“M-monster!” Her thick, alto voice now screeched like tearing metal. With a velocity that belied her mass, she disappeared into the alleys of the market.
Sayaka was left there by herself. “What a bunch of annoying interlopers,” the water faucet gurgled. “But all said, a fine meal. Go with your shadow. Your true enemy awaits.”
Ten minutes later, Sayaka stood beneath a neon sign that read, “Waseda Hotel.”
“Here?” The ground beneath her feet wavered like a low-lying mist. The demon’s voice wafted up. “Go in. You remember the plan?”
Led by her shadow, Sayaka entered the hotel—née, the Waseda University Department of Science and Engineering. It was the only wing of the school that remained. The rest had been reduced to towering piles of steel and concrete scattered here and there on the expansive campus.
The first floor was the lobby. Immediately to the left, the owner leaned back in a chair behind the crudely constructed counter, snoring.
The shadow proceeded to the second floor. It stopped in a corner of the hallway, in front of Kyoya’s room. The voice again came at her feet. “I’ll take this for now. It may come in useful at some point.”
A pale hand reached up from the floor and took hold of the edge of the shadow, in a blink rolling it up like a sheet of paper. And then sucked back into the floor.
Making sure it was gone, Sayaka knocked on the door.
“It’s open.”
In reaction to Kyoya’s voice, her expression didn’t change in the slightest. She pushed open the door.
Kyoya was sitting on the bed, just having put on his shoes. He jumped to his feet, startled by this unexpected visitor.
“You are—definitely Sayaka. What are you doing here? A place like this? And how did you know I was here?”
“I wanted to see you. I thought I could help.” Sayaka’s hollow eyes didn’t look at Kyoya, but at Asura leaning against the bed. “I am so tired. Could I lie down?”
“Ah—um—sure. Come over here.”
Not waiting for Kyoya to answer, Sayaka approached the bed and grabbed Asura. Her whole body was pierced as if by a red-hot blade. Then she screamed as the psychic power stored in the sword struck hard at the demon spirit possessing her.
But before collapsing to the floor, Sayaka managed to muster enough strength to hurl Asura toward the nearby window. With the sound of shattering glass, the squirming pan-dimensional lips of the weird creature floating in the air swallowed it up.
“What are you doing?!”
Kyoya ran toward the window and stopped. An eerie aura suffused the room. The enemy was already here.
They’d used Sayaka to steal Asura and then kill Kyoya. This was the Sorcerer’s plan. He hadn’t planned on Sayaka fainting as well. But Asura getting sucked into another dimension proved an equally happy accident.
Sayaka-san was the trap. Kyoya suppressed the rising tide of frustration and indignation, and cast his senses around the room. But what to do now?
He didn’t have time to think it through. The miasma filled the room. He raced over to Sayaka and scooped her up in his arms. The jostling soon awakened her. Perhaps because the shock from Asura had released her from the shadowmancy’s hypnotic trance, her eyes were clear and lucid.
“Ah, Kyoya-san. W-what am I doing here?”
“I’d like to ask you the same thing, considering that stunt you just pulled.”
Sayaka’s face clouded over. Her memories from before the shadowmancy were coming back. “The Sorcerer cast a spell on me. What did I do?”
“Nothing to me personally,” Kyoya said with a smile and a wink. “Don’t worry about it.” Taking her to task at this point would do little good.
“What are you doing?” the startled Sayaka asked. He abruptly crouched and drew a circle around them with his forefinger. “What’s happening?”
“I don’t know. Something crawled under my feet. But no magical powers should be able to cross inside the circle.” Kyoya’s eyes shone with a fierce light. “Looks like I was right.”
Sayaka followed Kyoya’s gaze and exclaimed in surprise. The bed—the sheets and mattress—turned transparent, like jellyfish. The sheets tossed like the waves of the sea. The frame of the bed bobbed and twisted and started to dissolve.
Not only the bed. The chair lost its form and was sinking into the undulating floor. The window and curtains grew muddy and fused like warm taffy with the concrete wall. The entire room was melting away.
As Sayaka clung to him, Kyoya slipped the watch off her wrist. “The floors and walls are a loss, but what about this?”
He threw the watch upwards. With a plopping sound, it sank into the ceiling. The splash burst “up” toward the floor and “fell back” to the ceiling, the ripples spreading outwards.
“So it’s reached the ceiling too. Not just the molecular composition, but gravity. That’s one hell of a monster.”
By then, except for the round section they were perched on, the rest of the room had turned into an ocean. The bed was sinking halfway through the floor. Squinting, Sayaka could see slender shadows flitting through the depths of the dark blue floor.
“Those are fish,” Sayaka said in a muffled voice.
“Demon City fish. Who knows what’s going to show up next.”
As if answering Kyoya, low laughter came from the other side of the room. “Exactly. I thought I’d show off my pets.”
The voice hadn’t died away before the surface of the “sea” welled up six feet in front of them. Breaking out of the cresting wave, a giant fish leapt into the air, silvery scales flashing in the light. With one bloodshot eye and spear-like fangs sprouting from its purple triangular mouth, it streaked over their heads like a fifteen-foot torpedo—barely missing as they ducked down—and landed in the “water” of the opposite wall.
A column of water rose “up,” parallel to the floor as the floor beneath their feet rocked like a small boat in a stormy ocean.
“At this rate, I’m going to get seasick before I get eaten,” Kyoya grumbled in an exasperated voice.
As she clung to him, her eyes drawn to the source of the outburst, Sayaka smiled. This girl too had nerves of steel that seemed utterly foreign to her countenance. Kyoya grinned broadly.
“What are you smiling about?” came the demon’s voice. “You killed Doki and the Sorcerer—but was that due to your own strength?”
“What? The Sorcerer is dead?” Kyoya forgot about the sea-tossed floor beneath his feet and stood up. “So the president has recovered?”
“Never,” laughed the demon. “You merely killed the Sorcerer. You did not annihilate him. The curse shall not be undone, not so long as his soul remains intact.”
“What’s this guy blabbing about? Think I’m gonna let this pissy little liar yank my chain? Go to hell where you belong.”
“If you want to know the truth, then come to our lair and you will soon discover for yourself. But you won’t be getting out of here alive. You saw it yourself, my creature from the deep. Surrender to me or end up in its bowels. You had better prepare yourself.”
“Well, I’ve decided, and that’s a big no to both.”
“What are you saying?”
Kyoya shot back, “I’m saying you talk awful big for somebody afraid to show his face. Prepare myself for what? A miserable coward of a demon like you? When word gets out in the Demon Realm, you’ll be too embarrassed to show that lickspittle face of yours in public. C’mon, you and me, mano-a-mano. If you have the guts. Don’t you think it’s about time you pulled your own weight without running to papa?”
A long silence followed Kyoya’s trash-talking. And then the answer, shaking with white-hot anger. “You do have a mouth on you, boy. You’ll eat those words before I draw and quarter you.”
The shrouded face arose from the surface of the “sea,” followed by the body clothed in a monk’s habit.
“My name is Suiki. You want to face me. Here I am. Now what are you going to do about it?”
Suiki roared, “Don’t mess with me! I have yet to lift a finger. You’re as good as chum!”
The fish sprang at them from the wall on the left. They both ducked. With a spray of water it splashed into the floor less than a foot away, the dorsal fin cutting a path to the wall on the right and up the wall to the ceiling, where it began leisurely turning in a wide circle. Attacking from directly above, it had the literal high ground.
Either end up in its mouth or abandon ship for this magical sea—the same fate dealt to the gangbangers at Yotsuya Sanchome station and the ruins of Shin-Okubo awaited them.
Kyoya grasped Sayaka around the waist and stood up. “Isn’t it about time we called it a day? I see you took my double-dog dare and showed your face.”
“Let’s not hear any more excuses. Without your wooden sword, what are you? What can a boy like you do when left to his own devices?”
“We’ll have to see, won’t we?”
The answer to that came from above, the fish springing down at them, mouth gaping wide.
“Gotta try harder than that, bugface!”
With his arm around Sayaka, Kyoya jumped into the air. With nothing to hold or stand on, launching an attack seemed impossible. But he commenced a series of aggressive moves, twisting out of the way of the fish falling at them like a cleaving glacier while delivering a mighty reverse kick to its back. Then he pursed his lips and aimed at Suiki.
A flash of silver, a long tail trailing behind, plunged deep into Suiki’s hood. With a tortured scream, Suiki bent backwards, clapping a hand over one eye.
“That’s some needlework nenpo for you.”
The needle and thread Kyoya had gotten from the hotel owner smashed into the demon’s eye. Kyoya had learned this needle-spitting technique from his father.
The two alighted on the original section of floor. The fish—its back crushed—disappeared midair. Even losing Asura, Kyoya possessed the psychic powers necessary to destroy these demonic underlings.
“Son of a bitch!”
Suiki flailed about on the surface of the sea. Spawned perhaps by the bitter dregs of his magical powers, a fierce whirlwind spun out of nowhere. The gale caught up the piece of floor Kyoya and Sayaka were standing on, sending it fluttering to and fro like a leaf caught in a rough surf.
From the floor—that was now a sea—to the walls and up to the ceiling. Seeing flooring above his head, even Kyoya felt a cold chill down his spine. It was a bright afternoon fall day. Only this room was wracked by the surging dark waves of a magical sea.
“Ah, he’s changing!” cried Sayaka, pointing down at Suiki.
“His true form.”
Suiki’s appearance no longer conformed to a human shape. The shroud and habit fell away, revealing a thick writhing bundle of wet white tentacles rising from the floor. At first, there seemed to be dozens of strands. But soon there were hundreds, multiplying in wave after seething wave.
Deep within the dense forest of tentacles, the one crazed red eye flashed with hatred and loathing as it fixed Kyoya in its gaze. “Don’t run away. I will reduce you and this whole house to driftwood.”
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep, jerkwad.”
Kyoya once again wrapped his arm around Sayaka’s waist. He shifted their little round “boat” around like a surfboard and approached the window. Drenched in the froth from the floor and ceiling, he said with a jerk of his chin, “This is our only hope.”
Sayaka looked in that direction and her face brightened. Obscured by the crashing waves, it was hard to make out, but there was a break in the vertical wall of water. Sunlight poured through the break. These were the remaining shards of glass in the window Sayaka had thrown Asura through.
“No matter how strong, monsters can be wounded. Otherwise, he would have drawn us into his grasp by now. We can escape on the strength of my nen alone. Together, now.”
“Yes.”
The round piece of floor came alongside the break in the wall. They jumped like a pair of divers and plunged head first through the soaring seas. A brief shock of cold, and a moment later they were flying through sunlit space beneath a golden sun. They flipped over and around, and landed on the hard earth.
Thanks to their training in Shorin Kenpo and Aikido, they landed without suffering the full impact of the fall.
Kyoya helped Sayaka to her feet. “I don’t think he’ll be coming after us right away, not with a wound like that. But there’s another of them out there, and he could be just around the corner for all we know. We’d better find some cover.” He glanced back at the hotel. “Holy cow,” he exclaimed.
“Wow.”
In this case, perhaps it wasn’t entirely appropriate to be impressed by the sight, but it was a staggering spectacle. The whole hotel had turned semi-transparent, quivering and swaying like a massive jellyfish, as it disintegrated and dissolved. Having let the person who wrecked his eye slip through his fingers, Suiki directed his demonic rage against the building instead. A good thing that Kyoya had been the only boarder.
The owner came crawling out of the entranceway, steam rising from his bald head. He looked like he’d seen a ghost. This time he pretty much had.
“It ain’t much, but unfortunately it looks like I’m gonna have to skip out on the bill.”
“What?”
“Nothing. Let’s go.”
He took Sayaka by the arm and hurried through the front gate.
Part Six
Kyoya deliberately headed down one of the more twisting alleyways.
After walking for fifteen minutes and seeing no one in sight, they ducked into the ruins of a building. With a collapsed stone wall between them, they undressed and spread their clothes to dry. They hadn’t noticed back in the room, their nerves on edge, but they were soaked to the skin.
Waiting for the sun to do its work, they caught each other up on the details of what had gone on until they met.
What drew Kyoya’s attention in particular was Sayaka’s account of the Sorcerer’s dying words.
“So even if dies, he’s coming back? That last monster said something similar. So I guess we can expect him to turn up in a different form?”
Sayaka poked her head around the wall and said in a concerned voice, “Seems so, seeing that the curse on my father still hasn’t been lifted.”
This caught the half-dressed Kyoya off guard, but as she was still an innocent when it came to such things, he let it drop. “Yeah. Unfortunately. One way or another, if he’s not destroyed down to his soul, the spell stays in place. Check it out yourself—you still don’t have a shadow.”
On the other side of the wall, Sayaka let out a small scream.
“I noticed after we left the hotel. The Sorcerer’s shadowmancy. Your shadow led you to me. But why would your shadow know stuff like that?”
Sayaka didn’t know either. Though if he had perchance spied over the wall, despite the draft of unpleasantly cool autumn breeze, he would have seen Sayaka’s cheeks flushing red hot. The Sorcerer said that she was in love with Kyoya.
“I don’t know. And why would I have come to your room?”
“Who knows,” Kyoya answered, playing dumb. No need to hit her over the head with the truth at this juncture. There was no telling how badly she’d take it. “Seeing that the Sorcerer cast this spell on you, it’s a safe bet that as long as it continues, so will the curse on your father.”
Facing the wall, bathed in the bright fall sunlight, the two sank into silence, Kyoya contemplating the battles to come without Asura, and Sayaka worrying about her ailing father.
“Well, nothing’s getting done just sitting here,” Kyoya said a long minute later, pulling on his still damp trainer. “First off, let’s figure a way to get you out of here.”
“Huh?”
Sayaka peeked around the wall, a confused expression on her face, exposing her white shoulders and the swell of her breasts rising
out of her bra. Kyoya hastily looked the other way. On any other occasion, he would have leaned in for a better look. With her, though, it was somehow different.
“Obviously,” he said bluntly, “a dangerous place like this is no place for a woman like you to be on her own.”
And yet that bluntness seemed somehow moderated.
“I’m not on my own. You’re with me.”
“Save the humor. I’ve still got a job to do. I’ve got enough on my plate saving your father and keeping this crapfest of a place from getting any worse than it already is. And the clock’s ticking. Got three days left, counting today. You’re a good girl, but I’m a busy man.”
“All the more reason you need my help,” Sayaka said, the seriousness of her intentions not slipping in the slightest.
What a pain, Kyoya thought. However her father might be some savior of the modern age, she lived in a little world of her own. Even if she didn’t, she couldn’t just waltz in here in the middle of the night like she was going to the mall.
“Let me cut to the chase. It’s gonna take all I’ve got keeping my own self in one piece. The last thing I need is to be dragging around a ball and chain. Beating off that last attack was no walk in the park, believe me. We need to go our separate ways. Right now, I’m quaking in my boots, my head feels like it’s gonna split open, my arms and legs are about to fall off, and my heart could explode out of my chest any minute.”
He wasn’t exaggerating. Stomping that monster fish and shooting the needle through Suiki’s eye took all of his concentrated psychic energy. He was exhausted.
“But didn’t you defeat those demons?” Sayaka said encouragingly.
“Problem is, I got as good as I gave.”
“Either way, you wounded them severely. A demon that Master Rai said was impervious to any kind of physical attack—you defeated with a single needle. Using more powerful weapons, you surely would have crushed it. You were magnificent. More importantly, despite being against it all along, you came to Shinjuku anyway. The Master wasn’t wrong to believe in you.”
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