Chapter 4: Let’s Finally Talk About Summer Vacation

The truck’s impact had left the cafe in ruins. The bloodstained giant had descended from the cabin, with the word “Immortal (9)” hanging over his head.

Aiko and Monika were behind Yuichi. Nero was at his feet, in dog form.

A panic was starting to overtake the dumbfounded patrons and servers as they slowly came to grips with their situation.

The giant had thrown one of the truck’s mirrors, but he hadn’t done anything since then, except to raise his right arm at eye-level, as if to confirm the fact that it was bent at an unusual angle. Perhaps that was the reason his attack hadn’t landed.

The giant’s body was in the process of healing. He was covered in blood, but the bleeding had already stopped, and the large hollow in his chest had slowly began to expand to a more normal shape. Even the glass shards that peppered his body were being ejected, slowly, one after another.

The restaurant was in a strange state of equilibrium. The giant clearly intended to stand there until he was completely healed, assuming that Yuichi and the others didn’t do something. That might give them a little time, but Yuichi couldn’t afford to just stand idly by.

“Hey,” Yuichi asked Monika, his eyes fixed on the giant. “Do you know who that is? It says he’s ‘Immortal.’”

He hadn’t seen a number in parentheses in the label like that before. He’d seen things like “Anthromorph (Cow),” but this seemed different.

“He’s the worst possible person I can think of to have after you...” Monika whispered, her eyes wide in despair.

“Can I have the short version?” Yuichi asked.

“He’s a god-killer. An immortal, supernaturally strong, with the power to see the future.”

“That’s too much stuff...” Yuichi had asked to be sure, but the explanation wasn’t really helping. “Any idea why he’s after you?”

“I told you before, the battle over the secret treasures!” Monika exclaimed. “Hey, what should we do? I think this thing could kill me!”

“You were bragging before about being invincible, weren’t you?” Yuichi asked, skeptically.

Monika took Yuichi’s hand. He could feel her trembling. In the now-deserted restaurant, he turned his mind to thoughts of what to do next.

First, they should get away. This wasn’t a good place to fight.

But they were also in a business district, close to the last station on the line. He tried to think of a better place to fight, with fewer people around, but nothing was coming to mind.

“Noro! It’s a little far away, but do you know the exercise park?” he called.

“Yeah, I think so,” Aiko said without much confidence.

“Go there ahead of us,” Yuichi ordered. “We’ll meet you later.” He wanted to guarantee Aiko’s safety before anybody else’s. If Nero was with her, she should be safe.

“Um, but...” Aiko began.

“Just do it,” Yuichi said. “Trust me.”

“Okay.” Aiko nodded, then started climbing over the broken wall. Without even needing to be told, Nero followed her.

Yuichi turned his focus back to the giant. If there was a chance he was after Aiko, he would try to stop him now, but the giant didn’t budge.

That meant Aiko wasn’t his target. Maybe he didn’t care about anything but Monika.

The giant continued moving, leisurely checking each part of his body.

He seemed perfectly at ease; the giant didn’t care about the damage he had done, nor did he show a single sign of concern about the commotion he had caused. Yuichi had fought audacious enemies before, but none so bold as to charge directly into a city full of people.

Apparently fully recovered now, the giant’s hand reached out. It took a moment for Yuichi to realize what he was about to do.

The giant’s hand grabbed the truck’s warped door, and in a split second, tore it free from its hinges. It had been an effortless move, like ripping a sheet of paper. It didn’t feel real.

Yuichi quickly hoisted Monika up under his arm and started to run.

The giant threw the steel door.

It flew at them with a roar, making the hole in the cafe wall bigger as it flew out the other side.

There was a scream.

Yuichi sprinted out of the cafe, casting a glance back at the blood-stained tragedy. A rubbernecker who had stopped to get a picture of the incident had been reduced to a bloody pulp. It was an incredible tragedy, but Yuichi couldn’t afford to think about it right now.

“This is really bad!” he shouted. “What the hell is that guy thinking?”

“We’re dead, we’re dead, we’re dead! I told you, we’re dead! I hate this!” Monika wailed.

Yuichi dove recklessly down the avenue as evening fell. He had no idea where he was trying to go. He was a slave to his own growing panic.

“Dammit! If I’d known this would happen, I would have tried to finish it back there—” But his enemy wasn’t going to give him time to dwell on his choices.

Something flew at him from behind, and Yuichi dodged with a sidestep.

A cash register from the cafe passed through the empty space where he had been a moment ago, and buried itself into a car that was driving ahead of him.

There was an excruciating noise as the car spun around. The cars behind it failed to stop in time, leading to a pileup. The street was in pandemonium.

The giant was definitely after Monika — and, given the way he’d crashed the truck into the cafe, he didn’t care about any casualties he caused in the pursuit.

“Dammit! There are too many people!” Yuichi cursed. Weaving through the congestion was just going to get more people hurt.

“There! Turn right, onto that street!” Monika screamed as she pointed at an alleyway.

Yuichi followed her directions. He was dubious about putting his faith in Monika, but it was better than running around mindlessly.

Without dropping his pace, he flew into a maze of back alleys. He felt something else fly past him, and heard another destructive crash.

The minute they entered the back streets, it was like they were lost in another world; there was no sign of people at all, now. Still hauling Monika under his arm, Yuichi continued to dash through the dim alleyways.

At last, Yuichi set Monika down and decided to take a quick breather.

He’d run and run, choosing between interwoven alleyways at random. That should afford them a little time.

“I hope you’re not thinking ‘we’re safe now,’ are you?” Monika asked.

Yuichi had put a lot of distance between them and the giant, and it would be hard for him to trace them in the city. But Monika’s expression remained grim.

“I mean... he’s after you because of this. And he probably won’t stop chasing it...” Monika pulled out something round and showed it timidly to Yuichi.

Yuichi stared in shock. It looked like a human eyeball, but he could tell quickly that it was artificial.

“A glass eye?” he asked.

“It’s the Evil God’s Right Eye,” Monika said. “It’s one of the secret treasures we’re fighting over. We call it a Divine Vessel. That giant has the Left Eye, and... hey! Are you listening?”

“Yeah, I’m listening,” he said. “But I don’t think I’ll have time to hear the whole story.”

Yuichi could sense the giant’s approach from the faint footsteps resounding in the distance. He was still some ways away, but definitely homed in on their location.

“Divine Vessels resonate sometimes,” Monika said. “While they’re resonating, the bearer of each can tell where the others are. That’s why he knows where I am so easily.”

“Then why don’t you just throw it away?” Yuichi asked. That seemed like the easiest way out of all of it.

“No! Then it would all be over!” Monika exclaimed.

She was more resistant to the idea than he’d expected. If she wasn’t going to throw it away, even in a situation like this, then it was something she felt was worth risking her life for.

“Got it,” Yuichi said. “Anyway, can you let me have it? If the worst happens, we can split up and I can draw him after me.”

“Sure. Take it.” Monika obediently handed over the eyeball.

“Are you sure you’re okay with this? It’s important to you, isn’t it?” Yuichi asked.

“Yeah,” Monika said. “I trust you. You could have just abandoned me, but you’ve already carried me this far.”

Yuichi felt a little bashful, having her say it straight out like that.

“So is there some way to use it? I can tell where he is too with this, right?” Yuichi peered at the eyeball she had given him. She had said that they were resonating, but it didn’t seem to be doing anything special to him.

“It’s already in use, so no,” she said. “Each Divine Vessel takes a host in someone’s body. Once it’s assigned to someone, it can’t be used by anyone else.”

“So right now, it’s a one-way street?” Yuichi knitted his brow. That put them at a significant disadvantage.

“If you kill the person it’s assigned to, it reverts to its original state and you can use it again,” she said. “But I don’t want to do that... and collecting them should be enough, even if you can’t use their power.”

Yuichi could sympathize with that. He had just been thinking that if the battle for the Divine Vessels was going to involve killing people, he was going to say he couldn’t help her.

“How long does the resonance last for?” he asked.

“Until the Evil God is satisfied... I guess. I think the resonance will stop once things feel like they’ve reached a turning point...”

“That’s pretty vague,” he said.

Monika hesitated. “This is a story called ‘Battle for the Divine Vessels,’ so there should be some kind of decisive event to start and end the resonance, but...”

“I guess it’s too much to hope that someone else somewhere will reach this ‘turning point’ for us, huh?”

“But what good does that do us? It just means we have to keep running until the resonance stops...” Monika’s voice dropped, perhaps imagining an eternal road of desperate flight stretching out before her, never knowing when or if the resonance would stop.

Yuichi realized they weren’t going to make any progress like this. He would just have to finish things here, in these alleyways.

“Let me ask something else,” he began. “What do you know about him?”

“You’re going to fight him?!” Monika exclaimed.

“We might as well get it over with,” he said. “We can’t just keep running, right? So tell me what you know. Anything could be useful, even if it’s not combat-related.” Fortunately, there were no people here. No matter how recklessly the man acted, casualties would remain at a minimum.

Monika didn’t sound happy about it, but nevertheless, she began to murmur. “...First of all, he isn’t human. Immortality is his natural state. He’s a yokai of unknown origin. He eats human souls and stocks up lives by doing that.”

“I saw a number with Soul Reader,” Yuichi said. “Does it have to do with that?”

It had said Immortal (9). That number could refer to his “stock” of lives.

“Probably,” Monika said. “He won’t die until his lives run out. And he’s really, really strong, so the idea of killing him even once seems pretty doubtful. Also, the Evil God’s Left Eye lets him see the future. Well? Still want to fight him?” Monika asked sarcastically.

He did sound like a tough opponent. “What’s the deal with his future sight?” Yuichi asked.

“It’s just what it sounds like,” Monika said. “He knows everything you’re going to do, which makes him the perfect opponent for an Outer. Outers are ‘lucky,’ you could say. But future sight makes luck irrelevant, right? That’s why we call him a god-killer.”

“But his attacks didn’t hit, did they?” Yuichi asked. He’d thrown several things at them, but Yuichi had dodged them all.

“He can only use it when it’s one-on-one. He can only see one person’s future, so when there’s more than one person there, the results get less predictable. If it had just been me, I’d be dead right now.”

“Immortal, super strong, and can see the future, huh?” Yuichi said. “I guess I’ll just have to deal with those things one at a time.”

Yuichi started walking, showing little concern for Monika’s warnings.

“What are you gonna do?” Monika asked, looking suspicious about Yuichi’s attitude.

“Well, it’s a little wider over there, so—” As he started walking, Yuichi realized he was saying something strange.

What? Have I seen this place before?

The surroundings didn’t look familiar. Yet Yuichi knew them. And he knew that if he turned left up ahead, he’d come to a more open area; there would be a staircase leading to a basement there, to the entrance to a run-down old cafe.

Yuichi ran forward to confirm it. As he turned the corner, he saw just the sight he imagined.

A dead end, a staircase, the entrance to a cafe. He was sure he hadn’t been here before, and yet, he knew this place.

Yuichi turned around and looked at Monika, who had followed him. He felt like the sight he had seen before had included Monika, as well.

“Have we been here before?” Yuichi asked.

“Yeah,” she said. “But could we talk about that later? Now’s not really ideal...”

“Good point. Anyway, go hide at the bottom of the stairs.” Yuichi walked further in, to stand before the stairs that led to the cafe. Then he turned back to the entrance to the alley.

The sun would be low on the horizon by now, but the area around him seemed better lit than he expected. There was light pouring in from the windows of the strange old shops around them.

Monika had descended the staircase as Yuichi had asked, poking her head over the side to watch.

The footsteps drew closer. At last, the man appeared at the entrance to the cul-de-sac.

“Immortal (13),” the label read. The number was higher now. He must have been eating the souls of those he’d killed on his way there. His wounds seemed to have healed over completely, as well. His regeneration wasn’t instantaneous, but it was fast, nevertheless.

Yuichi partitioned out a corner of his mind to begin churning over ways to deal with each of his abilities.

“I guess we’re not gonna be able to talk about this, are we?” Yuichi asked, without much hope.

“Naw, that’s not true...” The man spoke for the first time. His voice was heavy and low, but there was significant irritation mixed in with it. “You can cry, scream, piss yourself, and beg for your life! What I don’t wanna see is you putting on airs!” the man roared.

“Yeah, talking’s not gonna work here...” Yuichi mumbled.

In other words, the giant was a brawn-over-brains hooligan. Deciding it was pointless to say anything more, Yuichi prepared to fight.

The man glared at Yuichi, his eyes burning with rage. He was about to charge forward, but then suddenly, he stopped.

Yuichi stared.

This was an unexpected development. There was no reason for him to stop.

The man coughed up something sticky and red.

“Huh?”

There was something sticking out of the man’s chest. The tip was sharp and metal, and stained with blood. It took Yuichi a moment to realize that it was the point of a sword.

“You know that finding enemies through the resonance applies to all of us,” said a voice from behind the man. “You really let your guard down.”

The man with a sword through his heart pitched forward, revealing a girl of high school age.

She was dressed in a breezy summer outfit of a camisole and shorts. It was only her right arm, extended in front of her, that ruined the look. It was wrapped in something black and twisted, and in her hand was a blood-stained sword, which itself was wreathed in black flames.

Above her head was the word “Hero.” Yuichi had seen a lot of labels in his time, but this one was the most suspicious one yet.

The fallen man lay still. He was definitely dead. The fact that the label above his head had disappeared was unquestionable proof.

“Didn’t you say he was immortal? And who’s she?” he asked Monika while keeping his eyes locked on the girl standing in front of him.

“H-How should I know?” Monika sounded just as confused as he was about the situation.

Reinforcements? Is she taking part in the war, too? What’s going on, here? Yuichi’s mind was full of questions, but no answers seemed forthcoming.

Yuichi gazed at the girl.

The girl gazed back at Yuichi.

“Huh? Hey, aren’t you Sakaki? What are you doing here?” the girl asked.

It was almost as if she knew him.

“Have we met?” Yuichi asked, his guard fully up. This girl was not normal if she had no compunctions about killing someone.

Of course, Yuichi was in no position to talk. He had felt a slight shock at seeing someone die in front of his eyes, but no more than that. Perhaps it was Mutsuko’s training that had taught him to remain calm in situations like these, but he still felt a bit of self-loathing for it.

“We pass each other in the halls at school, that’s all,” the girl said. “But you’re famous, so pretty much everybody knows you.”

“I don’t know remember doing anything that would make me stand out...” Ever since discovering Soul Reader, Yuichi had tried hard to stay under the radar. The only thing he could think of was being known as his sister’s little brother.

“Huh? All the girls in our class think you’re super hot, though,” the girl said. As she spoke, she passed the sword from her right hand to her left. The darkness that wreathed it stretched from hand to blade with an almost viscous quality, before finally dissipating as the change-off completed. Now held in her left hand, the blade’s menacing sharpness had completely vanished. It just looked like a plastic toy, which the girl stuck into her belt with a flourish.

She then began approaching him casually, but Yuichi raised a hand.

“Stop.”

“Huh? Are you afraid of me, or something?” The girl stopped and looked at him in confusion. “Come on, it’s okay. He was a bad guy. I’m a good guy.” The girl pointed at the man behind her and then at herself, with a blank smile, as if that explained everything. “So no worries, okay?”

“He’s a bad guy, so you killed him? Some hero...” Yuichi said, sarcastically.

“Ha, you mean a hero-with-a-demon-in-her-right-arm kind of thing?” the girl said, as if she rather liked the idea. She seemed entirely unaware of her “Hero” label. “I like it. Fallen heroes are pretty cool.”

“Yuichi! Watch out for her right arm!” Monika exclaimed.

“Yeah, I know,” Yuichi responded curtly to the warning. The girl had mentioned something about resonance, so she was clearly part of the Divine Vessels War. The situation was getting more and more confusing.

“I don’t know why you have the Evil God’s eye, Sakaki, but you don’t seem to be its host, so I can take it easy on you,” the girl said. “Just give it to me, and I’ll let you go.”

“Sorry,” Yuichi said. “This was entrusted to me. I can’t just hand it over.”

He cast a glance behind him. Monika was looking nervous.

“Hmm, that’s a problem... I don’t want to kill you if I can avoid it. But in the name of justice—” Before she could finish, the girl abruptly disappeared.

That was what any normal person would think, at least. But Yuichi saw what really happened. The fallen man had suddenly sat up, raised a meaty fist, and slammed her to the side. The girl’s light body had flown like a ragdoll, then crashed into the side of a building nearby.

“Dammit!” Yuichi had been too far away; he couldn’t go to help her.

He had underestimated the “Immortal” label.

The man’s heart had been penetrated. He had definitely been dead. Mutsuko had beaten warnings about opponents playing possum into his head over and over again, so Yuichi knew what to look for, and there was no question. But it was that certainty that had caused him to let his guard down.

“Ah, dammit! You made me lose one!” the man spat, looking down at the fallen girl. The number above his head now read “12.”

“Is that what ‘Immortal’ meant?” Yuichi asked.

There was a hole in the man’s clothing, but no wound in his chest. It had all healed over in an instant.

In other words, killing him heals all of his wounds right away, and restores him to normal, Yuichi thought. He didn’t get the logic of it, but that was the reality. He’d have to accept it.

The man raised a foot to step on the collapsed girl.

She quickly rolled over and swung outwards with her black flame-wreathed right arm, launching a rock out from that hand. She must have grabbed it when she’d fallen. It turned into a bullet of light as it flew at him.

A surprise attack. It would normally be impossible to dodge, given the timing with which the man was trying to step on her. But the man just brought his leg down and dodged it effortlessly.

Then he lifted his leg again, and mercilessly crushed the girl’s head beneath it. There was an unsettling bone-crunching sound, and a copious outpouring of blood. It was clear that there was no saving her.

“Surprise attacks won’t work as long as I can see you,” the man said. He seemed to be addressing to the dead girl, but he was probably actually saying it to invoke despair in Yuichi.

He was referring to his future vision. That was how his magical sight worked.

That was the foundation behind everything he did.

There was no benefit in his telling Yuichi about it, but he seemed to have absolute confidence that the information wouldn’t change what was to come. Just knowing that someone had future vision wouldn’t help you deal with it.

“Sorry for the wait,” the man said. “It’s finally your turn.” He cast a vicious smile at Yuichi, then took a step forward.

✽✽✽✽✽

He was lucky, the man thought. He could get two Divine Vessels in one fell swoop, with very little sacrifice on his end.

The right arm possessed by the girl had the power to enhance weapons and armor, it seemed. A combat power. That suited him.

He didn’t know the power of the Divine Vessel the boy had, but if it was an eye, he wouldn’t need to let it find host in him. He already had the best eye.

The preview eye, as he thought of it. It showed him what was going to happen a few seconds into the future, played as a faint overlay over his vision of the present.

The man approached the boy, intending to lash out with a high kick. As he did, he saw a vision of the boy raising his right arm beside his face to block. When he thought about punching instead of kicking, this time, he saw a vision of the boy raising his hand in front of his face.

He knew what his opponent would do in advance. No one could deny that that gave him an advantage in battle.

He had acquired magical sight, on top of the super strength and immortality he had been born with. The man had perfect confidence in what he could do in a fight. No matter what happened, there was no way that he could lose. He had never lost to a supernatural being before, let alone a mere human.

The man saw himself as a monster to transcend all monsters. If he felt anything towards the boy, it was pity that he should be born such a weakling by comparison. Of course, that was no reason to hold back. He would stomp on the ant, and be grateful that he was not born an ant himself.

The man was annoyed.

Just because he was a little faster, the boy had run all around, arrogantly thinking he could lose him. He was sure it was also this brat’s fault that he had been taken by surprise after cornering him.

He wouldn’t let his guard down again. There was no sign of another Divine Vessel bearer in the area, but now they’d know he was here. He’d have to finish things here quickly, then get moving again.

He looked a few seconds into the future, and saw that the boy had no intention of moving. He was apparently going to stand there until the man approached him.

The man held up his right arm, and pulled his fist back to his ear. A clearly telegraphed punching stance, but the man didn’t care. He knew in advance whether the punch would land or not, so no matter how he obvious he made it, he could see that it would surely hit.

The man would launch out with his fist. The boy would try to block it in front of his face. All the man could see was how his opponent would act; he couldn’t tell how far the boy would go flying after he was hit.

But he didn’t need future sight to know that his strike’s power would snap the boy’s thin arm, collapse his nose and face, and leave him a ragged heap on the pavement.

Satisfied, the man threw his fist forward.

✽✽✽✽✽

Yuichi grabbed the man’s fist just before it hit his face.

Without moving a step from where he was, he caught the fist with only his outstretched left hand.

Yuichi was annoyed.

There had been the attack with the truck, the people he had killed in town, and the indifferent way with which he had crushed that girl’s head. The man’s arrogance was intolerable.

That was why he decided to meet him head-on.

Match strength against strength, speed against speed, skill against skill. That was what Mutsuko had taught him.

Using skill to deal with strength was something Mutsuko thought was narrow-minded, and her way of thinking fit the competitive Yuichi perfectly.

The man froze up, agape, as if not quite sure what was going on. He was wide open. But Yuichi waited for the man to move.

The first thing the man tried to do was pull back his caught fist, so Yuichi began crushing it with his own finely honed grip strength.

The man’s face contorted in agony as his right fist was crushed. He unleashed a sort of hook with his left.

Yuichi closed in, stepped on the man’s left foot, caught his left knee between both of his own, struck his jaw with his palm, and launched his elbow into the man’s solar plexus. It all happened almost simultaneously; the man couldn’t even process what was happening. He was confused by the various pains that were suddenly coursing through his body.

As the man’s right fist healed, he launched out with another strike.

Yuichi arrested the hand down at his side, broke the man’s right elbow, then let out a strike of his own to break his nose. At the same time, he aimed a kick at the man’s crotch.

If this man could see the future, as he claimed, then right now he must be witnessing his own helpless defeat.

Out of all this man’s abilities, Yuichi had realized his future sight was not the one to be worried about. Even Yuichi could do what he did; predicting his opponent’s actions was something he did all the time.

In Chinese martial arts, it was known as “ting jin” — listening energy — the ability to detect your opponent’s movements before they came. To feel shifts in balance and tensing of muscle instinctively... it was, effectively, a form of future sight.

“Damn you!” the man screamed.

Even with his entire body broken, he stood up again. He was spitting out curses, his face contorted in confusion, and didn’t even seem to have thought about what he would do after he got up.

His twisted arm, broken ribs, and snapped jaw were all slowly recovering, but Yuichi decided this low level of regeneration wouldn’t help him. He had fought Aiko’s brother Kyoya; the man would need to regenerate at least that quickly to be any threat to him.