Chapter 6: We Found the Evil God Without Searching. What Now?

Yuichi had gone home, gotten changed, and then headed for the shopping district near the station.

He’d been told there was some evil threat to the local peace blending in here in the city, but it was all pretty vague, and most people would have no idea of where to even start searching. Yuichi had Soul Reader, though, which seemed like it would increase his chances of finding whatever it was.

Still, it seems pretty unlikely that I will...

He didn’t have any idea what it might look like. Did it even have a physical form? If so, would it be active during the day? Would it be the type of thing to go walking around in the city? He didn’t know anything about it.

Even so, he couldn’t refuse Furu’s request. She had basically said it was Aiko’s fault, and if it was, then Yuichi was the cause of that, too.

Aiko wasn’t doing anything wrong. Maybe she’d had a special birthright, and maybe that was causing trouble for others now, but Yuichi was convinced she wasn’t responsible for that. Therefore, he’d decided, even if Aiko didn’t know anything about it, he had to relieve her burden as much as possible.

“‘Evil’ is a pretty vague descriptor, though! Kinda raises some philosophical questions, too!” Mutsuko was walking beside him, as revved up as ever.

After coming home, Yuichi had tried to sneak back out, but Mutsuko had caught him. Then, perhaps out of boredom, she had decided to tag along. Now that she was with him, he couldn’t exactly just ignore her, so he’d ended up explaining the long and short of the situation.

“All that aside, Yuichi Sakaki...” Yuri Konishi said, walking on his other side. She had been with him since the shrine, and she was apparently planning to stick around. “Are you certain you should have undertaken such a vague request? If you can’t find them, won’t you just wind up searching endlessly?”

“Obviously, I can’t keep it up forever, but even if I can’t find it, the evil will try to do something eventually, and we’ll probably find it then,” he said. It would be best if they could find it before then, obviously, but if they couldn’t, he’d just have to deal with whatever happened.

Wait, when did I start assuming I’d be the one to deal with it?

Yuichi immediately chastised himself for his eagerness. If there were monster hunter specialists in this kind of thing, he should probably just leave it to them.

“So why are you coming along, Konishi?” he asked.

“Why wouldn’t I come along? I went all the way to that shrine to meet you, after all.”

“It’s not going to be all that interesting. We’re mostly going to be standing around staring at people.” Yuichi’s plan was to set up camp somewhere and watch the people come and go. His hopes weren’t high, but it was possible he could find something that way.

“People-watching, huh?” Mutsuko cried. “I know the best place for that!”

With that, Mutsuko dragged Yuichi along without giving him a chance to protest.

✽✽✽✽✽

The place they’d arrived at was a cafe with a modern atmosphere.

“I feel like we come here a lot... well, I guess we couldn’t exactly have an all-day stakeout out in the cold, anyway...” Yuichi murmured. It was the same cafe the truck had crashed into during summer vacation, and the one he’d brought Kanako to during her research outing.

“If you sit next to the window, you can see all kinds of people pass by!” Mutsuko declared.

“That seat, huh?”

Mutsuko was pointing to the same seat Yuichi had been sitting in then, the exact same spot the truck had crashed into. It felt a little like a bad omen, but sitting by the window would also let him deal with attacks coming in from outside. In a way, it was a pretty safe place to be.

“It’s looking pretty packed, though,” Yuichi said. “Maybe we should look for another place instead of waiting—”

Peering in through the window of the cafe, Yuichi was suddenly struck dumb.

“Evil God.” A young man with that label over his head was sitting in the seat Mutsuko had recommended. He was smiling a placid smile and chatting with someone in the seat opposite him.

“Hey... an Evil God would be pretty evil, right?” Yuichi asked.

“Probably? It is right there in the name,” Yuri responded condescendingly.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought, too. Also, he’s sitting right there.” Yuichi pointed to the young man, feeling very slightly like he was being made a fool of.

“What should we do? Should we contact Shinomiya?” Yuri asked.

“We’ll have to tail him! Right now, we don’t know anything about who he is! Let’s follow him back to his hideout!” Mutsuko burst in.

“Um, I’m not sure finding something like that would help us at all...” Yuichi muttered.

The group moved to a place where they had a good view of the cafe’s entrance. Before long, the young man left the restaurant, followed by a boy who looked familiar.

“Isn’t that... the kid from your class, Sis? Rokuhara?” Yuichi asked. Above the guy’s head was the label “Host.”

“That’s definitely Rokuhara, yeah,” Mutsuko said. “He’s the one who attacked Noro, right?”

Hiromichi Rokuhara. With the label “Apprentice Monster Hunter,” he’d attacked the vampire Noro.

The test to become a monster hunter was to kill a monster all by yourself. He’d ended up failing, and he’d said he didn’t want to get involved anymore, but Yuichi had remained on his guard to see if he might still try something.

The guy and the man parted ways after leaving the cafe. Hiromichi went on by himself, while the young man remained near the entrance to the restaurant, thinking about something.

Yuichi already knew Hiromichi’s deal, so he decided there was no point in tailing him. He was watching to see which way the man might turn when suddenly, the man began to walk towards him.

“Hey. You think he’s found us out?” Yuichi asked.

“He’s looking right at us, so I imagine so,” Yuri said, completely calm. Perhaps that unflappability was a sign of her high-class upbringing.

It wasn’t as if they were hiding, and he didn’t know anything about them, so Yuichi had been convinced that as long as they pretended they were talking, that would be enough.

“What should we do?” he asked.

“Go somewhere else?” Mutsuko suggested. “If this leads to a fight, there could be a lot of casualties if we stay here.”

Yuichi remembered the incident over summer vacation. There had been quite a few casualties then, and he didn’t want to end up repeating the same mistake.

“Okay. I think that direction would be best, given where we are.”

Yuichi began to lead them into the same back alleys he’d taken during the incidents over spring and summer vacations. It was apparently the turf of serial killers, so most people never came anywhere near it.

Yuichi and the others proceeded deeper down the twisting back streets. After a while, he stopped, and told Mutsuko and Yuri to wait a little further in.

“Hey,” the young man addressed them casually.

He seemed perfectly friendly, with no signs of malice about him. It was hard to believe his label was really an “Evil God.” At a glance, he seemed to be a completely ordinary human. It would have been difficult to find him no matter how good your enemy-radar happened to be.

Yuichi was at a loss for how to respond. At the moment, the man hadn’t done anything to make himself his enemy.

As a result, silence fell over them.

For once, Mutsuko was able to read the mood, and she remained quiet, too.

As Yuichi was trying to think of what to say, suddenly, his phone rang. Judging by the ringtone, the call was probably from Chiharu.

“It’s ringing. Why don’t you answer it?” the man prompted.

Yuichi answered the phone.

“Yuichi Sakaki! The resonance has begun!” the voice on the other end said.

Yuichi gasped. “Do you know where?”

“Indeed I do, for I have become quite sensitive! The closest target would be close to Seishin Station’s north exit!”

“I’m near Seishin Station’s north exit...”

Yuichi looked at the man. It seemed likely that he was a Divine Vessel host, which would explain how he had found him so easily. He’d discovered him with the resonance and followed him right there.

“Not letting it possess you suggests a half-hearted approach,” said the man. “I’m not even sure whether to classify you as a participant or not...”

“Are you... a Divine Vessel host?” Yuichi asked uneasily.

“No.”

“Right, so you want to fi— wait, you’re not?!”

Yuichi was baffled. Who could the man be, knowing about the Divine Vessels without being a host?

“Well, I am connected to them,” said the man. “It means I always know where Divine Vessels are, whether or not there’s resonance. I detected one nearby, so I came to investigate, but now that I think about it, this is all rather strange. You seemed to be looking in on us before the resonance even started, and you didn’t go after Hiromichi, the one who does have a vessel. Does that mean you have other business with me?”

“I... I wouldn’t say that, exactly...” Yuichi stammered. He hadn’t expected this to happen, and as a result, he was finding it hard to find words.

“This is pathetic,” Yuri said in a scathing tone. “Stop mumbling and assert yourself.”

“But...” Yuichi didn’t know how to respond.

If the man had been clearly hostile, he’d be able to fight him, but what was he supposed to do about being pleasantly addressed? He couldn’t just call someone evil and pick a fight with them when they weren’t actually doing anything wrong.

“Aw, darn!” Mutsuko cried. “He’s really got you stuck, huh? Hey, could you do us a favor and say or do something evil?”

They didn’t have any particular business with this man right now. Even if the man was evil, they couldn’t really condemn him when he wasn’t doing anything.

“Something evil, eh?” the man said. “I’m not sure that I can... You don’t have a Divine Vessel in you, so I see no reason to test you... and if you have no business with me, I should probably be on my way.”

As the man turned to go, Yuichi opened his mouth to call him back.

If he didn’t want to fight, he thought, maybe he could tell him something useful about the war. But he wouldn’t get the chance as he was interrupted by the sound of a gunshot.

The young man dodged the attack effortlessly.

“How violent,” the man said. “You know it’s not polite to surprise people like that.”

The man was looking at a girl who had the label “Hero” over her head. Her right hand, holding a gun, was wreathed in black flame.

Yuichi recognized her. It was the girl he’d met in these same back alleys during summer vacation. She’d appeared during his battle with the “Immortal” giant, been killed, then disappeared. As a result, he hadn’t learned much about her except that a Divine Vessel had found a host in her right arm.

In other words, she was a participant in the war. She was their enemy.

“Where’s Natsuki? What did you do to Natsuki?!” the girl shouted.

“Natsuki, eh?” the man asked. “I have an idea of where she went off to. I was just thinking about going to see her.”

The “Hero” girl fired her gun a few more times. The man dodged each shot effortlessly, but he seemed rather indignant about it.

“Could you please restrict your fights to other Divine Vessel hosts? Fighting me won’t get you anywhere.”

Concerned about stray fire, Yuichi moved Mutsuko and Yuri to the wall, then watched things develop, wide-eyed.

Why had the girl ignored Yuichi, who had a Divine Vessel, in order to fight the young man who didn’t? That was what he didn’t understand.

The man seemed content to remain on the defensive, so it must have been true that he had no intention of fighting.

With an air of frustration, the man leaped into the air. He kicked off the wall of a nearby building, then off the wall opposite it. He repeated the process until it carried him to the roof in a flash.

“See you around. You’re both Divine Vessel holders, so why don’t you stay there and settle things?” With that, the man disappeared.

They were now alone with the Hero, so Yuichi decided to talk to her. “You’re Maruyama from the next class over, right?”

Her name was Yurika Maruyama. He’d investigated a few things about her after the incident over summer vacation, but he hadn’t learned much beyond that.

“Sakaki! Have you seen Natsuki?” Yurika burst out as she ran up to him, looking distressed. It looked like she really didn’t intend to fight him.

“Takeuchi? What about her?” Yuichi asked.

“She saw him and ran, and I’ve been searching for her! I saw her and she was injured but then I lost them! They were running from something together, I think!” She seemed to be so flustered, it was hard to understand what she was saying. He wasn’t sure of the connection between them, but it did sound like Natsuki was involved in some kind of trouble.

“How hurt was she? What happened?”

“Hey! Will you persist in ignoring me?” a voice from the phone shouted. “I can hear through the phone that there’s some sort of fight going on, and I’m feeling very left out at the moment!”

Yuichi suddenly realized he’d forgotten to hang up the phone. “Oh, sorry. We’ve just got a lot to deal with, you know?”

“True as that may be, it appears quite a few have gathered there. Are you well?” Chiharu spoke about the same time as it arrived.

Someone had just dropped down from the sky.

“No, we’re not well at all,” said Yuichi.

The resonance could tell hosts where other hosts were. Some used this as a chance to be cautious, but apparently this person was using it as an opportunity.

It was a boy about Monika’s age. He was wearing a small black cap, a white kimono, and a brocade stole, the outfit of a mountain monk. On top of that, he also had black wings like a crow’s sprouting from his back, and wore high-platformed geta sandals. He certainly seemed superhuman.

“It’s a tengu, right? A tengu did it, right?” Mutsuko asked excitedly.

“I think you just wanted to say that line,” said Yuichi. “He hasn’t done anything except land in front of us.”

If he was here, that certainly suggested he was a Divine Vessel host. He was clearly raring to fight.

“I don’t have time for this! I’ve gotta go!” Yurika ignored the tengu and broke into a run.

The tengu didn’t pursue Yurika, but remained right where it was, looking down its nose at Yuichi.

The tengu seemed to want to fight him.

Yuichi steeled himself for the fight. He needed to pursue Yurika to find out more about what was going on with Natsuki, and right now, the tengu was in the way. Which meant he’d just have to get him out of the way.

The tengu was standing at the center of a crossroads, about five meters away from Yuichi.

“I’ll start with you. I am—”

The tengu boy was probably about to introduce himself, but he didn’t get to finish. Instead, he just went flying to the side at great speed.

A man dressed in black vestments was standing where the boy had been. He looked like a priest. His hips were lowered and he held a fist thrust to one side.

“For heaven’s sake... one thing after another. It’s just impossible to follow,” Yuri said, agape.

Yuichi felt the same way.

Not a moment after the tengu had appeared, the priest had punched him out. It was hard to keep up with these rapid-fire developments.

“That’s chongchui! It’s Bajiquan!” Mutsuko shouted delightedly.

Bajiquan was known from manga and games, but there weren’t many people who were willing to put the training in to learn it. It couldn’t really be used in street fights, for one thing, so you didn’t see it very often.

“Why would a priest know Chinese kung fu?” Yuichi wondered. There was nothing wrong with it, of course, but it didn’t seem to fit, somehow.

“What are you saying? Bajiquan is a priest’s best friend! Everybody knows that!”

“I don’t think anybody knows that...”

While they were talking, the priest approached the tengu boy and took his Divine Vessel. It looked like a bat’s wing. The priest put it in his pocket.

Even with the Divine Vessel stolen, the boy’s crow-like wings remained, suggesting that they belonged to him.

“I don’t suppose you intend to give me your Evil God part, do you?” the priest asked calmly.

“No. Also, get out of my way.”

“If your intent is to pursue Yurimaru, I shall not permit it.”

Yurimaru? It took him a moment to realize that he was referring to Yurika Maruyama.

“You’re with Maruyama?” Yuichi asked.

“How troublesome... there was an Evil God part right in front of her, yet she’s preoccupied with something else. Therefore, I shall have to retrieve it in her stead.”

The priest had a placid demeanor, but he seemed to have nerves of steel. A fight was looking inevitable.

“Hey! Wouldn’t it be funny if another enemy appeared and punched him out right now?” Mutsuko asked.

“Shut up! We’ve had too much of that twist already!” Yuichi snapped.

It was a troubling situation, but Mutsuko was acting as airheaded as ever.

“Bwahaha! I was just thinking the same thing!” a voice called from the phone.

Yuichi, suddenly realizing Chiharu had been listening in to the entire conversation, hung up the cell phone and put it in his pocket.

Suddenly, the priest’s fist was in front of his eyes.

He had caught Yuichi completely flat-footed.

It was chongchui, a Bajiquan move that consisted of nothing more than a mid-level punch aimed at the throat. But the fist was already too close for him to dodge.

Yuichi drove the blow off course by directing the priest’s hand down with his left arm. At the same time, he tried to counter with a right jab, but he then realized the first strike had only been groundwork.

Yuichi forced his furukami to activate.

He expelled a breath of explosive power and kicked off the ground, propelling himself backwards while protecting his heart with his right hand.

A shockwave.

Yuichi was blown back with force greater than that which he’d applied. He just barely managed to block the priest’s right elbow.

It was true that he’d left an opening. But he’d also thought he was far enough away to work things out. That distance, though, had been closed in an instant.

The priest’s movements were strange, seeming to ignore gravity and inertia.

He dropped his hips low and struck out with his right elbow from horse stance.

Yuichi was blown back to where the girls were standing, and landed. He had probably been thrown back about five meters in all. The man’s power was unbelievable.

Yuichi steadied his breathing. No damage had been done. The shockwave, which he hadn’t been able to offset entirely, even with his backwards jump, he now dispersed with the release of internal power in his chest.

“What in the world just happened?!” Yuri shouted. To her, it had probably looked like Yuichi had just suddenly jumped back.

“I think he tried to block a Bajiquan menghu yi pashan with a Bajiquan jianglong, but he failed and had to run away?” Mutsuko replied. While didn’t she seem to be able to parse the instantaneous exchange of blows either, she did have an exceptional memory. Even if she couldn’t parse it in the moment, she’d be able to replay the exchange in slow motion in her mind.

“Oh? You are quite formidable. To be able to block my magically-enhanced strike...” The priest looked genuinely surprised; he must not have expected him to be able to block it.

“Are you a Hero, too?” Yuichi asked. “There was something weird about the way you moved just now...”

Yuichi was taking new stock of his opponent. This guy was some kind of monster; he’d have to fight him like one.

“I am no Hero,” said the man confidently. “I am merely a member of a Hero’s party. I am a Mage.”

“You look more like a Monk in that outfit!” Yuichi shouted. But the moves he’d pulled off would make sense if they had been enhanced through magic.

As if reevaluating Yuichi as a strong opponent, the priest adjusted his stance. He spread his legs in front of and behind him and dropped his hips. His weight was shifted slightly behind him, to his right leg. His upper body was facing forward and tilted slightly.

His left arm was bent slightly in front of his face. His right arm was positioned to protect his solar plexus. His palm was turned towards Yuichi. It was a traditional defensive martial arts stance, protecting one’s core.

“Is it Wei Su style?” Mutsuko wondered aloud. “Wu Tan Bajiquan, then? But it seems pretty upright... and he said he uses magic, so... oh, I’ve heard of this! This is Magical Bajiquan!”

“What in the world is that?” Yuri couldn’t help but inquire about the odd-sounding phrase.

“It’s Bajiquan that incorporates magic! You use magic to enhance less-than-perfect Bajiquan moves! Look, that stance he’s using isn’t the proper style; it’s totally improvised! By the way, I don’t think people know a lot about Bajiquan stances, but each branch has its own recognizable stance. Wu Tan uses Wei Su, or crouching posture. Northwest Ma style uses Qi Gu Shi, flag and drum posture, for its Tongbei Fanzi. Changchun style uses Shaoma Bu, pony posture. But what do you think about the Magical Bajiquan name? What about Jiangmo, or demon-conquering Bajiquan? That sounds cool! Yeah! Let’s use that!”

Ignoring Mutsuko as she babbled on and on about his opponent’s style, Yuichi began walking towards the priest. He already had furukami activated. It seemed a bit excessive to use against a human, but he had abandoned any intention of treating this priest like a human right now.

“Listen, you’d better win with Bajiquan!” Mutsuko called. “If you lose to that lukewarm Bajiquan, I’m apprenticing you to Nihao the China!”

“Don’t treat Nihao the China like punishment!” Yuichi found himself on the verge of losing his enthusiasm, but re-steeled himself and started walking.

He struck no particular stance.

He was just walking with his hands hanging naturally by his side: li shen zhong zheng, a centered upright stance. Without favoring back, front, or either side, he just walked straight forward.

The moment he was within range, the priest moved. With a powerful zhen jiao propelling him off the ground, he thrust his right fist straight at Yuichi’s face.

It was a superhuman motion, a kung fu strike with more than enough training behind it. On top of that, it was enhanced with magic.

It was likely that nobody could see the back-and-forth that ensued. Even the combatants involved were not relying on their vision, but only on ting jin — listening energy.

The battle was over in the blink of an eye.

Yuichi had stepped in and struck out with his right elbow, which had then made contact with the priest’s chest. The priest had collapsed.

Just looking at the result, it had seemed like an easy win.

But in that instant, a complicated back-and-forth had ensued that the eye could not catch.

“Exactly what just happened there?” Yuri asked, confused.

Probably the only people who understood what had happened in that instant were the two people who had fought.

“Looks like the priest went from tan ma zhang to menghu yi pashan!” Mutsuko cried. “This is the version of menghu yi pashan that the famous Li Shuwan pioneered! Yuichi fought back with ba wang dingmen and ba wang kinke, in that order!”

Yuichi had blocked the priest’s right punch with his left forearm, deflecting it, while forming his right hand into a blade and stabbing it at the priest’s face.

The priest, in a similar way, had blocked that strike with his left forearm, but Yuichi had applied downward pressure to that in an instant. And through that point of contact, he had upset the priest’s center of balance. The priest’s movements had stopped for an instant, and in that brief opening, Yuichi had lashed out with three attacks almost simultaneously.

Pushing off with a zhen jiao with his right foot, he’d brought his left leg down on the priest’s skull. His right hand, still in contact with the priest’s arm, had slid over to crush the priest’s fingertips and pull. Then he’d raised his left elbow up to hit the priest in the solar plexus.

Normally, this would have been the end of it. No one could react after having multiple parts of their body hit simultaneously. They’d be confused and unable to defend.

But the priest had abandoned his left hand and leg to respond only to the attack on his solar plexus.

Using a projection of energy from his chest, the priest had propelled Yuichi’s left elbow back.

It would normally have been a powerful enough counter to take out the attacker, but Yuichi’s attack hadn’t been finished. He had dropped his hips low to assume a horse stance, then slid his right elbow along the priest’s left arm to strike it into his heart.

“It’s also called chain elbow because it’s multiple strikes with the elbow!” Mutsuko declared. “Naturally, the thing to watch is the familiar chuangbu stepping style often seen in Bajiquan. Drop your hips low, pivot on the ball of the fore-leg’s big toe, slide the heel forward, and open the legs wide. In other words, you spin while in a horse stance! But as a single move, it’s called nian yao qie kua!” Mutsuko sounded very smug.

“Incidentally, I did have a question,” Yuri asked, curiosity in her voice. “You called the move that Yuichi Sakaki blocked at first a menghu yi pashan, and you called the latest move by that name, as well. But weren’t they both different?”

“Oh, Konishi, you know menghu yi pashan?” Mutsuko asked.

“Despite the way I look, I have quite a taste for video games. I believe that in fighting games, the menghu yi pashan is a palm strike.” Yuri performed the move, mimicking what she’d seen in a game.

“Menghu yi pashan can change quite a lot depending on the school,” Mutsuko explained. “But since the name of the move comes from the way in which it mimics a wild tiger climbing a mountain, I believe the clawing motion is the most important part. Like you’re pushing aside the enemy attacks. But there are lots of ways to end it, with a palm or an elbow or all kinds of things!”

“Stop waxing poetic about the moves and get out of here!” Yuichi shouted. He’d realized that if he let her keep going, it would never end.

“But what about the... ‘Divine Vessel’?” Yuri asked hesitantly.

“Leave it! Let the guy who wants it take it!” Yuichi shot back. If any new enemies tried to come, maybe they’d go after the priest instead. It was only a possibility, but he had to bank on it.

✽✽✽✽✽

Yuichi’s team moved in a hurry, but they didn’t know where they were actually going.

They tried going in the direction Yurika had, but she hadn’t left any footprints, which made it hard to follow her path any further.

“So, what’s the situation? Is the resonance still going on?” Yuichi asked. So many things had happened while they were standing there, it was hard to get an immediate grasp on the situation.

“Let’s see... I think we should find out about Takeuchi first,” said Mutsuko. “She’s been acting strangely lately. She didn’t even come to school on Friday, did she?”

Apparently at some point she’d ended up with something chasing her, and then she’d gotten injured.

“But how do we look for her?” Yuichi asked. He’d only just learned that about Natsuki, and had no other clues.

“Ha! Allow me show you what I can do! You’ll be in my debt now, Yuichi Sakaki!” With that, Yuri suddenly disappeared. Her clothing fell on the ground. Then there was a rustling, and a golden-haired cat emerged from beneath it.

“Huh, you can transform into that, too?” Yuichi wondered what this meant for the law of conservation of mass, but this was no time to worry about that. He had been forced to accept that such things just existed in this world at this point.

“My sense of smell is very sensitive in this form! Not as good as a dog anthromorph’s, but many hundreds of thousands of times more sensitive than a human’s!”

“Little exaggeration, isn’t it?” he asked. “But that aside, what are we going to do? Go after Maruyama?”

“No, we’ll go back in the direction she came from. We’ll find the place where she saw Takeuchi injured, and trace Takeuchi from that site.”

“Sounds good. Let’s go!”

Yuri the cat bounded off. Yuichi and Mutsuko ran after her.

✽✽✽✽✽

Natsuki and Aki had fled underground. They’d climbed down a manhole, through the sewers, and then even deeper. The two women had walked through the subterranean passageways that had been a fixture of the Seishin City underground for a very long time.

The stone passageways weren’t full of wastewater, so it was better than traveling the sewers. Still, the walls were slimy and crawling with strange-looking bugs, so the place could hardly be called sanitary.

The walls were faintly luminescent in places, so while the area was very dim, there was just enough light to keep moving.

Natsuki remembered what had happened on Kurokami Island during her summer vacation. It wasn’t exactly like the spaceship, but the atmosphere was similar.

The reason they were coming this far was to throw off the lingering pursuers. The lifeless servants Alberta had left on the surface were still wandering around. They were moving in ways such that normal people wouldn’t realize they were there, but as time went on, things would get more suspicious. They couldn’t follow orders forever, so apparently they were reaching their limits.

Desperate as they were, if they found Natsuki, they’d probably do whatever it took to bring her in on the spot. She didn’t want to think about what might happen to the innocent bystanders if that happened.

Things had quieted down once they’d gotten underground, but Natsuki was still dragging her feet. She had been wounded from their encounters with these enemies. She felt especially pathetic because Aki was uninjured.

“Is it true you don’t kill anymore, Natsuki?” Aki asked.

“Yes. That’s why I’m like this...” Natsuki silently chastised herself for how much weaker she had gotten.

“Hmm, but does that really matter?” Aki asked. “I haven’t killed anyone since this spring, either.”

“But you killed someone just now.”

“Oh, killing serial killers doesn’t count. I’m sure Yuichi will forgive me for killing someone like her.”

“You... Miss Takizawa. What’s your connection to Yuichi?” Natsuki demanded.

As far as Natsuki knew, she was the only serial killer Yuichi was involved with. She hadn’t heard anything about him meeting any other serial killers since they had met, and if he had known one before he’d met Natsuki, he wouldn’t have been so shocked by her existence.

“Aki. Call me Aki.”

“Aki, then. So?”

“I tried to kill him, but he took me out instead,” Aki said. “It was such a surprise. I didn’t realize there was someone so strong out there. And I’m positive he was taking it easy on me.”

It sounded like she really had fought Yuichi, then... and Yuichi had won.

Which means he was taking it easy on me, too...

She remembered the time she had fought Yuichi. She had thought that had been a close fight, but maybe he hadn’t had to take her seriously at all.

“After that, suddenly, everything seemed so silly,” Aki said. “Is this what they call love at first sight? My heart was racing like it never had before. I’ve never felt this way...”

It didn’t sound like love, exactly. She had just interpreted her confusion at losing as love.

“The power to turn defeated enemies into allies...” Natsuki muttered.

“What?”

“Many people Sakaki has defeated in the past have ended up becoming his allies in the end. Myself included.”

“I see. Does he have that many?”

There seemed to be an extra nuance behind Aki’s words, and Natsuki wondered if she may have chosen her words poorly. Aki hadn’t done anything especially strange so far, but even among the crazy breed that was serial killers, she was seen as the most dangerous of all. She seemed to have affection for Yuichi, and it was entirely feasible that she might see other women who cared for him as enemies.

“What? Why are you afraid? Do you think I’ll do something to Yuichi’s other allies?” Aki was very observant, and apparently skilled at reading the emotions of others. Perhaps this came from her experience in seeking out happy people and killing them. “Don’t worry. I won’t do anything like that. I think you might have the wrong idea about me.”

“No, of course I don’t...” Natsuki couldn’t possibly be honest. But Aki probably saw right through her anyway.

“I won’t do anything that will make Yuichi hate me,” Aki said, as if it were obvious. “After all, I want him to like me. Doesn’t that go without saying?”

Aki was confusing Natsuki in how dissimilar she was to what she had imagined. The truth was, this entire time, she had been nothing but friendly to Natsuki. There was no sign of the capricious and violent serial killer the rumors had spoken of.

“I thought that when you liked someone, you’d act like a complete yandere,” said Natsuki. “Tying them up and trying to keep them for yourself...”

“I don’t know much about it, but when I’ve heard the word ‘yandere’ in the past, I’ve never understood it,” said Aki. “A yandere is a person who only cares about themselves, right? They don’t care about the other person at all. It’s hard to believe that their behavior stems from genuine affection.”

The two continued walking randomly through the corridors. At the crossroads, they chose the path from which they felt the fewest life signs. It was partly because some unknowable things also nested in these underground paths. They apparently didn’t aggressively seek out intruders, but it was best to avoid running into them if one could help it.

“This path leads somewhere, right?” Natsuki asked.

“Probably. It’s my first time here, too. But it’s better than being on the surface, right?”

“I know it’s late to ask, but why did you save me?” Natsuki asked. If Aki’s own statement about her motives was to be believed, it was so that Yuichi would like her. But she’d had no reason to go out of her way to save Natsuki.

“I received the order from him to capture you,” said Aki. “I don’t have any servants like the others, and when I went to the last place you had been, I found Yuichi there. I thought, ‘This must be fate!’”

Those who received power from him and became his servants often received divine revelations from him, of guiding principles and orders. The transmission was one-way, so there was no need to follow them, but those who believed in him blindly would follow his orders to the letter.

“Because I’d realized that you and Yuichi were friends, I thought, ‘I have to save her.’”

“Couldn’t you have talked to Sakaki about it?” Natsuki asked. “It would have been your chance to cooperate with him.”

“But... I just felt so shy...” Aki looked away, her cheeks turning pink.

Her reaction seemed inappropriate to be coming from an adult woman, but Natsuki chose not to say that out loud. She didn’t want to provoke her unnecessarily. She hadn’t fully grasped what Aki would find acceptable yet.

“Why didn’t you follow his orders?” Natsuki asked. “If you’re his servant, I thought you would have gladly done so.”

“I don’t care about him. He offered me power, so I took it. He doesn’t mind if I live whatever way I want, so I do.”

“That’s strange,” Natsuki said. “Why did he come after me, then?”

If they were free to do what they wanted, he could have just left Natsuki alone. Yet he had sent pursuers after her and tried to capture her alive.

“I don’t know.” Aki shrugged. “It might be connected to the fact that you’ve become almost human again. I’m envious of you in that regard...”

Her malice swelled for a moment, then dispersed. As long as her violent emotions remained, there was probably no way Aki could ever return to normal.

At the moment, Natsuki had nearly entirely lost her urges to kill. In that regard, there was a clear difference between her and Aki.

“I think that as long as I don’t kill anyone, Yuichi might accept me.” Aki sounded truly innocent and optimistic. “After all, you’ve managed to be normal friends with him since you reformed.”

They continued walking onward.

They continued down the identical-seeming underground hallways, and just when Natsuki was starting to get nervous, they came out into an open space.

It was a dome-shaped hall, likely about 50 meters in diameter. At the center was what looked like a stone altar, and braziers burned brightly around it.

“Hey.” There was a man standing on the altar.

Natsuki and Aki immediately tried to turn back, but found that it was impossible. The path backwards was now blocked by a grate.

“You can’t run away after coming this far,” the man said.

It was the man she had met on her way to school. The man Natsuki wanted to avoid more than anyone.

“How...” she began.

“How did I find you? The underground is my territory. You picked the wrong place to escape to.”

Natsuki looked at Aki. She wondered if she’d tricked her here. But Aki was surprised to see him, too. She must not have known he would be here.

“If you’re asking how I came here... there are ruins like this all over the world, and I occasionally use them,” the man said. “This altar was used to venerate me, after all, so I know all the ways in and out.”

“What are you doing?! Why are you following me?” Natsuki demanded.

“I try to remain hands-off with my followers. I think you should be free to do whatever you want. So I don’t usually keep tabs on who’s doing what, and where. But that’s only as long as you don’t forget your duty. I can’t have you out there not killing people. There aren’t as many people in your line of work as there used to be, you know.”

He was the god of murderers — the god of death, war, and plague. All he had given to humanity was disaster. All he wanted was death. And so, he was venerated by serial killers.

“If you want a servant, find someone else!” Natsuki said hotly.

“Once something is decided, it’s foolish to try to change it so simply. Though if you died, that would likely force my hand...” The man jumped down from the altar. “But it is mysterious. Why are you so determined to reject me?”

The young man began walking towards Natsuki. His godly aura could now be felt clearly, perhaps because he had no need to suppress it anymore.

Just feeling it had caused Natsuki’s body to lock up.

She felt nauseous.

She was assaulted by an urge to want to confess everything.

“It appears that Jack the Ripper, who I placed inside you, has grown very weak,” the man said. “Probably because of the rumors of his identity coming to light... Jack the Ripper’s strength comes from being unknown, and even if the rumors are false, having that identity being on the news is a problem in itself.”

Just his approach, step after step, was utterly terrifying to her. At some point, her body had begun to tremble. She couldn’t stop herself. It was as if her body was not her own.

“So I’ll prepare you a new one, and then you’ll be fine. You’ll be dying to kill people again.”

Intentionally, perhaps, the man’s advance was slow. Natsuki could do nothing but scream. She couldn’t do anything else at this point.

“It saddens me to see you so frightened of me... or are you remembering something?”

She was remembering.

But all she could remember was fear. Her body was remembering how helpless it had always been against him.

The man continued his approach. He was still far away, but Natsuki’s fear had reached its limit.

That was when Aki sprang forward.

Natsuki could only watch and cower, but Aki, it seemed, could still move.

But what good would it do?

He batted Aki back easily. He had only brushed her with his hand as she charged, yet that alone was enough to break Aki’s body so badly that she couldn’t even move. The arm she had used to guard was broken. Her ribs were crushed, and she’d hit the floor quite a distance away.

Natsuki’s own will was breaking. Part of her wanted to run; part of her wanted to fight back; part of her wanted to kill herself. As a result, she couldn’t move. All she could do was stand where she was.

It was probably already over. Natsuki had effectively died once already when she’d become a serial killer. Her memories from before then were hazy. She couldn’t remember much from that time. Which meant that her current memories and personality were equally transient; they would be destroyed and remade anew. She would be reborn as a more powerful, more merciless serial killer.

She couldn’t accept that.

She might not be the best person as she was, but she was still doing her best. She had begun to think that maybe she could live a normal life. But she was losing her will to resist.

It had ended the moment she had met it here. The fact that she’d managed to escape the first time had been sheer dumb luck.

At the end of the day, an ordinary life was asking too much. Her current self would be gone, and she would be reborn again as a serial killer. It was inevitable now. There was no way to escape.

Her legs wobbled. She found herself unable to stand. She was losing all of her senses. She couldn’t even tell where she was anymore. She could feel tears streaming pitifully from her eyes, but soon, even that feeling went numb.

Her vision narrowed; sounds disappeared.

Everything seemed to have gone far away.

“Takeuchi!”

But a voice that Natsuki should not have been able to hear had reached her.

“Move out of the way!”

The voice snapped Natsuki to consciousness. Following the instructions, she moved to the side.

An ear-splitting sound rang out. The grate bent, then went flying off its hinges with a bang. It flew past Natsuki, scattering rubble at her feet.

Natsuki turned around.

Yuichi Sakaki was standing there.