Lin's impulsive decision forces all three parties to show their hands. Like catastrophe dominoes, the pieces fall too hard and too fast to stop. The SPR may have just found its way out of this mess, but the price for their actions hits them from out of left field.
.o0o.
The anxiety that Lin felt was suffocating, but it was also different. The fear brought on by the woods was the kind that lurked in the shadows, never letting its prey see it coming. This kind of fear, this was concrete. Lin knew exactly who had it out for him, what their weapons were, and just how much they relished in his misfortune. The unknown variable was just how feral Fusei could be in public. What would the man try to get away with, with both sides watching?
Lin was pulled out of his thoughts and torn away from the van window by John's voice, the first voice to speak since the team reluctantly clambered into the van.
"Lin, I have to ask you. If you see Fusei, do you plan on murder?"
"I will do what is necessary," Lin said. It wasn't as simple as walking in there and blasting Fusei with the nine cuts. Magic or not, that still left physical evidence, and the effects, regardless of legality, would follow Lin for the rest of his life. Instead, this would have to be the most under-the-table face-off he had ever had to pull off.
"I'm not gonna lie," Monk said. "If two men go in and only one comes out, it looks bad no matter who the winner is." He chanced a glance Lin's way. "I really don't see how this is a good idea, man."
"I agree," Ayako said, sober as a dead fish. "If it were Naru who had gone through everything you went through, would you allow him to do what we're about to do?"
Lin didn't have a response to that. This was not logic talking. This was fight winning over flight. Besides, if he thought about it for too long, he would absolutely pivot away and decide to avoid the problem.
"Our mission is to contact Officer Hattori," Naru said. "We stay no longer than we absolutely have to."
Lin wondered if Naru regretted not taking Hattori's contact information. It might have spared them this almost guaranteed chance of crossing paths with Fusei, the one man Lin wanted to see less than anyone else.
Ayako turned the corner. They were approaching the police station. They considered having her stay behind like a getaway driver, but that would only make them look more suspicious. Either they were walking out of there free men, or they weren't walking out of there at all.
The SPR entered the station and asked to see Hattori. The polite man at the desk looked surprised, but nevertheless he guided them back to the a nice waiting room with rock-hard furniture and a coffee machine that hardly smelled like day-old coffee. He didn't seem to recognize Lin, even after Naru presented the SPR's business card. Lin recalled vaguely that the station was remarkably vacant when that other officer had marched him in. Considering what had happened to him afterwards, that was likely on purpose.
Lin sat between Naru and Takigawa. Mai was between Takigawa and Ayako. John and Masako stood by the overused coffee machine. Yasu was at the window to the break room, watching cops go about their business. The officer who escorted them in opened the door.
"Detective Fusei is ready to speak to you."
The eyes bulged out of the SPR's heads. "Fusei? We asked for Hattori!" Takigawa exclaimed.
The officer shrugged. "I'm sorry, but Hattori's not here right now."
The team couldn't help but exchange uneasy glances. Was Masako's prediction wrong?
"Is he all right?" John asked.
The officer looked bewildered. "What? Of course. Hattori's out on patrol."
Ayako tilted her head. "And Fusei's here? I thought rookies weren't supposed to leave their training officers."
"Hattori's riding with one of the sergeants today. Mid-term assessment." The officer waved his hand dismissively. "Which one of you is Koujo Lin? Detective Fusei would like to speak to you in private."
"Why?" Ayako demanded.
"He has information regarding one of his relatives."
"Whatever he wants to say to Lin, he can say to all of us," Naru said.
"That's against policy regarding information about relatives."
"I'm sure it's also against policy to take civilians into the guts of the police station," Yasu challenged.
"Kid, don't go lecturing me about how my job works."
"It's all right," Lin said. He stood up. The policeman's eyes widened ever so slightly at suddenly being dwarfed by the tall Chinese man. "Where would he like to speak?"
"He's by his desk."
Lin wanted to furrow his brow. This sounded all too convenient.
Without waiting to see if Lin was following, the officer turned around and exited. The team drew closer to Lin, their worry apparent in their eyes. Nobody said a thing. It wasn't the time for platitudes. Monk was the only one to speak. "You'd better fucking come back."
Lin nodded. He turned away from them and passed through the door. The officer was waiting for him, an annoyed expression on his face at being made to wait even more. Lin didn't offer him any words. He just let the man escort him to the monster who could very well become his executioner.
He was led into the bullpen, with officers running around and stationary at their desks. It was truly organized chaos. Every officer looked the same, and if Fusei wasn't looking in his direction, Lin had little chance of recognizing him out of this crowd. Instead, he allowed his channels to open, sniffing for a fragment of his shiki's essence.
The officer stopped at an innocent-looking desk. It was slightly larger than the other desks grouped closer to the closed offices, and it got a substantial amount of daylight. There were others just like it nearby. Clearly, these belonged to the higher-ranking officers in the station.
"Please have a seat. Detective Fusei was just here… Let me go get him." Without waiting, the officer walked off, disappearing into the river of people.
Lin didn't sit. If he was going to face this man, he'd do it standing up. After all, if Fusei were to drop him here and now, he'd want the biggest chance of causing the most commotion. His six-four body crashing into the floor was quite a sight to behold.
"Ah, Mr. Lin. Thank you for seeing me."
Lin didn't jump. Years of discipline were to thank. He turned around, meeting the cold, apathetic gaze of the old detective. He had to look down to meet Fusei's eyes, but the height difference did little to give him confidence. This man was dangerous. The memories of pain associated with him were too strong to convince Lin otherwise. It took half his concentration to keep from losing his composure.
"I can only imagine what I've done to deserve such a bold appearance." Fusei kept his tone and his words polite. If anyone were to listen in, they'd hear nothing suspicious. "Please, sit, why don't you? Would you like a glass of water?"
The smile didn't meet Fusei's eyes. Lin couldn't detect anything but apathy. He recalled an observation that Takigawa made a few days ago—that Fusei wasn't cold like Nakamura and Saito. Instead, he was closed off. An iron door sealed shut. Perhaps the key to winning this was to pry that door wide open.
"No, thank you," Lin said.
He and Fusei sat at the same time; Fusei at his desk, Lin in the chair beside it. The spirits surrounding Fire's tails were unusually quiet. Were they cowering in Fusei's presence? It was a far cry from their reaction to Hattori. They had been chomping at the bit to spill some blood. But this…
"Do not speak. I cannot hear you."
Lin's eyes widened. That was Metal's voice. He observed Fusei's face closely. The cop was merely sipping coffee from a cup that had been sitting on his desk. The lack of steam signaled that it was lukewarm at best.
Fire's ears perked up at hearing its teammate's voice. "Metalhead! You're here!"
"I suppose you must be getting truly desperate to come back to me. Now you must realize that I'm holding all the cards that are worth a damn. If this is your peculiar way of surrendering to me, I happily accept."
Lin gave his head the smallest of shakes.
Fusei glanced up from his coffee.
"It will end with me standing over your dead body. It just depends on how hard you want to make it for yourself. Now, we were in the middle of something before the city so rudely took you away from our business. Tell me where that little spying spirit has slunk off to."
Lin couldn't help but open his mouth slightly. Fusei had just revealed that the city had played some part in freeing him. Why would the detective let him in on any of this information? Unless… unless he was saying that he knew that the SPR had learned about this three-way shoot-out. Lin didn't have a response to that. Prior to arriving, one of his backup plays was to reveal this information himself and propose a truce. His insides crawled at that idea. This man did not deserve peace. Lin went straight for the jugular.
"Why? So that you can destroy his ghost and cover up your murders?"
Fusei's eyes narrowed. Lin saw his fist tighten near his thigh. Fusei's eyes flicked to his nearby surroundings, making sure that nobody heard what Lin said.
"There is no evidence," said Metal's voice.
"There is Weiguó's testimony."
"The dead don't speak in court."
"What happens next will decide whether the living will start to listen."
Fusei's brow furrowed at Lin's cryptic sentence. Lin held his gaze.
"All we want is to live our lives in peace. Let us go. Don't follow us. Leave us be."
Fusei didn't reply. Instead, he took a sip from his coffee. At that moment, Lin felt a sharp pain slice into the soft flesh beneath his left kneecap. He couldn't hold back the grunt and the wince. More alarming was that he couldn't hold back the wave of panic thrashing his mental shields. His fight or flight instincts were howling at him to do something, anything, to not let this happen again. Fire bristled at its master's distress.
Lin couldn't help but lean forward in his seat, resting a hand on his stricken knee. Metal's voice boomed down over him, as though Fusei had grabbed the back of his neck and was now growling into his ear, even though the officer had not budged an inch from his own chair or his coffee cup.
"You will not run from me. Neither you nor Weiguó, or any of your ghost hunter friends. I will have you all arrested for espionage and giving aid and comfort to an enemy of the state. I will torture you in front of them. I'll force them to give up Weiguó's location. You'll beg to be put out of your misery, and they will be left with the choice: watch me kill you, or put you down like the scum you are and rid the world of your blood."
Lin could hardly believe what he was hearing. Not even in the torture room did Fusei ever say something so venomous. Back there, he was the poster boy of it's-just-business. Straight and to the point: where's Weiguó? This—this was unhinged sadism.
"Why?" Lin whispered.
Fusei swallowed a sip of coffee, probably more suddenly than he intended. Lin detected a hint of confusion coming from Metal's essence, though he still couldn't place Metal's exact location. He clarified. "Why do you hate me so goddamn much?"
"It's nothing personal. I prefer to look at it the other way around. I love my country too much to do what I like to them. Now before we finish, is there anything else you want to say to me?"
Lin blinked. He wasn't sure what Fusei meant, or why he was being so agreeable, even though his nature was anything but.
"I take your silence for surrender." Fusei smirked, keeping his coffee cup in front of his lips. "I gladly accept. The first thing I will do is fulfill a promise I made to you before."
Lin couldn't help but freeze in confusion. And then he felt it—a silk-like ribbon worming its way around the tether that connected him to Fire. Fusei was trying to steal Fire away from him, like he had done with Earth and Metal.
"After all, I did say that I would kill it in front of you."
Lin wanted to vomit, right on the officer's stupid black shoes, but that would have to wait. With all of his remaining concentration, he drew his attention to the tether. Instead of fortifying his own, he attempted to interrogate the little silky ribbon that Fusei had sent out. In the span of ten seconds, he gathered two bits of key information. One: Fusei was no onmyoji. Two: his ability to snag and hypnotize other spirits was parasitic in nature—in that, he was only able to hypnotize spirits that had been enthralled by someone else. In essence, he was riding the coattails of another, stronger sorcerer. The paradox of that was that Lin had only ever heard of this feat of hypnosis being performed by inhuman fae and godlike entities.
The revelation of the parasitic nature of Fusei's power revealed the only action Lin could take. Reciting the spell in his head, he let the tethers fade, releasing the tengu, the brownie, and the huli-jing of their contracts. The huli-jing stared at him, agape. Power swelled from its nine tails, the spirits wrapping around them suddenly fleeing from its creamy fur.
Fusei slammed his cup down on the desk, his face contorting with anger. He said nothing, just bared his teeth as his connection to Lin's shiki vanished.
At that moment, a large half-man, half-heron materialized between Lin and Fusei. It stood on two-foot-tall stilts, adding to its massive height. It spread its wings and its arms, sending whirlwind sickles flying in all directions. Officers dove for cover and pulled out their weapons, crying out at the appearance of such a monster.
The SPR raced out of the waiting room, battle ready.
The heron tengu drew its katana.
Fusei stood up, staring the Japanese yōkai dead on.
"You do not deserve to face your death with dignity!" crowed the tengu. It raised its outstretched wing, ready to slap Fusei to the floor.
In quick succession, three things happened. The first was Fusei extending his hand toward the window. His invisible silk ribbon reached forth. It snagged the one remaining tether that Lin had. Lin didn't even feel it as the husk was overtaken. His only outward sign that Fusei had successfully stolen the husk was Fusei's own astonished exclamation of "Tanaka!?"
The second happening was the tengu, lashing out with its wooden stilt of a foot, kicking Fusei to the floor. He would die on his back today, like a squealing pig. It raised its sword.
The final event was the sudden burst of scalding, hot vapor in every direction, like a tsunami, except made of boiling smoke as opposed to seawater. The spirits that Fire had relinquished were expanding outward like a storm. Windows shattered left and right. Computer screens went white, then dark, and then they burst. The power went out with a sizzle. Lin swore he even felt a tremor in the floor.
The tengu became distracted by the sudden appearance of sixty furious spirits. Its beak fell open as it swung its blade at a large cloud of spirits, cleaving several of the poor things clean in half. Fusei slipped out from under the tengu's foot, fleeing from the monster and making his way toward the front door.
The angered spirits noticed his leave. Half of them chased after him, screaming in the language that only Lin could understand, "Murderer! Brute! Revenge!" Their terrible voices shook the building. People fell over left and right, the tremors making the ground unstable.
As soon as shit began to hit the fan, Naru was quick to gain control of his team. The SPR poured out of the break room. The spiritualists began by warding off any spirits that fled in their direction. Once they were no longer being swarmed, Naru directed the team to corral the spirits toward the open windows where their already weakened spirit bodies would be reabsorbed into the air. They were halfway through with doing that when Naru noticed Fusei stumbling in their direction. He immediately realized the man was trying to run from them, so he grabbed Yasu and blocked the murderous cop's path.
"Out of the way!" Fusei barked, reaching for his baton.
"You're a police officer. Shouldn't you be dealing with that?" Naru countered, gesturing to the tengu and the hoard of angry ghosts. Naru knew exactly what the ghosts wanted, and he wasn't going to be one to deny them.
"Move!" shouted the old detective. With a shove, he broke through Naru and Yasu's stances and made for the exit. It was all for naught however, when a booming voice echoed even louder than the hot, vengeful spirits, "You cannot run from your sins!"
A flying katana impaled Fusei from behind. Blood exploded all over the narrow hallway. The detective fell to the floor in an unceremonious heap. Fusei was dead.
All at once, the noise and movement stopped. The angered spirits that were still inside the building all turned around, back toward the tengu. The tengu readied its stance. The spirits sailed toward it, but then they parted like a river around the yōkai, and they slammed at full force into the husk. Grabbing, tearing, and biting, they ripped into the husk. The husk, as a mere shikigami, did not react. Lin did. He fell to one knee, clutching at his arms and sides, doing what he could to brace against the feeling of being pulled apart like piranha bait. With the last of his concentration, he brought his fingers to his mouth and whistled.
The husk's form mutated into a ball of black vapor. It sent out a pulse of energy, coursing like black electricity through the spirits that dared touch it. Despite their anger, the vengeful spirits were weak. The husk's attack was enough to disintegrate them. Those that were not destroyed began to shout, "Traitor!" "Betrayer!" and "Enemy!" Such words were aimed not at the husk, but at Lin, for daring to use one of their mortal enemies against them. Still, they kept their distance.
Seeing that they needed prompting, Lin shouted to them, "Leave this place behind you while you still can!"
A roar from the husk was the last bit of prompting the spirits needed. Like smoke from a burning building, the last of the ghosts seeped through the open windows. Once gone, both they and the husk vanished into the air, leaving only stunned silence behind. Well, stunned silence and a tengu eight feet tall at the shoulders, standing on Fusei's desk.
With a pained gasp, Lin sat back against the sturdy metal of the desk. The husk had several superficial injuries all over its body, like a thousand paper cuts, all of which Lin could feel. He glanced around at the officers staring up at the tengu, which was still standing on the desk. It appeared as though the tengu was standing over Lin, like a guardian angel of a sort. Lin could still sense the huli-jing nearby, as well as the brownie spirit, but neither of them were revealing themselves to him now. He knew that Fire had been upset with him for a day or so now, and this certainly wasn't helping. Fire had been adamant that he not sever their contract, and now he had. If it was the huli-jing's wish, it could refuse to return to his service. Lin hoped he hadn't destroyed their bond along with their contract.
The desk creaked as the tengu slowly shifted its weight, assessing who it would have to strike first in the event of a shootout. Despite being a creature from what was essentially another plane of being, small metal oblongs traveling at three thousand kilometers per hour could still do substantial damage, depending on where the shot landed. It would have to tread very carefully. Slowly, it opened its wings. If it could create an air gust to push them all down, it would stand a chance at getting out of this alive.
"Master Swordsman, please stop."
The tengu knew that voice. It tilted its head back slightly, eyeing its former handler. The human was rising to his feet, but it was clear he was in pain. The tengu pondered on whether it should entertain this human anymore. Surely he knew that its kind respected only strength.
"If you had any brains, you'd realize just how strong that human actually is."
The tengu twisted its head around the other way, gaze landing on a huli-jing, standing over a fallen brownie. The tengu winced. It hadn't forgotten what it had done to the weaker house spirit. The memory drove it to further seek revenge against the honorless piglet slaughtered between the bullpen and the front door. It should not have given its captor the mercy of a quick death.
A pair of footsteps drew the tengu's attention. It faced forward. The injured human was standing directly in front of it in a neutral stance, single visible eye glaring at it with overflowing determination.
"If you do not stand down, I will be forced to subdue you," said Lin.
The rest of the SPR watched on, ready in the event that Lin needed help. Naru had his hand in front of Mai, as she had nearly jumped in to assist him. It was a foolish thing to attempt to do, considering the volatile tengu on the table and the hoard of cops with weapons drawn. It could also ruin Lin's chances of regaining his contract with his former shiki. Capturing spirits was not something that had to be done by just the onmyoji's efforts alone, but considering the fact that both parties here had history, dishonorable interference could render that history null and void.
From the window, a voice hissed, "Hide yourself, bird brain!"
The tengu swept its gaze across the humans staring at it, eyes wide, devices drawn. Remembering finally that it was a being of another plane, the tengu relented and vanished from the material plane of existence.
Meanwhile, half of the team, Ayako, Takigawa, Masako, and John, were still stunned by the sudden death of their adversary. Especially considering what Naru had deduced about Nakamura and Saito's trap, what would become of the SPR? It was possible that now that the SPR had dispatched the last remaining thorn in Nakamura and Saito's sides, the Terrible Twos would indeed attempt to put a bullet in their heads, John Wick style. And if the police decided to preemptively arrest them all until they figured out what had just happened, they'd essentially render the SPR a flock of sitting ducks.
A cold pulse drew the SPR's attention toward Fusei's body. A wisp of dark essence floated off of the still warm body.
"No way," Takigawa said.
"Unfortunately, too many ways," Ayako returned.
A horrid eldritch humanoid abomination of a ghost rose out of Fusei's body. Its eyes were piercing, like the husks that had tormented the SPR for the past four days. Its body was even more tree-like, with longer limbs and branch-like digits that gave it the appearance of roots and branches. Its head rose from its body on an extended neck, like a serpent. Its face remained freakishly human, with a small, straight slit of a mouth. It was in sharp contrast to the husks and their grins. Fusei's ghoul was utterly expressionless.
Half the police force turned their attention to Fusei's ghoul. Most of them had their weapons drawn. The remaining ones had their phones out, either recording or making a call. The outside of the station was abuzz with police sirens—the station had likely called in all of their patrol officers, and it wasn't unbelievable that other precincts had sent some of their forces too.
The ghoul whined, a guttural sound like a throat torn open. It lifted a menacing claw. Instantly, the SPR began their attacks. Monk began his chant. John began his prayers. Mai and Ayako started the nine cuts. Fusei's ghoul lashed out at the two women first, interrupting their power strikes. It pinned them against the broken windowframe, smushing them against each other, reveling in how the shards of glass crunched under their bodies.
"Ayako!" Monk cried. He ran up to Fusei's arm and raised his tokkosho, prepared to sever the limb clean off.
"Monk, look out!" Yasu shouted. With all his might, the student gave Monk a hearty shove, taking a frightfully powerful finger spear to his side. It pierced him all the way through, like a skewer. Being an ethereal being, Fusei's ghoul did not leave physical marks, but even though the body was left physically intact, such a strike had a way of fooling it into believing it had been truly damaged. In short, Yasu was reduced to a writhing lump on the floor, unresponsive to any and all attempts to rouse him.
A gun discharged. The bullet passed straight through Fusei.
Naru whirled around. "He's a ghost, idiot! Only magic can take it down!"
"So what, I need a silver bullet!?" retorted the cop.
A shrill whistle caught Naru's attention. A black cloud sailed over the team's head and darted around Fusei's ghoul's body. Each time the cloud landed a hit, it sent pulses of black lightning coursing through its body. The ghoul recoiled, but it did not drop Ayako or Mai. It kept them pinned tight against the wall.
The ghoul suddenly groaned and staggered. Right below it knelt Takigawa. He had managed to drive the pointy end of his tokkosho into the ghoul's upper thigh. For that, he was rewarded with a violent shove toward the ground with the ghoul's remaining free hand.
Now that the ghoul was using both of its hands to pin down its opponents, Lin's shiki positioned itself to strike Fusei from behind, an attack that would render the ghoul paralyzed. No one expected a third hand to suddenly extend from the middle of Fusei's back, striking at the black cloud and slashing it in half, destroying Lin's last remaining shiki. Lin's agonized cry could be heard throughout the bullpen.
It was John's holy water that swung the tides of war, splashing down on the ghoul's back and causing it to rear up with a shriek, releasing all three of the enemies it had trapped.
Ayako, ever the iron woman, stood right up, regardless of the cuts littering her back and arms, and lashed out with the nine words. They didn't cause the same wave of damage that Lin's did, but hers were just as strong. Instead of cutting hard and wide, they went deep. Fusei's ghoul shrieked as the grid of nine slashes left piercing, paper-thin cuts along its body. Like a wounded animal, it backed away from the group with a noticeable limp, Monk's tokkosho still embedded in its leg. It smashed through the front doors and went sprinting across the parking lot. It had practically sailed over the barricade of police cars in the way, with officers crying out and ordering each other not to shoot, for risk of crossfire.
Ayako, Mai, and Takigawa made it to the front door just in time to see the ghoul disappear around a corner.
"Where's it going?" Mai shouted.
"Looks like back to the woods," Takigawa said. When Mai looked at him, she noticed that he had a hand pressed against his flank.
"Monk, are you okay?"
"That thing got me good," Monk said. When he pulled his hand away, it was dry, thankfully. "What about you, kiddo?" He began to look her over, specifically the dots of cuts around her arms and back. She and Ayako had similar injuries.
"Nothing that won't get better." Mai looked out into the street. "So… why did—"
She was cut off by several hollers from the police, pointing at them with their hands and their weapons.
"On your knees, now!"
"Hands behind your head!"
"We just saved your asses!" Ayako crowed. "You couldn't manage a little gratitude?" Nevertheless, the three of them complied. What else were they going to do?
Three officers came up to them and cuffed them. One of them they recognized.
"Hattori?" Ayako blurted. A closer look at the officer revealed his wide, frightful eyes.
"What the hell happened?" Hattori shout-whispered. "I've never felt a wave of spirits like that in my life!"
"Oh, you'll get your explanation soon enough, pal," Monk muttered, just as the other officers took them by their arms and guided them back into the station.
Back in the bullpen, they saw the rest of the SPR kneeling in the middle of the room, also in cuffs. The tengu was nowhere to be seen. Naru was in conversation with a fancy-looking officer, perhaps the police captain whose name they couldn't remember at the moment. Mai could not hear the conversation they were having, but it was quiet and tense.
Mai was all but tossed next to Lin, bumping the man's arm. Lin grunted as his body was jostled. The two of them looked at each other.
"Are you okay?" Mai whispered.
Lin exhaled. His breath was shaky, betraying his pain. Right, he had just experienced what it was like to be clawed in half. Instead of answering her question, he looked around the bullpen and said, "I've miscalculated gravely. I'm afraid we've just blown a massive hole in the separation of magic and the material."
"Where did your shiki go?"
Lin closed his eyes. "I have no shiki anymore, Mai."
Mai gasped. "Did Fusei destroy all of them?" If that were the case, then Lin must have been tremendously hurt, physically, mentally, and spiritually.
"Only the husk," said Lin, absently pressing his cuffed hands against his abdomen, which had begun to bleed through his shirt, again. Thankfully, everyone's hands were cuffed in front of them.
Mai tore her gaze away from the wound. "And the others?"
"I let them go. Fusei used my connection to them to hypnotize them, so I released them of their contracts to spare them."
Mai blanched. "Can you get them back?"
"I don't know."
Looking at Lin closely, Mai could clearly see the exhaustion in his face. Downcast eyes full of strain, and a slight tremble in his shoulders.
"Where are they now?" Mai asked.
Lin shook his head again. "Don't know. They vanished from this plane after Fusei's husk left."
"Why did he turn into that horrible thing? Ghosts don't usually do that."
To this, Masako answered. "Spirits are heavily influenced by the things they did in life, as well as the things they continue to do in death," she said. "That is only compounded by any supernatural abilities they have, as well as how they have used them. The resulting forms are unpredictable."
"But… he was human just half an hour ago."
"They all start that way."
One by one, the police dragged each member of the SPR in for questioning. A medic on site tended to the injured. The SPR had not agreed amongst themselves what to say if they were ever questioned, so they were left with just the truth and their own common sense. One thing that was surprisingly on their side was the fact that the officers of the Eastern Village were already aware of the atrocities that had taken place at Site 387, as well as the city's steady encroachment on the woods surrounding the facility. Explaining their purpose for being at Site 387 became much easier.
They had expected to be laughed out the door and into a jail cell when telling the police that they were ghost hunters. This time, however, after the appearance of the tengu, the tsunami of vengeful spirits, and the manifestation of Fusei's ghoul, their claim as ghost hunters was now nothing to sneeze at. When mentioning Fusei, it was to their bemused relief that the officers all regarded the cruel officer with either cold indifference or smug acceptance at his demise. None seemed particularly concerned about his deformed ghost making tracks for the condemned woods. Naru theorized that they believed it was no longer their problem, considering that Fusei was now an honest-to-goodness ghost.
Explaining the tengu without implicating Lin in Fusei's death was the tricky part. First, they had to explain what a shikigami was. Then, they somehow had to persuade the police that Lin would never order his shiki to kill unless there was no other way. The fact that Fusei was fleeing was certainly not good for Lin's case. Only Lin and Mai could explain that Lin had released all of his shiki. It made their case slightly better, but such an argument was comparable to letting go of a rabid mastiff's leash in public.
It was clear the police didn't know what to believe. Their senses were telling them one thing, but their conditioning in civil society was screaming at them to dismiss everything they had just seen. Frankly, the SPR didn't know which way to try and sway them. There were too many unknown variables, especially considering that their fates hung in the balance of what they decided. A murdered police officer was taken seriously, regardless of believability.
The only upside to this was that, if the police were willing to buy their story concerning today, perhaps then they would be willing to hear the crap that Fusei had put Lin through the past few days, and maybe even the things that Fusei had done regarding Site 387. Naru directed them to ask Hattori to corroborate their story about their first meeting with the crooked cop, as well as the night that Fusei had tortured Lin. He insisted that Hattori show the officers the hidden cell, as well as swab for DNA. If Lin and Fusei had been down there together, surely then both of their DNA would be down there too.
Hattori also assisted by offering information on what he had discovered about Weiguó. The man was indeed a spy, but his only other prior missions were to England. The man didn't speak Japanese—just Chinese and English. It was true that he had been traded for a different Chinese prisoner, but like what Fusei had done with Lin, Weiguó had quickly and discretely lost from the system, leaving no trace of his existence. Having this side and Mai's side of Weiguó's story painted a clear picture in all of their heads. Weiguó Lin had been a trojan horse, perhaps even sent with the ultimate goal of finding Site 387, to spill any beans on international crimes against humanity taking place in the heart of Japan. But that last part was all speculation. All they knew for certain was that Weiguó had been murdered here, and his remains deserved to go home, as did the remains of everyone murdered at Site 387. It was too bad that the Eastern Village Police Station didn't care about happenings from forty years ago, and the SPR were shuffled into their holding cells until they decided on what to do with them.
The team had to sit in jail limbo for some time. Lin had wound up with manslaughter charges, and whether or not they were held, dropped, or upped still hung in the balance, less like the scales of justice and more like a noose at the gallows. There were too many of them to place in their tiny holding cells together. Naru, Lin, and Masako were put in one cell. Ayako, Yasu, and John were placed in a second. Monk and Mai were left in the last. They were all still in the same room, and with only bars separating them, they could all still see and talk to each other. They had been left down there with only a single guard to make sure nobody did anything stupid. It was almost as if they had been forgotten as the station worked on restoring order. Things only became interesting when Officer Hattori escorted in the two faces that Naru wanted to deck more and more, every time they showed up.
"Hello Mr. Shibuya," said Nakamura, that sleazy fake smile plastered on his face.
The SPR was on its feet instantly. Hattori mumbled something to the guard, to which she nodded and hurriedly excused herself.
Saito clasped his hands in front of himself. "No need for hostility, everyone. You've already done so much for us. We were hoping that you were still open to finishing our case."
"You've got to be kidding me!" Ayako barked. Her exclamation went ignored.
"Were you under the impression that we weren't?" Naru challenged.
"We understand that the past few days have been trying," said Saito.
"Understatement of the century," Takigawa muttered.
"You think you have any right to ask more of us?" Yasu said.
Both Nakamura and Saito turned to him, casting their cold, cruel eyes upon Yasu like owls. "Our patience is limited," said Saito, still smiling.
Nakamura turned to Naru. "Mr. Shibuya, what are your objections to finishing the job we hired you for?"
Mai grabbed the bars of the cell and shouted through them. "How about the fact that you've been knowingly setting us up every step of the way! That you had Lin freaking tortured by that monster of a cop! That we're helping you cover up and destroy a site used for crimes against humanity!"
"Be quiet, little girl," said Saito. "The adults are talking."
The team bristled. "Don't speak to Mai that way!" Monk barked. "Everything she said is right! Why on earth would we help you after everything you've put us through?"
"We did nothing of the sort," said Nakamura. "By our recollection, that was all Detective Fusei, and by our understanding, he is no longer your problem."
"Except Fusei still exists, just as a malevolent, warped spirit," said Masako. Her eyes were focused on Hattori, drinking in the way he reacted to the conversation. "I don't suppose he's what you want us to take care of next?"
"If he has fled to the forest, then yes of course, deal with him as you see fit. He is no longer within the jurisdiction of the living."
John was the one to speak next. "Just who are you people?"
Nakamura and Saito turned their owlish eyes on the priest. "Who do you think we are?"
"Whoever you are," said Mai, "This isn't your first time doing something like this."
The two men made no motion to silence her again. They didn't even acknowledge that they'd heard her. But no one was talking, so Mai continued. "I think you've done a lot of work like this for whoever it is you work for, the city, the country, I don't know. You push people around, literally and figuratively. You work out the problems your victims have and you pit them against each other, and at the very end, you swoop in to clean up whatever mess was left behind. You don't care. That's the center of who you two are. You do what you have to do, and you don't care what mess you have to clean up, because that's what you do. You clean up the mess by grinding everyone in your way to dust. You are cold, you are cruel, and you don't care. There's not a rug big enough to bury everything you've defended."
Mai had the entire room's attention by the end of her speech. Nobody was saying anything. Nakamura and Saito smiled at Mai with that condescending look given to preschoolers who just tried to use big words and only made themselves sound adorable. They lazily turned their heads back to Naru. "Well, Mr. Shibuya?"
Naru narrowed his eyes. Taking in everything they had learned about the people they had dealt with and the losses they had suffered, he turned his head to Lin. The Chinese man was seated on the bench, almost pressed into the corner.
"It's up to Lin."
Lin glanced up at Naru. The two of them maintained eye contact for a good half a minute or so, their body language inscrutable to everyone else in the room. Eventually, Lin turned from Naru to Nakamura and Saito. "I know what's wrong with the woods and how to fix it," he said.
"Lovely," replied Saito.
"Not so fast," said Monk. "Sounds like there's a major but in there, and it's not just you two."
"I will need time to recover my strength. I am unable to perform the ritual that the forest needs in my current state."
"How much time do you require, Mr. Lin?" Nakamura said. His face was pleasant, but his voice had a hint of warning in it.
Lin didn't falter. "I cannot say."
The smiles faded from Nakamura and Saito's faces. They stared Lin down, but Lin would not be cowed. He did not stand or tower over them—instead, he remained seated. The message was clear: he would not move from his position. If they wanted his help, they would play by his terms.
"Perhaps there are other spiritualists more competent than your organization," suggested Nakamura.
"Bullshit," Naru retorted. "If you had the option of hiring another psychic team, we wouldn't be having this conversation." At this, the two men snapped their heads to him, their eyes wide like a startled horse. Naru had called their bluff. A daring smirk on his lips, he continued. "We sprung your trap early, didn't we? If you let us take the fall for your engineered scheming, then it becomes nothing but a lose-lose situation for both of us. We go to prison, and your forest stands strong. Besides, I have a feeling you want to keep the number of people roped into this conspiracy to a minimum. And just maybe, you two don't have enough time to wait for a fresh set of spiritualists to do all the work that we've done for you."
Like synchronized swimmers, Nakamura and Saito took in a deep breath together. It was the first peek of lost composure that the SPR had seen on the two men. They turned to Lin once more.
"What is the nature of your recovery?" Saito asked.
"I think you are aware," Lin returned.
"How long do you want?" asked Nakamura.
"A year," said Hattori. Everyone turned to him. Nakamura and Saito in particular appeared irritated by the rookie's interruption. Hattori did not stand down. "After everything Mr. Lin has been through, of which I understand you know, he should get at least a year."
In any other case, asking for a year would have been ludicrous. In this case, Naru found it unreasonable only in the sense that they would ever be asked to come back to this damned forest.
The two men turned back around to face the SPR.
"Two weeks," said Saito.
Naru's brow furrowed. He was about to speak again when Nakamura beat him to it. "If the woods are not ready for demolition in two weeks, you will see for yourself just what we are willing to do."
The SPR unanimously dismissed the vague ominous threat. Hattori was not so smart. "Did I hear you threaten them?"
"You heard nothing, Officer Hattori. This is just business between men."
"I think it's time you left," said the rookie.
"We can show ourselves out."
"I'm sure you can, but that's not allowed. If you'd please come this way." And with that, Hattori led the terrible twosome away.
The SPR were left in their cells, unsure of what to do next.
"We're not actually going to finish this case, are we?" Monk asked.
"Like I said, that's up to Lin," said Naru.
Before they could talk about it further, a pair of officers came down and began unlocking their cells.
"You've got friends in high places, Mr. Shibuya," said one.
"I would watch my back around those higher up goons," said the other. "When they show up, they're nothing but trouble."
Nobody said anything, nor did they mention just how much of an understatement that truly was.
"The charges?" Naru asked.
"Like I said, Mr. Shibuya. Friends in high places."
The SPR was all but marched out of the police station. Fusei's body was gone, but the area in which he died was still marked with evidence tags and tape. As they left, Lin had craned his neck toward Fusei's desk, trying to catch a glimpse of something, but like the rest of the group, he was all but pushed out the door. They were pretty sure the officer was two seconds away from saying, "And don't come back."
They clambered back into the van. Naru took the driver's seat. Naru drove them one last time to the forest base to take it down. They got through it much slower than usual, thanks to coming off of a sudden and unexpected battle. They eventually made it back to the city. Naru forwent returning the equipment to the office. The van would keep it protected, and frankly, everyone was too tired to give a damn.
"Is Weiguó still with you?" Naru asked.
Mai touched her chest. She had forgotten about Weiguó during the absolutely bonkers day they just went through. It was Masako who confirmed that the tattered spirit was still present. Naru had his theories on why Weiguó was still hanging around, but it would not do to keep the spirit longer than necessary.
"Have your last words with him tonight," Naru said. "Tomorrow, we get rid of him."
"But he might not be strong enough to leave me!" Mai protested.
Naru pinned her with a hard stare. "So you'd prefer to have a leech sucking on your soul until it finally drains you dry? We get rid of the spirit tomorrow."
And that was the end of that.
Ayako and Masako opted to take a taxi home, while John and Yasu elected to take public transportation, thus sparing Monk the arduous task of returning all of them to their individual homes. Monk still offered, like the gentleman he was.
When Mai asked how she would be getting home, Naru declared that she would still be staying with him and Lin. As she was still technically possessed, Naru wanted to keep a close eye on her.
It was to no one's surprise when the first thing Lin did was lock himself in his room and crash. The poor man had been through the ringer. Naru sat down with his laptop and began the work that Lin usually did. Mai was left to fend for herself for the rest of the day.
Truly, her mind was focused on Lin and the losses he had suffered, namely all five of his shiki. She had seen him crane his neck when they left the police station, perhaps looking for any sign that they were still hanging around. Perhaps that was how she could help. If she projected herself into the spiritual plane, maybe she could locate them and talk to them. Maybe Gene would still be willing to help her. It was all too sudden that the case was over, despite the fact that they hadn't set out what they wanted to do. Well, technically speaking, Lin took care of the peeping tom ghost at the hospital. That case was finished. But this… everyone knew that this case had not been solved. It was more accurate to say that the SPR had been given the metaphorical boot.
To Mai, she was torn between two perspectives. Was she looking a gift horse in the mouth? They had just been given an out. At the same time, their out was not a resolution at all. A monster of a man was dead. Site 387's victims were still without justice. The woods still had to be cleansed. Those were all thoughts for tomorrow-Mai.
A buzz from Mai's phone caught her attention. She pulled it out and noticed a text from Masako of all people.
It was simply a link, nothing else. Mai clicked on it, only mildly wary of malware, but Masako wouldn't do that to her—not knowingly at least.
Upon seeing the linked video, her worries took on a new form. The video was of a shaky recording of what had happened at the police station, starting with a shot of Lin's stork-headed tengu standing on a desk before quickly panning over to the materialization of Fusei's hideous ghoul from his bloodied body. The body was blurred, probably for community guideline rules, but there were one or two frames where the body could be seen in full quality before it could be blurred out. Once Fusei's ghoul had fully materialized, the recording device, likely a phone, fell out of the recorder's hands. The audio went from room tone to a cacophony of shouting. Then it stopped.
The comments were a mix of "OMG," "This is a hoax," and true believers crowing, "I told you so!" among other things. Mai was pretty sure the world of magic and monsters were not taboo to reveal—it was just difficult to get anyone to believe you. Maybe this would be dismissed as an internet hoax, save for the deep dark corners of the internet that both knew the truth and would believe anything. The truly concerning part of the video was that none of the faces were blurred out, meaning, from the shots taken by the videographer, every single member of the SPR had been implicated in this event taking place at the Eastern Village Police Station. This was not over. Not yet.
IDK anymore. To say this has gone off the rails implies there were rails to begin with. I just hope it's satisfying.
As usual, feedback is welcome, especially when it comes to big action scenes. If it's hard to follow what's going on, it's hard for me to know, because obviously I know what I meant. I just need to make sure it's all transitioning from brain to fingers correctly.