Vortex World,
Okinawa Prefecture, Naha City, Miebashi Station Amala Drum
Kagatsuchi 2/8 Waning
"Get out get out get out!" Skuld grabbed first Sasami, then Raidou by the hand, dragging them towards the exit to the Amala Terminal before the yellow-white glare from the teleportation and follow-on explosion had even faded. Sasami blinked and stumbled after her, her ears ringing and her body throbbing, stinging, screaming. The the entirety of her left side-her face especially-felt as though someone had thrown hot oil over it, and she could feel moisture trickling down her neck. Spots, black and flashing brightly, overwhelmed her vision, and as they stumbled out of the Amala Terminal and into Miebashi Station a burst of warm air hit her and the child shrieked; it felt blistering hot against whatever injuries afflicted her.
Yet even as she lagged behind, Skuld's grip on her right hand pulled her forward in a painful, vice grip that forced her onwards. Please. She was rasping, and her lips felt numb, her tongue fat and swollen in her mouth. Please, I can't- please stop! She tasted iron and carbon and something like burnt meat.
Yet Skuld, her hair aflame and eyes bright and feverish, never so much as glanced back at her.
Behind them, Sasami heard the Amala Terminal close, only to sigh open again.
The gentle slap of bare feet against tile.
The wooden clank of a marionette puppet.
A flash of violet light appeared before Skuld, and Sasami almost ran into the girl as another massive skull appeared, leering at them with its red pit eyes.
"Fuck!" Skuld screamed, and backed into both Raidou and Sasami, releasing them both in favor of spreading her arms to try and force them both back. Sasami stumbled as Skuld's arm collided with her, and felt fresh agony assault her in turn. "Back up, back up!" Skuld's voice was panicked.
The deafening fortissimo of a pistol popping three shots in fast repetition, and the chatterskull before them recoiled with a shriek, even as Sasami shied away from the noise, clutching her ears and feeling fiery pain, crusting wounds, and liquid smearing on her fingertips.
She looked to the source and found Raidou already directing them to go with one hand, blood flowing freely down a face seared and horrific by the resulting explosion that had so entrapped them all within the terminal.
The chatterskull hissed, turning its full attention to Raidou, and Skuld grabbed Sasami's hand once more as the young man, a tight grimace of pain on his face, reached inside his jacket. Sasami saw a flash of green light and missed what the teen summoned as her companion dragged her around the corner.
"Raidou!" The name came out broken and pained, accompanied by the taste of iron in her mouth. The princess looked at Skuld and attempted to pull away, only for Skuld to ignore her tug and drag her onwards. "What…"
"Shut up," Skuld growled, racing past a pair of Jack brothers—one a Jack Frost, the other a Pyro Jack—who'd come to investigate only to retreat from the young goddess as she raced past. "Raidou can handle himself and you're hurt."
A snarl pulled up Skuld's upper lip, revealing a canine in an unconscious reflection of her eldest sister. "We aren't abandoning him." She hissed. "But you got the brunt of that explosion and will drop dead if you're in the AOE of any of those spells or attacks. I am trying to save you and then go and help Raidou, okay?"
"What is the meaning of this!?" A clear voice of authority rose from farther down the hallway, and the two girls looked to the source with a start, finding a large, gold-plumed bird decorated with silver jewelry soaring towards them, its wingspan scraping either side of the hallway. Behind it a massive giant of a man, his skin the color and texture of old, dirty brick raced towards them, his face masked by strange, chain-like locks that left only one lone, sickly yellow eye visible.
Sasami flinched away from the sight of the massive man, and Skuld shifted to stand in front of her.
The man was naked outside of a blue denim sash around his waist.
It was the raptor who spoke. "Who are you?" It demanded. "What are you doing—" It was interrupted by an explosion further down the hall, and the brick-man thundered passed the two girls, a whistling moan escaping him as he raced around the corner and out of sight. The plumage on the massive falcon rose in alarm. "Grendel!" It called out, yet received no reply, leaving the demon to trill, "Idiot beast."
It turned its gaze to Skuld and Sasami and despite the terribleness of the naked man from before, Sasami found she wished they were facing him rather than the bird before them. There was something simple in the man's-Grendel's-actions and movements.
The bird though…
There was a terrible, cold intellect within the raptor.
Sasami, a princess whose life left her surrounded by some of the most decrepit of humanity-politicians and the power-hungry nobility the most notable-recognized it at once, and tried not to shy away from its red-eyed gaze.
Yet another explosion wracked the corridor, and the bird tilted its head to observe the source as more voices rose behind it. For a terrible moment, it seemed to grow in size, and it wasn't until Skuld stepped back into Sasami that the blue-haired child realized it was not an illusion or a trick of her eyes, but an actual change in size, so gradual it was almost unnoticeable.
"Sparna!" Another voice, followed by sneakers racing atop the tile, and the bird paused to look over its shoulder.
"Sakuya. I have need of you." The being stated, and shifted to an angle, seeming to shrink in his steps to make room for a human, a teen, a girl who appeared to be around the same age and similar nationality to Raidou. The girl froze when they met Sasami's gaze, and blue eyes widened in first shock and then to Sasami's confusion-fear.
"Humans?" The black-haired girl breathed, then raced past Sparna, only to cry out as the floor trembled with enough force to knock her against the side of the hallway and send Sasami crashing to the ground. Pain exploded across the child's body, and the girl gasped, feeling as though the air was stolen from her lungs.
Skuld knelt by her side, helping her up, and even that was painful, as though the Norn's very touch was fire. Sasami whimpered, and the young goddess grimaced as she looked up at the avian entity. "Listen, there's a really powerful demon at the Amala Terminal right now! Some Goetia that's shooting first and questioning later, and he's strong."
"Who is this Goetia?" The golden bird, Sparna demanded as behind him, the human girl, Sakuya, crawled back to her feet and approached the children.
"Some ass named Nebiros," Skuld replied. "Listen, our other friend is trying to hold him off, but I don't know how long he can handle it—Nebiros summoned an evil spirit that self-destructed on us, and none of us could care for our injuries. We need help; Nebiros attacked us without provocation, and we're just a bunch of kids!"
"Necromancer Nebiros…Hell's Inspector General." There was an undeniable dread in the bird's voice. He turned to Sakuya. "Remove yourself and these children from this floor. Evacuate anything which is not of the Nine Choir from this building until you receive news, and send the Archangel who administers them to the Terminal."
"Sparna?" Sakuya asked, "What is it? Who's Nebiros?"
"One of the most dangerous Goetia to walk the greater and lesser hells. I've never met him personally, but his reputation proceeds him." The feathers around the creature's neck bristled, and he shook himself. "For every spirit that dies, he gains a new soldier. Only those of a divine nature and who can guard themselves against his greater curses stand a chance against him."
Sakuya paled, then nodded, biting her lip as she turned back to the girls. "Okay. Got it. You can count on me." She knelt before Sasami. "You look really hurt." She said. "I'm going to pick you up and carry you out of here, okay? Once we're safe I'll try and address your injuries but right now I can't waste the time." She scooped the child up without waiting for a response from the princess, then rushed off towards a nearby staircase.
"Wait…"
Skuld wasn't following them.
From her angle in the woman's arms, Sasami watched as Skuld watched them go, a grim look on her face, then turned and ran off in the direction they'd come. "Skuld…"
Sparna angled his head to watch the Norn go, then flew after her. "No…" She could feel herself succumbing to her injuries. "You'll die…please…don't…" The room began to spin as the last of the adrenaline that had so spurned her on began to fade. "Tsunami…please…" The two words came as a sob before the young princess fell silent.
Sakuya looked down at the girl, wondering who the child was talking to, and instead finding the child had passed out in her arms. "Poor kid." She murmured, racing off with a tight grimace. "What kind of cruel gods leave children in a nightmarish hell like this?" She hissed, and her eyes, normally a bright and brilliant blue, were dark with anger and a new emotion, one Sakuya had never felt before awakening in the Vortex World.
Rage.
"If I can pursue a Reason for the next world…then let the gods who allowed kids to experience a world like this fall from their stations. Let the demons have them, let them be forgotten, let them never be seen again. No child deserves to live in such cruelty. This-this isn't Earth."
It was as much a curse as it was a promise.
Yet for the goddess to whom those words were directed, it fell on deaf ears, for She had already departed with Sasami's fading consciousness, an ethereal, unseen entity that traveled from the child that served as her most sacred vassal and back towards the Amala Terminal.
She chased after a young godling, bright and illuminated with possibilities unending; an ocean of potential hidden behind the illusion of a mortal child, the push and pull of the tide's current providing life to every possibility, and just as quickly ending it with every movement, every action, every step which cemented one timeline over another. And she wonders why water is her element. The goddess thought, taking note of the Norn but for a moment before passing her, and missing the girl's head rising as brown eyes observed the Chousin floating past her; a ghost, a mirage, a miracle.
She passed a raptor, for all its illumination, which held dark secrets in its breast; a reluctant and agitated ally coming to the aid of those who may yet be used for its gain if only it knew who and what to side with.
And she approached the Living Death, and felt an emotion not experienced in all her years prior to incorporating the life of a young mortal scion into her being:
Fear.
The second floor of Miebashi Station had become a battlefield, and at its heart stood one lone warrior against a legion of Hell's Inspector General's own making, once-innocent daemons slain and enslaved by the Great Necromancer himself. The youth was down on one knee, holding himself up with the antiquated sword that had been passed to him upon receiving the ceremonial name Raidou Kuzunoha, two demons on either side of him: on his left, the ancient samurai of legend, Yoshitsune, his right, a massive, three-legged raven adorned with mitama; the very holy beast which Raidou's Clan was subservient to, Yatagarasu.
The large brick humanoid was nowhere to be seen; its body was destroyed in its initial attack against Nebiros.
With a grunt that sounded harsh and grating, Raidou pushed himself to his feet, and with a sweep of his hand, Yatagarasu cawed, sending a wave of divine energy toward the legion of thirteen Arisen Daemons.
The creatures, slow dullards whose use were as fodder and little more, were consumed in the strike, and as violet-white energy penetrated their body they began to disintegrate into dust, holding not even a speck remaining of the Magatsuhi which once granted them form. Even Nebiros flinched at the attack, a snarl working across his humanoid features as he recoiled.
Raidou smirked, sensing an opportunity, and Yoshitsune rushed the Goetia, twin swords raised in defiance as, with a roar, he lept at the demon.
Nebiros raised his hands in defense, his actions slowed by the holy strike from the Great Raven, and paid for it as the twin blades bit deep into his arms. The Goetia snarled and retaliated with a blast of cursed, violet-black magic, and it was through luck more than ability that it did not touch the ancient samurai. Yoshitsune retreated as the Goetia summoned another pisaca, and as he bowed out Yatagarasu descended from the ceiling, lunging with three sets of sharp talons against the corpse eater and earning a squeal of pain from it in turn.
Yet as for Raidou himself, the youth did not move.
Tsunami recognized it immediately; the youth had surpassed his limits and was on his last legs as one of her other children had once been in fighting a similar foe of immense power. He had no more supplements, his ammo was depleted, and his energy-the precious Magatsuhi—Magnetite as he knew it—was spent in summoning the two strongest demons in his reserve.
And still, he stared at Nebiros in defiance, the smirk on his face savage, wild, and rebellious. So this is the might of a full-blooded Terrain. Tsunami thought and came to float behind him. He is so similar to my own children in appearance, and yet…such drive, even in the wake of death. His sacrifice…is it for the girls who were his companions? Or is it spite that drives him forward? Have all Terrains such madness? She had encountered few races in the greater galaxy driven by such compulsive and dark desires. To encounter one that had become a close traveling companion and even friend to her vassal was a terrible and frightening revelation.
"Raidou!"
The youth smiled, his expression dark as Skuld ran back into the room, Sparna hot on her heels as she came to support him. "You moron, what are you doing, trying to get yourself killed?!" The Norn berated him. "What, you wanna be brought back as a zombie as well, huh Asshole?"
The teen laughed silently, then looked back to Nebiros with an arrogant smile before flipping him off. Reinforcements, Bitch.
Nebiros narrowed his eyes. "I see." He murmured. "To think, I had misjudged you and your compatriots as mere children." He laughed dryly. "I should know better; young Alice is but a child herself and already a Fiend of Legend. There should be no difference with a member of the Kuzunoha clan." The demon's eyes began to glow. "Congratulations Young Man. I've not faced such a marvelous challenge in centuries—when first we met in Harajuku you were still inexperienced; I had not recognized the young warrior before me as the child of yesteryear. Your growth has been…stupendous. I shall take you and your allies as a serious threat from this moment on." The mannequin began to dance, and Nebiros gestured beside himself, summoning a new demon to the fray.
"Grendel?" Sparna exclaimed, his voice rising in a shrill squawk as his former comrade bellowed a challenge at them all, the humanoid man's skin-once like deep-red brick, now an ashy gray-white. "Vishnu bless it…" The bird's plumage rose in alarm, and he turned to regard the strangers who had invaded his nest.
"Nebiros has been toying with us since appearing." A voice arose from the rafters, and as both Skuld and Tsunami looked to the ceiling they spied Gouto observing from the safety of metal rafters. "Prepare yourselves; Grendel is no minor daemon and Nebiros looks more than capable of summoning more spirits. Focus your efforts on the Inspector General and the others should fall."
An irritable trill rose from Sparna. "Grendel is a brute through and through." He said. "His flesh has always been hard like a brick; only one man has ever pierced his flesh. You will need magic to defeat him; if you can blind him, you'll stand a better chance. Have any of you such spells in your inventory?"
Raidou's grimace spoke his answer, but Skuld smirked. "Oh, I have been waiting for this moment." She said. "Birdbrain-"
"You will address me as Sparna!"
"Shut up 'Nuggies'." Skuld retorted. "Draw his attention and lead him towards me. When I give the word, find a way to cover your eyes." The girl grimaced, then her gaze shifted upwards, meeting Tsunami's. "And what can you do, Lady?"
Tsunami started. The others looked at Skuld, then looked up, yet none of them showed any sign they too sensed her presence. Baffled, she pointed to herself.
"Yes, you." Skuld snapped. "You see any other floating, transparent women around here? What even are you, Sasami's long-lost ancestor? How can you help us?"
"I plant Life," Tsunami replied.
Skuld's face drooped. "Great." She said and turned to look back at Grendel as the being stalked forward. "Little late for that." The girl tensed, and Raidou readied his weapon.
"Girl, whatever it is you're planning on, do it swiftly." Sparna lept into the air, hovering near the darker Yatagarasu as he eyed the humanoid beings below him.
Skuld pursed her lips, and a hand slowly went to her back pocket. She took a step backward, and the hand slipped inside, withdrawing an item from its base. She leaned forward, flanked on either side by Raidou and Yoshitsune, who seemed to sense her intent and provided the Norn cover. The behemoth grew near, and Yoshitsune eased into an aggressive poise, still and stalwart with both swords raised in preparation.
Above them, Yatagarasu crowed, and Skuld wanted to laugh as a thrill of divine energy soared through her veins; makakaja, a spell to boost one's magical aptitude and strengthen their spells. What a waste. She thought. If magic was sight, I'd be legally blind. Such spells were better placed on those with the power and means to use them, such as her eldest sister; had it been Urd who was with them, then with a little Concentration the goddess could likely end if not Nebiros, than certainly Grendel in a single, devastating strike.
Yet Skuld was not her sister.
And though she was magically blind, that did not make her helpless.
Just clever.
The cyst which served as the deceased Grendel's eye pulsed. She could see the red veins which had grown within it, mimicking the veins within an eye. The iris was a blood-filled growth surrounding a pupil that, as Grendel drew near, looked more and more like the end of an infected splinter.
Or a piece of bone. Skuld thought and wondered if the flash bomb that she palmed into her hand would do anything to the monster. Does he really have sight, or is it he's using his other senses to make up for what's been lost? Am I about to fall for an illusion?
The demon bellowed at them, targeting Yoshitsune. He lunged forward, and though the samurai brought his swords up to parry, the blades did little more than bounce off the spirit's hard skin, leaving nothing but a pair of thin lines in its place, like trails in the snow. The demon grabbed the man, and though he struggled the warrior could not free himself. Grendel howled and threw the man on the ground with enough force to indent the floor and tile that covered it. Yoshitsune gasped and fell still, and the Stone Man turned his attention to Raidou.
Raidou's dead if he's grabbed. Skuld thought, and as the resurrected demon shifted his weight and pivoted on one foot, angling him ever-so-slightly closer to Skuld, the Norn tossed her bomb, an experimental flashbang that had been under development before her journey to Okinawa with Belldandy and the others. The concept was simple; based on its Midgardian counterpart, it was designed to overwhelm the senses of Niflheimian demons such as Marller, repulsing their more sensitive sight, hearing, and smell to the point where they were forced to retreat for their own sanity's sake. Belldandy had been the inspiration behind it, a simple comment about her concerns for both Urd and Marller whenever the two were forced to fight, and a desire to repel the eldest sister's coveted frienemy without harming her.
Now, she put the device to its first operational test, her thumb pressing down on a small button hidden at the device's base before tossing it towards Grendel. "Cover yourselves!" She screamed, counting down from three as she placed her back on the device, plugging her ears as best she could.
A blast of light illuminated the rooms, reflecting off the damaged white walls and back to the room's combatants, accompanied by a loud explosive pop that left her ears ringing. For a moment, she was as blind and deaf as the others, and with dismay, she realized the prototype had worked a little too well.
Yet before her vision could clear, she found herself overwhelmed with Vision.
Of course, she thought, her Sight blossoming into one of Possibility, Makakaja strengthens all forms of magic, after all.
The station was overwhelmed with plants, the air thick with spores that clung to every surface. The daemons around them-the living, the dead, the undead-all serving as tilled soil for the new life which had been grafted. The ground was fertile with Magatsuhi, and the roots sunk deep into the walls, the plaster, the tile, and the bodies, breaking forth with fast growth and rising with such quick intensity that she could hear the greenery stretch and groan. She saw a living daemon-a Jack Frost, whose body was made primarily of water, fall and spasm as a vine emerged from its mouth, slim and delicate at first before sprouting leaves within the span of two heartbeats. A flower blossomed from its right eye, and it released a shrill scream before even that was cut off. Another creature, this one of the resurrected Undead, toppled forth, its back a garden of green grass and rich ferns. Incapable of feeling pain, it struggled ever forward until the roots and vines of the plants embedded themselves within the spirit's joints, incapacitating its movements.
The dead had become little more than daemon-shaped bushes; gardens of flora that had flourished on what had once been.
A familiar corpse.
One of that looked like…
"Raidou!"
And she could see again, her hand wrapped tightly around his free hand as she grabbed him, pulling him away from Grendel and Nebiros with all her might. "Come on! We have to go before She kills us all!"
Raidou looked down at her in confusion, yet Skuld didn't grace him with an explanation. "We need to find Sasami and that other girl and get out of here! We'll get caught in the spell too and I don't think even I'll get out of it unscathed!"
The urgency in her voice spurred the lad to action, and without bothering to sheathe his blade the teen turned and raced with her, letting Skuld guide him out of the room, Gouto and Yatagarasu hot on his trail as Yoshitsune dissolved into a fine green mist. Tsunami descended, standing before the entrance and shielding the children's retreat as Grendel, Nebiros, and the other Undead roared with agony, blind and deaf to the words of a Child whose domain was the future and uncaring of the reasons behind their sudden retreat.
They were out of the Chousin's way now.
Now nothing prevented her action, and she would not allow these crimes against the Natural Order of life to harm either her Vassal or the young children accompanying her.
Only Sparna, left stunned upon the flashbang's detonation and slower to recover after a hard strike with the ground, was there to witness the true devastation of what the Chousin Goddess-one of the three Rouge Sisters in the Flesh-wrought with her strange, extra-dimensional magic.
Tsunami raised her right hand, and Focused. "Where my Sister invites Death, I stand in opposition." She said. "And so I guard the Boundaries of Life and Death. In the wake of the unnatural death, let Life Flourish."
A cascade of small golden stars manifested in the room, drifting, floating, descending, and clinging to every surface they came in contact with.
"I plant Life." And a spell which was intended to remain contained within the confines of the room she stood in was in turn amplified by the spell Makakaja.
Sparna, dazed but on his feet once more, his vision cleared of the brightness of a child's destructive stun grenade, felt the itch of something-many somethings-embedding itself within his golden feathers.
He felt heavy.
His throat began to itch.
And as he coughed, trying to dislodge whatever was in his throat, he saw a vine, small and thin and lime green, creep out one nare, where it thickened, darkened, and developed lush green leaves.
He tried to claw at it but found his talons stuck to the ground. The pads itched. The curled talons-where hard keratin met flesh-burned with a painful and itchy fire. Something was crawling up his legs, like mites, like mosquitoes, like millipedes and centipedes and naga coming to steal his kindred's brood.
There was a groan, and he felt a thud as Grendel fell near him.
Farther off Nebiros fell to one knee, covering his face with his cloak as spores clung to his exposed leg, the tiny roots embedding themselves within his flesh.
Sparna, unaware of his own demise-a mercy-collapsed, wheezing, one wing fluttering listlessly as his vitality was stolen for him, granted to the new saplings which were his enviable children.
His vision fading, it was as he neared his passing that he beheld the Cthonic Entity in all her Beauty, Mystique, and Terribleness.
And it was the burning pink gaze of a goddess from a Shadow Vortex World that followed him into oblivion.
Vortex World,
Okinawa Prefecture, Shintoshi Hill Apartment Complex
Kagatsuchi 1/8 Waning
"I know who you were," Freya whispered, a savage smile on her face. "What you were, and the evils which came with you." Her face began to morph, to mutate into something dark and archaic, the image of the kindly goddess that had once helped him dissolving as the majestic forest around them fell to shadow. A chill fell down his spine, and he looked up, spying a pair of massive beasts chasing a pair of twin children across the sky. On occasion, one of the wolves would catch up with the youth in the chariot, and their light-one as brilliant as the sun, another as luminescent as the moon-would be eclipsed, only for the child, the teen, to shake off his or her hunter and race ever onwards.
Yet as he watched, their eclipse grew longer with each near-catch, until finally they became permanent, their carriages off-tilter as the monsters overcame their prey and fed upon their flesh. He felt the earth give way with it and found himself falling, falling, falling through a forest and the great trees which were once reminiscent of Earth became large and elegant like those of Jurai.
Yet even here a beast prowled, and it was no space pirate who hunted for the goddess which was her prey. In the shadows of a cursed tree, one he recognized from childhood, a new beast rested curled and waiting, sleeping through Jurai's long, perfect days and long, perfect nights, biding its time to rouse. A massive, barrel-chested creature covered in thick, wiry, black fur and with long curled fangs, its body rose and fell with the deep rhythm of sleep.
He knelt before the cursed tree, which was said to cradle a demon—Yuzuha—and watched the beast stir, as if sensing him, before settling to slumber once more.
"Should you be here?"
He turned to the voice and found a demon sitting in the branches of the tree. It was small; the size of a child, dressed in ancient Jurain garb which had not seen popularity since times long ancient and forgotten, her flesh a pale green like leaves whose health had begun to fade, covered in thick, silver-gray hair like the beast which rested beneath the branches of her tree. Red eyes-less like blood and closer to the auburn-red of dying Juraian tree leaves-observed him carefully.
"Have you come to kill me?" He asked her and watched the small, child-like being tilt a head covered in silver-gray fur to one side.
"No." She said. "This is a dream."
"I am on Jurai." He said.
"You are in a dream of Jurai," the demon, Yuzuha replied.
"Then what of you?"
"I am an observer. My spirit rests free outside the Vortex World you and your lot are imprisoned in. I await the Reason which will return Jurai to life and grant my vassal a physical embodiment once again."
He pointed to the beast. "Is that your vassal?"
Yuzuha shook her head. "That is too new to belong to me." She said. "It is not of my nature, nor any nature of Jurai. Strangers placed it here."
"Who?"
Yuzuha stared at him. "You always come to my tree. Why?" She ignored his question.
"I don't know."
"You and your grandson are much alike, you know. Both of you have an attraction to the darkness. Both of you have an attraction to the light. You both stand with two pillars of equal strength, and rest your morals between them."
"Ying and yang?" He asked. "What does the Jurain Tree of Darkness know of Chinese Taoism?"
She stared at him in silence once more, her gaze lacking any comprehension of his alien words and concepts.
"Guard your pillars, Yosho," Yuzuha said instead. "Keep them balanced and keep them strong. Do not sacrifice one for the other. Let those spirits of Emotion pass through you, but don't let any cling too tightly to you; let what happens, happen, and let them all be equal in your eyes. The hurt, the love, the pain, the joy. The Ugly and The Beautiful. The Demon and the Goddess. Keep your footing, and you may yet find greatness once more from what you lost."
"I'm not looking for greatness."
"I know." The being nodded with a slow ease. "You run from it. A legacy of your past life."
"What would you know of it?" He asked, more curious than insulted.
"Little." Yuzuha replied. "Only those rumors which the Daemons speak of, and those I am not permitted to recite."
"You are the second such being to tell me of a past life."
Yuzuha inclined her head. "So I am." She stated. "Your legacy proceeds you."
"What would you have me do?"
Yuzuha stared at him from a face holding the youth of a child nary older than his youngest sister and with eyes as old as Tsunami Herself; she'd been Tsunami's First Child, born under an ocean of the black void before the sun was formed and tainted by the depths of space. Where once she had been beautiful, the sun's birth had scorched her branches, and from its battered bark had borne every pain, every sickness, every disease, and every crime Jurai suffered. It bore the Black Flame contained within its heartwood, and with it, became the source of Death in all its many forms.
She was an entity feared by the People of Jurai.
She was an entity beloved by the People of Jurai.
For even amongst the people who had mastered dominion over Age and Illness, were some who tired of the endless life, some who sought her out, and some who understood the necessity of her presence.
Funaho had found her fascinating, once upon a time; a foreigner from a land where Death was ruled by a great and terrible goddess, she understood the necessity of Yuzuha's position and found it strange and even disturbing that the Juraian people stood in defiance against old age and illness, combating Death in all its forms at every turn. Yosho, but a boy then, raised on stories of Izanami and Izanagi and ostracized for his strange beliefs, found himself captivated by her, slipping away under the cover of night to dare himself with the courage to approach her, and in time settling beside the tree and sharing stories which, for the Tree of Darkness, might have even been a comfort.
For who would befriend what was labeled a demon?
"Speak to your demons, as you once spoke to me in your youth," Yuzuha said. "Return here in your dreams, and become comfortable with the past you once sought so hard to escape. Embrace your fiends, your monsters, your daemons, Yosho, and perhaps you'll even discover an ounce of divinity within your nature."
The Demon smiled at him, and he found fondness in the expression. Was this what Achika saw when she once spoke with Ryoko? When Tenchi visited the pirate in the cave? "And keep your spiritual allies close—the Little Two-Tails, the terrible Strangers, the awkward Murder Angel and the Deaths she keeps. Divinity is fine and all, but even Daemons such as I seek that which forever remains out of reach: Humanity, and all its hurt and love and pain and joy."
"How will I come back?"
"How did you come here to begin with?"
"…I fell as…"
Vortex World,
Okinawa Prefecture, Shintoshi Hill Apartment Complex
New Kagatsuchi
"…leep."
A voice roused him from his rest, one as familiar as it was alien, and as his consciousness returned to his body he struggled on the border of wakefulness trying to identify who it belonged to.
Burgundy eyes fluttered, and he found himself surrounded by beasts on the periphery of his vision. Canines who watched him with terrible glowing eyes. Lupine figures glowered at him with hunger. Fiendish entities whose skeletal faces leered at him with expressions fixed in permanent smiles.
A little girl with brown skin and brown hair, watching him with green eyes. "Ah, it's you again." The child said, smiling at him as she leaned forward, looking him up and down as a necklace of bones drummed a beat against her white outfit. "Nice look."
It was enough to jostle him from his half-sleep, and the strange apparitions vanished, leaving him to question if they'd been there or if they were mere figments of his tired imagination.
His chest tingled with a warm hum and his left arm felt hot. It was overshadowed by the more unpleasant sensations of a numb leg and a painful, stiff neck.
Grimacing, the man adjusted in the chair, wondering when he'd fallen asleep as he tried to kick some life back into his sleeping leg. He rubbed his neck with his right hand, stretching as best he could, and looked around.
The room was dark and quiet, the curtains drawn to block out as much of Kagatsuchi's light as possible. Ol' Koneko lay curled up on the pile of clothes Yosho had removed from both his and Kiyone's 72-hour bags, cleaned with Belldandy's help, and left to air dry on the table. The nekomata had made a small nest for himself in Yosho's old shrine robes, where in his sleep he'd curled onto his back, one paw stretched up to the ceiling with a feline smile on his muzzle.
In a closet, the prince spied both the backpacks, now empty and flipped inside-out to air out in turn. Near it, resting against the wall near the door rested the Nameless Blade, and for a second he thought he heard it whisper to him, as if in his strange half-asleep state, it might finally commune with him as it had Morisato.
Myrkur…
Blinking, the man rose to his feet, a snarl of irritation passing across his features as his sleeping foot erupted in pins and needles. "Need to check on Makibi." He told it. "Wake up."
If anything, the sensation flared with irritation, and releasing a sigh the man hobbled out of the small living room, stumbling past the tiny kitchen and towards the lone bedroom of the apartment complex which Thor had guided the ill Kiyone into.
The tingle in his chest grew stronger.
The sensation was just strange enough to make him pause. What am I sensing? He wondered and touched the center of his chest. The humming didn't respond to his touch, but he felt his brow tingle as if in acknowledgment of his actions. He rubbed the spot with a pensive frown. The third eye? He wondered. Achika sometimes complained about a similar area throbbing—usually after she'd returned from an unsolicited visit to Ryoko's cave—where she would then fall asleep hours before her normal bedtime and would sleep past her alarm the following morning, awakening ravenous and shaky as if she'd been fasting an entire week.
Grimacing, the man's had dropped, and he hobbled over to the lone bedroom, prying it open on quiet hinges to peek in at the only other resident in the apartment.
Pascal rested curled up around Kiyone's form, nestled against her back as an anchor of support and a healing, supportive presence even in the depths of New Kagatsuchi's rest. The beast had angled himself in his sleep to ensure the spiked, bone armor plates did not accidentally skewer the recovering ex-detective. Though the beast was deep in sleep, his nose yet twitched as he caught Yosho's scent, and his tail thumped once as if to acknowledge the man's presence as non-threatening towards his master.
He saw neither Hounds-Black Cadejo nor White Cadejo-anywhere.
Instead, he thought he heard the voice that had initially awoken him and realized it was Kiyone. She was singing in her sleep. "Usekh-nemmt, Hept-khet, Fenti, Am-khaibit, Neha-her, Ruruti, Arfi-em-khet, Neba, Set-qesu, Utu-nesert, Qerrti, Hraf-haf, Basti, Ta-retiu…" He didn't recognize the language and wondered if it was Loagaeth.
The door groaned as he opened it further, and Kiyone opened her eyes at the sound, the song-almost like a mantra, fading away as teal eyes opened and rolled to the source of the sound. She gave him a haggard smile.
"How are you feeling?" Yosho's voice was soft and gentle.
"Like I spent the night with a bottle of Smirnoff before Mother Nature came to punch me in the baby maker," Kiyone muttered. "What happened?" It was the first he'd seen her awake since the terminal; the teal-haired woman had been out cold following Thor dropping her off, and the jug of water that sat at the small bedside table remained untouched from where Belldandy had left it for her.
The man slipped inside the room, coming to sit in the lounge chair that had once been placed there for a member long since departed and leaning forward. "Do you remember anything?" He asked.
"I remember going to grab bullets." Kiyone replied. "Then…" her brow furrowed. "There were kids. Twins."
"Twins?" Yosho started.
The ex-detective scowled, then shook her head against the pillow. "No…no, that's not right. They were…they were in Roanipur. This was just one kid—she reminded me of them."
"How so?"
"She was Death."
"Death?"
The woman hummed in agreement, her eyes half-lidded in reflection, and Yosho wondered if she was fully awake—if part of her remained with the child, the Fiend which had left with her, or if another piece of her had departed for poorer times in the unknown land of Roanipur. "They were Romanian. A pair of assassins who'd been hired by the Italians for a hit against the Russians. The Mafia didn't realize they'd brought a pair of Mad Dogs to the island though. They lost control of the kids, and the brats went on a murdering spree across the island with a bounty on their head." Kiyone curled into the blanket she was wrapped in, pressing her back against Pascal. "A lot of people died by their hand. Ax, gun or torture, it didn't matter. If they were in a rush, you just got mowed down. But if they were bored…they took their time playin with you."
Yosho felt a chill work its way down his spine. "Did you…meet them?"
Kiyone shuddered, burrowing deeper beneath the covers. The look that overcame her was haunted "Don't wanna remember." She muttered. "The Russians placed a bounty on them. Fryface wanted them dead because they were brought in to target her people."
"Fryface?"
"Balalaika. Soviet vet who'd been struck by her own people's white phosphorous in Afghanistan. She was head of the Russian mafia chapter down in Roanipur. Her entire chapter was composed of the same men and women who'd served under her in the Middle East." The woman sighed. "Fucking dragon-woman, that one…cold-blooded, pragmatic, vicious, and scary smart. She turned Roanipur into an urban battlefield…once, twice…three times? Hell, I can't remember." The woman gave a wane half-smile. "Paid good though."
"She sounds like what I thought Ryoko would be when I first fought her," Yosho muttered, his face darkening in memory. "What about the girl in the terminal?"
"Girl?" Kiyone stared at him with a blank expression, one that slowly evolved into something more as the woman's brow scrunched together. The woman's eyes lit up, and Kiyone lurched upright with a yelp, only to double over in pain once more as a series of obscenities-many in languages Yosho was not fluent in: Japanese, English, Spanish something which sounded like Russian, another Asian language which, had he to guess, might have been Thai, Galactic Common, Jurain, a language which sounded close to one of the many Middle Eastern Arabic dialects, and something that sounded like a wordless song all rose from the woman in a mad flurry of untraceable syllables that sounded like a strange mantra to the old priest's ears. "Alice!" Kiyone finally exclaimed, falling forward onto the mattress and missing Pascal's bony plates by a hair. "Fucking dead girl! Alice in Wonderland! Fuck!"
Yosho rose to his feet, moving to the woman's aid. "Cadejo, calm down," He said, and with gentle hands moved her away from the demon resting beside her, finding the covers damp and her skin clammy to his touch. "Take it easy," he leaned her against the bed's wooden banister and felt her shivering so strongly it felt almost as if she was vibrating. He released her just long enough to pour her a cup of water, and wrapped her hands around it, holding it with her for fear the woman might yet drop it.
Kiyone looked at him with wide eyes. "Where is she?" She breathed. "She was going to—she tried to—" A look of deep-stated terror dwelt within her eyes as she looked around, her legs rising to her chest as a grimace spread across her lips.
"She's in your COMP." Yosho murmured, sitting on the edge of the bed beside the ex-detective "She followed you out of the Terminal and vanished after passing us a message. Breathe. Drink; you're dehydrated."
The woman took a shuddering breath, then, to Yosho's relief, took a long, slow sip from her glass with both hands clutching it tightly. She drank half the glass before passing it back to the man. The water seemed to calm her, and Kiyone took a long, soothing breath, running a hand through her teal hair, the other moving to clutch at the collar of her shirt. "She told me to die for her." She murmured. "She'd been separated from her…father, I think." The grip around her collar tightened into a desperate fist. She seemed to be groping for something.
"The girl-Belldandy-sama claimed she was a Fiend-said as much," Yosho replied. "She claimed a Church Grimm made her promise not to harm us." He eyed Kiyone but saw no reaction to the name.
Kiyone shook her head. "I don't think I get it." She whispered. "But….you said she's in the COMP?" The woman met his gaze with questioning teal eyes, and Yosho nodded, placing the glass back on the tabletop and rising to fetch the device from where Thor had placed it in the closet, on the shelf above where the woman's leather jacket hung. Retrieving the device, he brought the mass of wires and computing devices back to Kiyone, laying them out before her and watching as she grabbed the arm terminal.
Frowning, the woman keyed through the device, and Yosho returned to sit beside her, leaning in close and looking over Kiyone's shoulder at the small, illuminated screen installed in the arm device. The display was crude and simplistic; its design resembling a simplified copy of Windows '95 which the man sometimes found himself using at the local library located a thirty minute bus drive from his shrine. The interface was simplistic and empty of anything flashy, displaying a simple list of demons with their name, race, and a numeric designator followed by the word "MAG".
"BRUTE SHUTEN 13 MAG"
"BEAST PAS-CERB 0 MAG - SUMMONED"
"FIEND ALICE 616 MAG"
The 616 number was red, and as Yosho further examined the screen, he saw why. In the upper right-hand corner of the screen was another number designator:
"137 MAG"
"What the fuck is this?" Kiyone breathed, and the name "FIEND ALICE 616 MAG" was highlighted. She selected it, and the screen interface changed, displaying a list of stats on the Fiend which had taken residence in the COMP. "Why did she go into the COMP? I can't—There's no way I can summon her, even if I did find her father. I'd-I'd die just trying to summon her."
Yosho looked at the woman abruptly. "What do you mean?"
"MAG-that number next to the names?" She pointed with her left hand. "That's Magnetite, the essence that's used to summon the demons in the COMP. From what I understand, it's a type of energy or mineral that grants demons like Pascal and Shuten a body on the physical plane. But the energy is finite, and if I try and summon something with a greater cost than what I currently have," She pointed to the number in the upper right-hand corner, "then the required Magnetite is taken from my vitality. I made the mistake with Cerberus once-before fusing him with Pascal-and I remember falling unconscious after the fight. Cerberus couldn't maintain his form because of the cost, and a neighbor found me unconscious outside her door. She said I'd been there when she'd come home around nine that night." The woman bit her lip. "I'd been forced to summon Cerberus that morning, Yosho. She thought I was drunk and helped me back to my apartment. It felt like my insides had been torn to shreds." The woman paused and stared down at herself. "Kind of like now…" She mumbled.
"Are you going to be okay?" Yosho asked.
The ex-detective pursed her lips. "I'll be fine." She muttered and flipped through more data logs. One of them caught her interest; it seemed to be a brief description of the Fiend: "A ghost of a little girl. Though she seems young, her magic is formidable. Cherished by Goetia she is a dangerous necromancer who has risen to the rank of Fiend."
Kiyone hit a button on the COMP, and the data long changed to a series of stats. At its top read: "Die For Me: A cursed attack that has a 50% chance of instantly killing its victim; boosted to 100% against those weak to Curses."
Yosho paled, and looked at the ex-detective, for a moment recalling the two Deaths that habitually followed her and Freya's warning concerning the woman.
Yet Kiyone was ignorant of his looks. "It's missing…" She said instead, and set the COMP down, tugging the hem of her shirt and looking inside it with a deepening frown.
"What is?"
"My…" She grimaced, and pushed the COMP away from her, sliding out of the blanket around her with the careful gingerliness of one who was pained by the action. She felt through the cloth, and when still found nothing, looked back at Yosho. "My necklace—It's…I'm missing my necklace."
Yosho blinked. "I apologize but…you never struck me as the type to fancy jewelry."
"I'm not," Kiyone emphasized. "But this is…this is special. It was…a gift. A silver necklace with an ankh." She hesitated, then felt around her shirt once more, her frown turning into a worried grimace when she still found nothing. "It's…special-a good luck charm."
"What's an 'ankh'?" Yosho asked and left the bed to assist in the detective's search. "And do you think Thor-sama might have removed it?"
"It's a Coptic symbol of life." Kiyone said, "It looks kind of like a cross, but the upper portion is a loop rather than a vertical line."
Yosho looked up from where he'd been looking under the bed. "What's 'Coptic'?"
Kiyone stared at him. "You…really have been living under a rock since coming to Earth, haven't you."
"No, that's Ryoko. I've been living next to that rock trying to do whatever humanly possible to avoid undue attention from the Japanese government that may result in me either losing the land that rock sat on or being drafted into another senseless war." Yosho retorted.
"You need to get out more," Kiyone replied.
"I did. Then the world ended." Yosho said flatly. "What's Coptic?" He repeated.
"Ancient Egyptian," Kiyone replied. "My ship crashed near the Nile River when I first fell to Earth. I was…rescued by some local Copts who nursed me back to health and helped me establish a new identity. One of them gifted me the necklace; it's…supposed to ward off evil spirits."
Yosho pursed his lips, checking the pockets of Kiyone's leather jackets and finding only the Ruger, empty and with the safety on, in one internal pocket, and a loaded ten-round magazine in its sister pocket. "Didn't seem to work against your Fiend." He murmured.
"Maybe because I wasn't wearing my necklace." Kiyone retorted, moving to the edge of the bed, standing, and falling face-first to the floor as her legs gave out beneath her.
Yosho took a moment to stare at her. She wasn't wearing pants.
"Like what you see?" Kiyone asked from the ground, grimacing as she pushed herself up.
The ex-priest knelt before her, wrapping one of Kiyone's arms around his shoulders and hoisting the woman up and back onto the bed. "…And if I do?" His gaze darted to hers, and he saw a smirk glide across the ex-detective's face before it vanished behind another tight grimace.
"I feel like shit." She grumbled, yet to her credit didn't move away when Yosho released her. Instead, she propped her elbows on her legs, cradling her head in both hands.
Frowning, Yosho rubbed the woman's back. "You threw up whatever was in your stomach and have eaten nothing between then and now, with only a small bit of water to tide you over, and now have a Fiend in your COMP which you cannot summon." He said. "I'm not surprised."
Kiyone nodded. "Do you know what happened to my pants?"
Yosho blinked, his brows raising in bafflement. "I do…not." He stated. "I had…thought you'd taken them off."
The teal-haired woman tilted her head to look at him, her expression as blank as his. "…Belldandy?" She asked.
Yosho shook his head. "She was with me…we were investigating the…"He paused, recalling the pairs of pants that had been given to him after Belldandy had cleansed them of whatever putrid decay had remained from the Terminal room.
He'd thought one pair had been heavier than the others.
The two looked at each other.
"Thor." They said together, and collectively moaned, Yosho leaning back and Kiyone leaning forward, both of them exasperated in their own way with the behemoth god.
"I swear if it wasn't for the fact that he could squish us like ants, I'd beat the shit out of him." Kiyone hissed, and beside her Yosho sighed and nodded, rubbing his temples with one hand.
"We could tell Belldandy-sama," Yosho said.
"I'm not sure I'm ready for two Powers that Be to go at each other's throats again over a pair of pants," Kiyone replied, then shook her head and straightened. "Forget it. We can't do anything about it right now and if I'm honest, I'm more concerned about my necklace rather than a pair of pants."
"It means that much to you?" Yosho peered at her in curiosity.
"It does," Kiyone said solemnly. "It's as much a memento as a good luck charm. I need to find it, MJ."
The man nodded, then rose to his feet. "Let me find you a pair of pants." He said. "It may be back in the terminal; we need to look now if we don't want to be caught off-guard by demons in your current state."
Kiyone looked at him with a start, then smiled. He watched the lines around her eyes crinkle with it, and perhaps, in that instance, felt his heart flutter ever-so-slightly. "Thank you."
He smiled back and found it warm. "You're welcome," and left to find a pair of pants.
It'd been many, many decades since anyone-woman or man-had smiled at him like that.
They found nothing either in the apartment, in the hallway, or down the stairs leading back to the ground floor. Nothing along the perimeter of the hotel, nor along the route Thor and Keiichi had taken Kiyone back to the apartment. They passed resting demons of Mantra origins, collapsed manikins who slept huddled together for warmth, and herds of wilder bicorns who rested on their feet with heads bowed or resting on the flanks of their brethren.
Yet there was no shine of a necklace.
No glint of silver in cobblestone or wreckage.
Now, on the edge of Dark Kagatsuchi's transition to Waxing, the two stood before the same entrance where their meeting with literal gods had begun, armed with little outside of a massive, nameless demon's sword and a GXP-IV Mk3 blaster for protection, and their own strange magics and techniques unique to the individual.
Kiyone opened the door and led the way inside, Yosho following close behind her.
The lights were still off minus the strange glow of Sanskrit on the Amala Drum.
"When did the power go out?" Kiyone reached into her pocket, withdrew a small flashlight, and turned it on, shining it around with scrutiny before gagging as she was hit with the smell Yosho was steeling himself for. "It…smells awful in here." He wondered if the woman was aware she was whispering.
"It became like this after you emerged with Alice." Yosho couldn't find the raise his voice either; there was an oppressive atmosphere in the room which made the hair on the back of his neck rise, and he could feel the faint hum from the Duke's Blade as they ventured further inside.
His chest tingled. His left arm felt warm in a manner that would have been pleasant under different circumstances.
Now both were just distracting.
He didn't want to be there.
Neither, he thought, did the sword.
The man glanced over at Kiyone and saw her face highlighted in a mixture of the small pen flashlight and the red light of the terminal. It cast strange and archaic shadows around her, making her look both human and otherworldly in the same instant.
The sight made his eyes water, and he looked away. "Do you see anything yet?" He whispered.
"Not yet," Kiyone replied and began to walk around the perimeter of the terminal room. Not wanting to be further from her any more than necessary in the room, Yosho followed after her, the hair rising on the back of his neck as he once more heard strange whispers in the back of his head.
Leita alsvartr hundr…
Please be quiet. He thought, and heard the voices fade to a dull static in the back of his mind.
The penlight shone across the linoleum tiles, and Yosho froze as he spotted a black paw fade into the surrounding darkness.
Before him, Kiyone paused, looking back at him. "What?" She whispered, "What did you see?"
"Hand me the torch," Yosho whispered, easing the sword into his right hand and holding out his left hand, palm up. The teal-haired woman passed it to him, and keeping it trained on the ground, the man slowly swept the beam of light across the floor.
Something reflected the light to him.
Yosho started, and it was only his years of experience as a warrior that kept the small flashlight in his hand and his scream in his throat.
The Black Cadejo sat watching him.
Tall and imposing, it regarded him with silent eyes the color of a white sun, reflecting the light in the room as its body seemed to absorb what light touched the rest of its body.
A chill worked its way down his spine. His left hand felt hot now, and he could feel the small flashlight growing slick with sweat.
"MJ?" Kiyone asked, "What is it?" She sounded unnerved, and he wondered how she didn't see it.
It was right there.
Yet its white counterpart was nowhere in sight, and as he laid eyes on it the beast rose to its feet.
It seemed larger in the Terminal Room. As if the darkness of the room in turn had fed its form, the dark shadows granting it mass to expand and encompass the room in all its totality. Where once it had been the size of a shiba inu, now it sat as tall as a Great Dane, the tips of its pointed, triangular ears almost reaching his shoulders.
And yet it remained benign, observing Yosho with quiet contemplation before it turned and wandered off.
Yosho watched it go, and as if sensing the mortal's hesitation, the creature turned to regard him.
Anxiety rising in his throat—the creature was Death, as Belldandy had warned him—he followed after it, taking the lead as Kiyone fell into step beside him.
The man swore he could hear the gentle tap of its nails against the tile.
Farther off, the entity came to a halt, looking over its shoulder once more as if to ensure it had the Prince's attention. It pawed at something before it, then trailed off, leaving the gentle glint of metal in its wake.
A noise like a sharp, excited trill left Kiyone's throat, and before he could stop her the woman trotted forward, the Hound which had guided them vanishing as she ran through it like fog dissolving beneath the rising sun.
The ex-GXP officer dropped to one knee, and as Yosho moved beside her, shining the torch down on it, she held her find up for him to see.
The delicate chains of a silver necklace glittered beneath the artificial light, a train of metal diamonds glistening within her palm. A pendant that looked familiar in the vaguest sense-ankh-dangled between her fingers from where the chain was threaded through the loop, and in the center of her palm rested a small band, slim, undecorated silver similarly threaded through the chain.
"This is it!" A wide smile spread across Kiyone's face. "I can't believe—I don't even know how it got here! You found it!" She rose with some effort back to her feet, and some of her enthusiasm faded. "…The clasp is broken…" She murmured, "Did I…catch it on something?" She pursed her lips, examining the jewelry carefully, her forefinger and thumb playing with the silver band. "No…that's not right. Something had to have pulled it from me." She reasoned. "Alice? Or something else?"
Yosho took a small step forward to better examine it. Indeed, the ring to which the clasp was attached had been disfigured, the simple metal ring pulled out of alignment and leaving a gap that had caused the necklace to fall from Kiyone's person.
"Let's examine it further outside beneath Kagatsuchi's light," Yosho whispered.
Kiyone nodded, and the two made their way towards the exit.
He wondered if Kiyone realized that, even without the glow of the flashlight on it, the metal ankh seemed to radiate with its own internal light in her palm.
So too, Yosho realized, did she.
They left in the same silence they entered, with only one being to witness their departure behind eyes that glowed with the moon's light.
"May I see it?" Yosho held his hand out as the two returned to the apartment, the sword deposited atop the kitchen counter as the duo moved to sit on the couch.
Slipping the two pendants off it, Kiyone passed the chain to Yosho, leaning forward to watch him as he examined the ruined metal thread. "I can fix this with a pair of pliers." He mumbled, and clutching the chain in one hand moved to one of the cabinets. "I swear I saw a pair…" A smile lit his face up as he discovered a pair of red-handled needle-nose pliers beside a larger tool kit, and returned to his place beside the ex-detective.
Kiyone looked at him with an amused eyebrow. "You a jeweler in a past life?"
"Better." Yosho grunted, squinting at the loop as he brought the pliers to bear against the tiny metal. "I was a father."
Kiyone blinked and fell silent.
"Achika, bless her, was so much a child of the forest you'd think she was a full-blooded Juraian. There was no tree she would not climb, no bush she would not jump in, no boulder or rockface she would not scale nor any body of water-lake, stream, or river-she would not jump into." Knowing how to sew and fix toys, baubles, and bits of simple jewelry were the easiest skills I learned as a parent. He smiled in reflection. "Her mother used to claim she was possessed by spirits, and once even joked she was Ryoko re-incarnated; the Devil Caller returning as my own offspring to drive us collectively insane." He snickered. "I found out much, much later it was worse; after my wife passed, Achika took to viewing the space pirate as a motherly figure."
"How?" He glanced at Kiyone and delighted at the disbelief on the woman's face.
"Achika claimed she could see her. Tenchi, my grandson and Achika's only child, confirmed it not too long ago-the demon had learned to astral project and had saved Achika from an assassin when I had been away in Tokyo." A wave of sadness swept across his face, there and gone again so swiftly he was barely aware of it. "…Kasumi, my wife at the time, didn't make it. By fortune, Achika ran to Ryoko's cave and…from my understanding, appealed to the spirit trapped inside."
"And Ryoko-trapped without access to her body or powers, I'm assuming, managed to…"
"She killed it. Or at least…gave it to a youkai to consume.
Kiyone stared at him in shock. "You're telling me," She began, "That an assassin-"
"A tanpawatnes."
"A tanpaw-wait, seriously!?"
Yosho hummed in agreement, carefully squeezing the handles on the pliers and watching the opened ring fold back towards itself once more. "Eaten by tengu."
"A tanpawatnes, one of the most proficient races to serve as assassins in the known universe, got eaten by an Terrain evil spirit," Kiyone paused, then as an afterthought added, "before the end of the world."
"Long before," Yosho replied, flipping the ring to its side and pressing down on the closer to line the threads up. "Approximately…Tsunami bless it, we were pushing it close to forty years ago." Setting the pliers down, he examined his handiwork before giving it a gentle tug. When the loop did not stretch back out, he offered it back to Kiyone.
The woman took it with a gracious smile, rethreading her pendants through the chain and slipping it around her neck, redoing the clasp as she toyed with the ankh and band once more.
Yosho blinked, and for a moment-so swift he was certain he'd imagined it-he saw something more from the detective.
Wings.
Eyes.
A sensation of color, like rainbow prisms, danced across his vision.
And then it was gone, replaced once more with a simple retired galaxy police officer who once hailed from an exiled planet called Caosg.
She was staring at him intently. "…See something you like?" She asked.
And feeling an intense wave of deja vu, Yosho replied, "…And if I do?"
The woman's gaze never faltered, and he watched her tuck the necklace back beneath the collar of her shirt.
Then she reached over and grabbed his shirt, pulling him towards her with a strength the prince hadn't thought the woman had a moment ago.
She caught his lips with hers, and there they stayed for a time before Kiyone broke the kiss.
"Thank you for finding my necklace." She breathed in his ear, and the man felt a jolt of electricity race down into his core and a thrill of excitement in his chest. Then she rose, and too stupefied to think, Yosho watched her walk back towards the bedrooms. She paused in the hallway and looked back at him with a sly smile and a jerk of her head. Then she walked past her room, where a demon slept, and into his, singing a soft hymn as she departed.
"Well met, well met, my own true love
Well met, well met, cried he
I've just returned from the salt, salt sea
All for the love of thee"
And Yosho, a man seasoned by love, loss, war, and combat, slipped off the couch and after her.
Comments of a Madwoman: What is Cancer, if not Life Unrestrained? What hymns do angels sing, when none can hear them but thee?
And so This Madwoman comes to a new stage in her life, as thirty chapters span a year, and thirty chapters span a move into the next stage of life.
Farewell, farewell, from Overseas
My Lord stole me away.
Back to a land never once called Home
I cry, yet none hear me.