The foam swirled in a lazy whirlpool around the metal. Shinobu absently twirled the spoon in her coffee, observing how the foam gradually crumbles into white streaks. After a minute, she abruptly let go of the spoon, picked up the cup by the handle, and took a gulp. The coffee was cold.
The cafeteria on the top floor was mostly empty. Several other doctors were dispersed around the tables, unenthusiastically chewing on a sandwich or sipping noodles. Shinobu lowered her cup on the saucer and looked out the window.
The Kaunan District was quiet during the afternoon. An ambulance car was steadily going down the hospital highway. It took the right lane, heading towards the parking lot. That was good. It meant there were no new injured people.
The young woman's gaze transferred from the window to her cup. The coffee looked unappetizing.
An hour passed after the demon slayer meeting, but Shinobu couldn't get herself to focus. She was still thinking about Giyuu.
Gazing into space, Shinobu leaned back in her chair. Her arm remained on the table, fingers quietly tapping the rim of the saucer.
After nine years, she was finally getting somewhere. A year ago, she developed a formula for the safe consumption of wisteria seeds. She was also able to pin a tracker on one of Douma's cult followers.
Without thinking, Shinobu took out the spoon and placed it on the saucer. The coffee slowly poured onto the porcelain.
The anger wasn't propelling her anymore - it ate, and she had to get rid of it.
Leaving the cup on the table, Shinobu stood up and walked towards the cafeteria exit. Best get distracted.
Shinobu stepped into the elevator. A nurse and a medical robot followed her in. The doors closed with an even hum, and the colorless voice echoed through the cabin.
"Twenty, no sector," the nurse replied without glancing from his watch. He was checking notifications.
"Three hundred, sector ten," the robot answered coarsely. It seemed that its audio box was malfunctioning.
"Morgue," Shinobu sighed.
The elevator swiftly dropped down, zooming through the floors. The first ride was relatively short; the robot walked out first. Shinobu and the nurse traveled in silence for two minutes. No one entered after the nurse left, and the hashira traveled alone.
Reclining against the wall, Shinobu eyed the rapidly cascading numbers on the screen. Her composure was slowly returning to her.
The elevator stopped, and the doors swooshed open.
"Bottom Floor: Morgue," the voice unemotionally announced. Shinobu walked out, and the elevator closed behind her. By the rumbling sound, it traveled back upwards.
The hallway had a blue hue from the fluorescent lamps. It was several degrees colder.
Shinobu's heels echoed in the hallway. An automated, empty gurney rolled her way, and the female hashira silently moved to the side.
Other hallways with offices and doors stretched from the main corridor. Even though they looked abandoned, Shinobu could feel life within them: pathologists were operating behind those doors, dieners transporting bodies and filling out the paperwork.
The hallway ended with a large wall with an old bulletin. To its side was a small alcove, the stairs leading to the basement floor. Next to the metal doors was a hook, a box of gloves and masks dangerously propped over a hanging surgeon coat. Shinobu quickly ran down. Pausing next to the entrance, she swiftly put on the coat and the gloves. She pulled the mask strap over her ear with the other hand and pushed the handle.
A cubical robot, attached to the ceiling by a long beam, slid over to Shinobu. A faded, cartoonish butterfly sticker was slapped under its import label.
"Good afternoon, Ms. Kochou," the robot said politely in flawless Japanese. "I've conducted the preliminary examination of the corpses."
"Thank you, Sig," Shinobu quietly replied.
Two rows of stretchers were laid out in front of her. The demon bodies were covered with white sheets. Shinobu regarded them for a moment, then slowly started forward.
"Begin the report."
Sig floated up next to her. There was a quiet beep as he pulled up the protocols.
"Thirty-two demons were brought in June 19, 2503 at seven zero five in the morning. All of them exhibit surgical scars. They range from 0.8 to 2.1 millimeters wide, and on average 1.7 millimeters wide."
Shinobu flipped over one of the sheets. Just like Sig said, small cuts laced the demon's legs, arms, and neck. The stomach and chest regions were untouched. Still holding the sheet in one hand, Shinobu carefully turned the demon to take a look at his back.
"Did you preserve the clothes?" She asked in the meantime. The back was also clear.
"Yes. They are all labeled and stored."
Crouching next to the demon, Shinobu could smell the faint rot behind her mask and the applied embalm. She frowned. The demon was decomposing.
"Were any of them with pre-existing injuries?"
"Yes. Number Seventeen had a broken rib."
Shinobu covered the demon with the sheet, quickly glancing at its number - nine -, and walked over to the mentioned body. She carefully yanked off the sheet and gazed at the body.
A large, purple bruise spread below the demon's chest. Feeling the bewilderment strengthening inside her head, Shinobu reached and lightly touched the infected area. She clearly felt the broken bones protruding under the skin.
This was odd. Both the scars and the ribs should have healed. The stiff skin kneading under her fingers, Shinobu eyed the demon. It was female, the breasts gone limp and grey from the cold. The twist of its mouth indicated asphyxia.
Shinobu straightened out, lost in thought. The demon corpse was strangely behaving like that of a human. Her eyes lowered at the light cuts along the limbs. They were in the same locations as was the case with the previous demon: knee joints, slightly under the hips, elbow joints, wrists, and neck.
Shinobu chewed on her lip. The connection between it all seemed to float somewhere very close, something very much tangible.
The precision.
Shinobu gazed at the demon's closed eyes. What in the world would cause demons to stop regenerating and decompose, as if they were human?
"Sig."
"Yes, Ms. Kochou?"
The doctor glanced over her shoulder to look at the robot. She was still fidgeting with her fingers.
"Did you conduct internal examinations?"
"Yes, Ms. Kochou."
"Could you pull up this demon's venogram for me?"
A hologram blinked next to Shinobu. For a moment, she looked at the black and white image. Then, she sighed and turned back around to the demon.
"Bingo, Sig."
The Middle Levels were... something else. Traffic was dense and stressful, streets zigzagged through each other, and platforms were always cramped with people. However, there were office buildings and institutions, strict windows reflecting flyers' headlights; shops and malls, neon letters visible several blocks away; restaurants, theatres, and clubs, aromas and music circling around the entrances. Holograms floated past the pedestrians. The billboards were flashing ads and news.
The subway cabin was stacked with people. Glancing over the numerous shoulders, Giyuu observed how the transport passed right next to the skyscrapers. Sunlight flashed on the large windows, and everyone in the cabin collectively winced. Blinking away the momentary blindness, Giyuu lowered his gaze on his watch.
It was around four. The workday was in full swing.
The metro stopped in between two skyscrapers. Long, spacious platforms, linked with bridges and staircases, stretched to connect the two. They were designed specifically for skyscraper entrances.
The metro doors clinked open, and Giyuu relaxed, allowing the current of people to carry him outside. Once his foot hit the platform, he quickly made his way to a staircase and jogged up. People in suits rushed past him, and he held the tennis bag behind his back so that it wouldn't get in the way. His right sleeve dangled, carefully tied into a knot.
Stepping out, Giyuu glanced briefly in both directions and proceeded to his right. Flyers occasionally descended next to openings in the railing. Passengers departed, fixing their suits.
Giyuu walked up to the wall of the skyscraper. His hazy reflection looked back at him from the glass. The hashira took out a laminated badge from his inside pocket and brought it up to the surface. An invisible hologram wavered, registering his identity, and the glass slid to the side. Walking in, Giyuu tucked the badge back inside.
The hall greeted him with a busy-like hum. A white robot bounced by. When it noticed Giyuu, it politely nodded and pranced further. Another robot was watering the tall plants inside the pots positioned along the walls. Walking past the lounge, Giyuu could hear quiet murmur and the smell of coffee mixed with cigarette smoke: the engineers were taking a break.
Even though he and Sanemi practically never used it, Giyuu liked Kanzaburo's choice for headquarters. The facility emanated calmness and intellectualism. It was also convenient for Kanzaburo, being so close to the intersections within electrical networks and cyber dimensions.
Giyuu stopped next to one of the offices, fingers wrapping around the handle. As he walked in, his eyes involuntarily fell on the tacky label under the peephole.
Kanzaburo's Office For Repairing Tennis Balls
He had no idea how the crow convinced the directors to lease the area.
The room was lit. Monitors and transmitters stacked along the walls, an entire spectrum of colors blinking in the hidden bulbs. Fat and thin wires looped across the floor, connecting to the various inlets. Some had faded labels attached to them, others were half-flat from being constantly rolled over by the swiveling chair.
When Giyuu entered, Kanzaburo glanced over his shoulder.
"Welcome back. Did you have a nice trip?"
Without waiting for an answer, the crow reached over the handle and searched through the backpack lying limply next to the chair's base.
"They called from the inventory. Here's your arm."
Giyuu took the rectangular case with a nod and, lowering the tennis bag next to one of the large transmitters, sat at the edge of the desk with a monitor displaying the activities of other demon slayers.
"Do you know when Shinazugawa is coming?" He asked, taking off his suit.
"No." Kanzaburo turned around and watched how the hashira unbuttons his shirt and slips off the right sleeve. "The ape can take as long as he wants."
Giyuu unclasped the case. For a moment, he examined the arm, and a small glimmer of satisfaction appeared on his face. The fingers were fixed back in their joints, the neurotic wires restored between them. Moreover, the arm was polished.
Giyuu took the prosthetic and carefully slid the stump into the fastener, wrapping around his entire shoulder. An electric signal shot through him, but it was only an instant of pain. Recovering, Giyuu looked down at the metal arm and tried to move its fingers.
They budged with delay, the positions changing with light difficulty.
"Something wrong?" Kanzaburo pulled his leg onto his knee and observed how Giyuu adjusts the wires.
"Just the initial try," that one replied, flexing and unflexing his arm. It was moving with exponentially increasing fluidity. Holding his ankle with one hand, Kanzaburo turned in his chair and took an empty coffee cup from his desk. He tossed it to Giyuu.
"Here, try it out."
Giyuu nimbly caught it and dropped it into the trash can next to him.
"I missed the morning broadcast." He looked up at Kanzaburo. "How did the preliminary hearing go?"
The crow sighed. His fingers tightened on the ankle.
"It was short. Tanjiro held well."
"What about Nezuko?" Giyuu asked, buttoning up his shirt. "Is she alright?"
"The cops went investigating their apartment, but Sabito led her away. He says she's in a safe place."
Kanzaburo glanced over his shoulder at the monitor. "He's offline right now."
Giyuu silently rolled down his sleeve. He was glad Sabito wasn't here right now; he wasn't prepared to talk to him when this morning he was just at Urokodaki's.
The door opened without warning. Suit thrown over a grey T-shirt, Sanemi roughly closed it. An identical tennis bag was strapped over his chest.
"Yo, old man."
"Late."
"I was catching lunch." Sanemi tugged the tennis bag over his head, and it grasped onto his shirt. "Had to take a detour." He sighed loudly and lowered it next to the desk's leg. Rubbing his neck, he looked at Giyuu.
"I received a message from Kochou. She'll be here in two minutes."
Giyuu raised his eyebrows. He was a little surprised.
"That was quick." Nevertheless, at the thought of Shinobu, it stirred inside him. He didn't notice the brief glance Sanemi gave him as he walked by.
The wind hashira stopped next to one of the transmitters. He nudged one wire back and forth in the outlet.
"Don't meddle with it," Kanzaburo said in displeasure, reclining his cheek on his fist. Sanemi ignored his comment, bending the wires a bit more. Something seemed to be bothering him, but he didn't say anything aloud. Sanemi turned around and leaned against the transmitter. His tennis bag flattened the wires, and the crow winced.
"I bet nothing will happen. You have to clean up this shit anyway."
"Don't set the rules for me, punk."
Someone knocked softly. The men quieted. Holding his metal wrist, Giyuu sensed the unaccustomed electric singles rushing quietly along the wires.
Shinobu carefully opened the door.
"Hello."
Giyuu nodded. Sanemi didn't say anything, and only Kanzaburo had the decency to offer a greeting.
"Hello, Shinobu-san. It's great seeing you."
Her gaze travelled across the room in curiosity. She hasn't been here that often, Giyuu realized. Naturally, he belatedly remembered. They themselves were barely there.
Her eyes passed him as if he wasn't there.
"You guys," her voice was clear and cheerful, "are the blood demon group, right?"
She stepped into the room, closing the door. "If I'm not confusing anything, of course."
"No, you're right along the address," Kanzaburo echoed, reclining his cheek on his fist. Sanemi's eyes fixed on her.
"Did you figure something out?"
Shinobu's hand lingered on the door knob. The female hashira turned around. Her face was serious.
"That's what I came here to talk about."
Kanzaburo stood up, silently offering his chair. Shinobu thanked him with a nod and, walking over, sat down. She folded her hands on her lap. Her forehead creased in a frown.
"I'll start from the beginning, then."
Sanemi crossed his arms, preparing to listen. Giyuu pushed back the monitor, finding a more comfortable position on the desk. Because of her presence, he was more self-aware than usual, and that caused him to lose focus.
"There were thirty-two demons, all very different. Female, male, short, well-built…. The first thing I noticed when I examined them was that they were decomposing."
"Decomposing," Kanzaburo clarified. The crow was standing next to the door, arms folded behind his back. His posture was slumped and crooked, he was that used to sitting in a chair for so long.
"Yes."
Sanemi arched an eyebrow."That's ridiculous."
Giyuu was quiet, even though he was just as thrown aback as his colleague.
"I assure you, they smell really well, Shinazugawa-san." Shinobu slightly moved her shoulders. She wasn't reclining in the arm chair, too agitated and concentrated to allow herself to relax.
"All of them had small cuts." Concern hovered in her voice. "They were all very cleanly executed, like one would with a scalpel or a sharp knife."
"If I remember correctly," Giyuu intervened carefully. Shinobu paused and glanced at him. There was no menace or irritation in her look.
"The cuts weren't random."
"No," The wrinkles next to her eyes softened. Shinobu looked at Sanemi, expectantly waiting for her. "The cuts were located below the hip bones, on the ankles and wrists, behind the knee joints, and on the neck. Those locations held true for every demon."
"Stop right there."
Shinobu looked at Sanemi and smiled tiredly. She seemed to know what the hashira wanted to ask.
"Yes, Shinazugawa-san?"
"What are we even discussing?" A crease on his forehead, deepening each year, twitched in suspicion. "Demons regenerate. There shouldn't be any wounds whatsoever."
Shinobu looked away and stared at the floor.
"No. There shouldn't."
The silence ticked quietly in the room.
Without thinking, Giyuu moved the metal fingers, absently registering the electric signals. Demons were dead without being exposed to sunlight or decapitated, didn't regenerate, and decomposed. What… what sort of joke was this?
Kanzaburo was the first one to speak.
"But do you have a theory for this, Shinobu-san?"
Her fingers tightened around the armchair's handles.
"The way I thought about it," she started quietly. The woman hesitated, finding the right words. "Was what separates humans and demons at a fundamental, biological level."
Giyuu kept his gaze on her, listening to her every word. Arms crossed over his chest, Sanemi was also still.
"If you think about it, everything comes down to blood, right?" Shinobu leaned forward, gesturing with her hand for further clarity. "The demon's strength and regeneration duration is measured by the amount of Kibutsuji blood that they have. If these processes go wrong, then something must have happened to their blood."
"Are you suggesting that it was contaminated?" Sanemi raised his eyebrows.
Shinobu shook her head and turned on her watch.
A hologram flickered in front of them. Giyuu automatically slid off the desk to take a closer look. Kanzaburo also stepped forward, peering at the projection. Face illuminated behind the image, Shinobu pointed to the diagrams.
"These are venograms, X-rays designed to scan blood vessels." Her finger traced the one on the left. "This is a typical venogram of a human. It's a shot of the elbow."
White lines bundled next to the bone.
"We can also take a look at a venogram of an animal."
Shinobu swiped to another diagram. Giyuu had no idea what it was and which part of the body it was displaying, but it was clearly showing the white blood vessels streaming through the tissues. Shinobu waited several seconds until they got accustomed to the view, then swiped again.
"This is the human elbow, once more."
One more swipe. Shinobu didn't comment on this one.
A black void surrounded the bone. There were no traces of blood vessels.
Sanemi, who was crouching on his knees in front of the hologram, muttered something through his teeth. His eyes darted at his female colleague.
"Are you telling me that their entire cardiovascular system went missing?"
Shinobu silently lowered her hand on her lap, hologram switching off. Kanzaburo sighed and leaned back on the door.
"Well, that explains why they're dead." He massaged the bridge of his nose. "Can't exactly be a demon without demonic blood, right?"
"I understand that." Sanemi glowered. He was still staring at the space where the hologram was. "But how the hell do you rip out thousands of blood vessels?"
"You don't have to rip them out," Giyuu said slowly. His head was hurting, trying to wrap around the concept, and he couldn't suppress the shudder that travelled down his spine.
"The demons had punctures in their elbows, wrist, ankles..." He nodded towards Shinobu. "... and whatever else there was. It's more like the vessels were pulled out through these cuts."
"That means that whoever did the puncturing didn't need just demonic blood. It was interested in vessels as well." Kanzaburo stared into one point in space. He seemed to be trying to make sense of the situation in the simplest way possible. He grimaced "I can't imagine a use for either."
"In that case, let's go back." Sanemi roughly stood up. Shinobu sighed and sank in the chair, preparing to listen. Giyuu leaned against the edge of the desk and crossed his arms.
Sanemi walked out into the center of the room. He paused, collecting his thoughts, then turned to Giyuu.
"You enter the platform and see a shit ton of demons crucified and emptied of blood vessels. First question. Why the hell was Tomioka sent to the sewers anyway?"
"There was a mathematical mismatch," Kanzaburo responded, following the hashira with his eyes. "Our rate of demon slayers being killed was increasing while the amount of demons was decreasing. I didn't see how those two statistics could coexist."
Sanemi regarded the crow for a moment.
"... you're giving out missions based on bad gut feelings?"
"Moving on," Kanzaburo grimaced. "There was enhanced activity from blood type AB."
An uneasy silence followed after these words. Shinobu swayed her right leg, crossed over the left, in thought, then glimpsed at Giyuu.
"Do you think that winged demon knew that those crucified demons didn't have blood vessels?"
Giyuu shrugged. "He claimed not to know anything."
"We can't trust his word," Sanemi said grimly and tucked his hands into pockets. "Him appearing at the scene is too suspicious. He doesn't have to know everything in its entirety, but he must have had some idea of what's going on. He wasn't terribly surprised when that blood started flowing up the walls." The wind hashira lifted his head and looked at the people in the room. "Which brings us to the next point." His face contorted in hatred.
"That motherfucker."
Kanzaburo sighed and walked over to the chair. "Let's check him out one more time."
Shinobu swiftly stood up, and Giyuu shifted, giving her space at the desk. Sanemi cast them a quick glance, but didn't say anything.
Fingers bouncing on the keyboard, Kanzaburo pulled up the video recording from the electric company room. He scrolled impatiently, muting the squeaky voices, and the images flashed one after another with lightning speed. Suddenly, he stopped.
"Here."
The hashiras huddled around the chair.
The figures were frozen in the recording. Tanjiro's face was in midair between surprised and terrified, Inosuke's was comically twisted, while half of Zenitsu was off the screen. But the crow and demon slayers barely paid attention to such little details.
Shinobu leaned forward. Her eyes were narrow and threatening.
"This," she tapped the screen, right where a string darted off the demon's wrist. Her finger slid across, until the string passed through Iikubo's chest. She straightened out, and her face was cold.
"In order for Iikubo to turn into a demon, he had to receive a dosage of Moon blood." Her fingers squeezed the top of the armchair. "I think it's safe to assume that whatever was going off the demon's wrist was a blood vessel."
Kanzaburo sighed and leaned back.
"Yeah. Seems like it." He wearily clicked the keyboard, and the video resumed playing. Not paying attention to it, he turned around in his chair. Giyuu backed slightly, giving him space. Sanemi remained motionless. He was watching the recording.
"I'll summarize what we have." Kanzaburo ignored the wind hashira. "From one hand, decomposing demons without blood vessels."
Shinobu, hugging herself by the elbows, listened to him carefully. Kanzaburo winced.
"On the other..." a sour flavor was palpable in his tone. "A winged demon who knows something and a blood demon who can project its blood vessels and transform humans." He paused. "And apparently cannot be harmed by sunlight or nichirin blades."
Giyuu's eyebrows twitched, and he pressed his lips together. Of course. There were those details as well. Shinobu's voice returned him from his thoughts.
"Do you think he's the one that's collecting the blood vessels?"
Kanzaburo glanced over his shoulder. The recording was showing Iikubo being scorched by sunlight.
"It seems almost obvious. We have neither evidence for it nor clues for the motivation, but…."
"Doesn't matter." Sanemi's eyes were fixed at the recording. "I'm finding that bastard and pulverizing him."
Giyuu's eyes slid to his partner. "How?"
Shinobu saw how Kanzaburo's face instantly changed, snapping into alertness. "Whatever, that's not the point right now," he said hastily, preventing a rising argument. "Our priority is finding the demon. The details can come later."
Details? Shinobu wordlessly raised her eyebrows, even though she understood that the oversimplification was necessary to avoid the possibility of a heated and long debate.
"Fine by me." Sanemi gave a low growl, looking at Giyuu with an irritated look. "Except that we don't have a starting point."
As if on cue, the watch rang on Shinobu's wrist, startling everyone in the room. Straightening out, Giyuu glanced at her.
"Kochou, who is it?"
Shinobu stared at the watch. Slowly, surprise spread over her face.
"Iguro-san."
A/N: First of all, thank you, thank you so much for sticking around. This chapter is very dense, and I don't want to scare people away but... but I do like it. It really sets off the investigation which is nice since this is the tenth chapter :)
Shiki means "corpse demon" in Japanese (all Shiki fans arise ;))
Thank you so much for your feedback. It means a lot to me.