You and your sword… I can understand why. When that sword is the only thing standing between you and death, I would place great emphasis on it, too."
"One day, though… I want to experience a life where I don't have to focus only on my sword. I want to one day be able to focus on someone rather than something, you know?"
Reiko asked him, "You mean like a wife?"
Tokuhei blushed slightly and replied, "I mean, sure, yeah. Having a family to focus on would be a nice change of pace. I would never fully abandon the sword, but I would like to have multiple things to focus on rather than just one thing taking up all my time."
Reiko smiled, telling him, "I hope you can find those other things one day, Tokuhei-san. You deserve happiness."
"Thank you." He then looked around again and asked Reiko, "On another note… Where the Hell is everyone? I haven't run into anyone else from the group aside from you."
"I was wondering the same thing. When are we gonna see the others?"
Almost on cue, Mitsuri ran towards them from the crowd, still freaking out about seeing Kyojuro's projection. "Guys! Guys! Hang on! You gotta hear this!"
Reiko looked over and said, "Wait, Kanroji-sama?!"
"Okay, look," Mitsuri said as she stopped in front of them. "I saw someone who I thought was dead and I saw their body and I know they're dead but they're not actually dead in the dream and they're really important to me and I just don't know why the fuck they're here and it's so weird to think that he's just walking around in this dream normally and I don't know what the fuck to think anymore about anythi-"
Tokuhei then told her, "Stop. Calm down. Take a deep breath. What the Hell is going on?"
Mitsuri did as asked and took a deep breath to calm her still-active nerves. "Okay… Guys, you aren't gonna believe this. In fact, you might think I'm a God damn lunatic, but…" With a single tear flowing down her face, she said, "I… I saw…"
Reiko asked her, "Who did you see? What happened?"
"I saw Rengoku-san," Mitsuri told them both as she tried to hold back tears. "I swear to God, I saw Rengoku-san. He noticed me first! He literally fucking talked to me! He should be dead, but… God damn it… What the Hell…"
Reiko and Tokuhei looked at each other, both of them unsure of what to think before the latter asked her, "Are you sure it was him?"
"Yes! Yes, it was! I recognized him from the crowd almost immediately!" Mitsuri then calmed herself down again by taking several more deep breaths. "Oh my God… How is this possible?"
"I think I know how," Reiko then realized. "The Rengoku-sama you're seeing… He isn't the real Rengoku-sama at all."
"He… He isn't?"
"He's a projection of either Colby-sama or Susamaru-san," Reiko explained. "He has to be. Aside from you, they're the ones who were closest to him that are in this dream world."
"Oh my God… Those projection things can do that?"
"I'm afraid so," Reiko nodded. "They're called invasive projections, Kanroji-sama. Colby-sama said that they are extremely unpredictable and can be very dangerous. We'll have to keep a close eye out for him. We have no God damn clue how this version of Rengoku-sama will act aside from maybe Colby-sama or Susamaru-san." While this did explain his presence in the dream, it also left all three of them with many questions about what Kyojuro would do.
