Chapter 2
“Tohno, I need not remind you that this is a matter of utmost importance to both of us. You say that one of your observers detected some sort of magical creature appearing inside the hospital, but your response has fallen far short of what was stipulated in our agreement. To think that my work might unravel for lack of reliable assistants in this backwater of a country!”
Cornelius Alba, whose customarily refined persona was fraying under stress, was positively spitting into the telephone receiver. How could Tohno SHIKI have allowed an outrage like this to happen? The young Tohno family head's responsibilities were not difficult: Alba had instructed him to maintain a covert perimeter around the hospital and to intercept anyone who tried to move the Ryougi heir without prior consent. Alba's ally owed him a debt of gratitude, and yet the once and future successor to Sponheim Abbey was reduced to begging for help.
He had hoped to use Ryougi as a living bargaining chip that would make up for his recent fall from grace. Alba had nothing to show for his three-year pursuit of Aozaki Touko, as her trail had led him on a so-far fruitless chase throughout Japan. The Clock Tower’s higher-ups might overlook Alba’s extended absence from Europe if he returned bearing a gift; indeed, a mysterious demon hunter in a state of semi-suspended animation would have stolen the show at most Department of Universal Research symposia. Instead, he would have to find another treasure with which to impress his colleagues; he fumed at the wasted effort.
Also irritating Alba was Tohno SHIKI’s continued arrogance, a trait that the mage could only tolerate in himself.
“Shinzo and Kakue are as good as anyone you can expect me to find in less than ten minutes, Alba. They’re some of my more…rugged…relatives, and it’s only by chance that they were close enough to answer the call in the first place. From what I’ve read in father’s journals, their cousins from the Kishima branch were some of the few who opposed our truce with the Nanaya ten years ago.”
Alba knew better than to trust SHIKI's calm words at face value. A demon’s combat potential tended to rise in direct proportion to the quality and quantity of nonhuman blood flowing through his or her veins. Though the Kishima lineage excelled in this regard, the same did not necessarily apply to every member of that family. The two street toughs that Tohno had rounded up might be trained killers, or their talents could end at extorting protection money. No, Alba thought, those two substitutes would not do at all; he would have to remind the demon who was serving whom.
“You promised to assist me yourself, or to call upon that Kouma madman as your representative. I now see how little trust I should place in your words.”
Alba’s tantrum had reached its crescendo. As if he were speaking to Tohno face-to-face, he pointed his index finger at the air in accusation.
“Both your current position of authority and your sanity are my doing, Tohno. Just as I have raised you up, I can cast you down.”
Alba waited for a reply but heard nothing. Perhaps he had struck a nerve, and the demon whelp on the other side of the telephone regretted his mistakes. Unfortunately for Alba, Tohno SHIKI seemed even surer of himself than he had before.
“If I remember correctly, you claimed that my people were a precaution, since your magical ward could keep anyone from noticing anything unusual about the Ryougi girl. I cut down the size of the security perimeter because it seemed redundant. I also needed the extra hands watch over my younger sister, who just hasn’t adjusted well to our father’s death. It’s funny, really, the way she can’t let go of the idea that I had a hand in his passing.”
The demon laughed, a thoroughly unpleasant sound to Alba’s ears even from hundreds of kilometers away. Not for the first time, Alba wondered if he should have left SHIKI to cope with his own insanity and instead backed Tohno Makihisa in the family power struggle. Old Makihisa had seemed too infirm to last much longer, however, and so Alba had rehabilitated SHIKI and watched him push his father aside. If anything, the plan had worked too well: SHIKI did not limit himself to his intended role as Alba’s pawn, preferring instead to consolidate control over the Tohno branch families. The situation troubled Alba, but he had few other choices but to accept it for the time being.
“As for Kishima Kouma, he’s still barricaded up at his place in the mountains. He hasn’t been on the best terms with the main family since the Nanaya raid was called off, and I haven’t been able to smooth things over with him yet. So there you have it: I did the best that I could under the circumstances.”
With that, the line went dead, and Alba could only pace his hotel room in silence. After a few minutes, he sat down and pounded the arms of his chair in frustration. Seeking the root of his troubles, Alba's thoughts followed a well-worn path back to his quixotic hunt for his old rival.
It’s just like her to choose a hiding place so far away from the heart of civilized magical society! Demons, demon hunters...the Tohno, the Ryougi...I won't forgive her for making me waste my time on them.
No, he would not consider bringing Touko back alive even if Wizard Marshals Barthomeloi Lorelei and Zelretch themselves wanted to study her. Letting her live struck him as too benign a punishment: instead, he would erase her completely and prove once and for all whose brand of magecraft was superior.
“This line of thought is fruitless. I will not allow that woman to distract me further. Retaining Ryougi takes precedence, and the matter with Aozaki will have to wait.”
Alba calmed himself with a few deep breaths, allowing him to return to lamenting Tohno's failure.
How could such a promising side project become such a nuisance? If I were predisposed to paranoia, I would suspect Touko’s hand in this.
Unaware of how accurate his prediction truly was, Alba waited for SHIKI to call back. He did not have high expectations.
***
Shiki’s most recent memory had been of resignation, followed by an indeterminate period of darkness. Suddenly, she felt herself being thrown forward and then pushed back into a sitting position: something—no, make that someone—had softened the impact. Still unwilling to open her eyes, she felt a hand insistently tapping her on the shoulder.
“It’s your lucky day, Shiki. Think of this as a remedial exam: you failed on your first try, so here’s another version of the test. I even gave you a cheat sheet this time, too.”
This voice belonged to Aozaki Touko, the magician who had apparently disregarded Shiki’s will by saving her from the possessed corpse. Shiki had nothing more to say to this person. Touko had already given enough unwelcome advice, and Shiki had rejected it. Further discussion was pointless, especially if it came in the form of a lecture. Yet despite the fact that Shiki still feigned sleep, Touko pressed on.
“Or perhaps it’s more emotionally evocative to imagine yourself stuck inside a modified cycle of reincarnation. To make a convoluted story extremely short, the choices you make usually determine where you end up on the next spin of the wheel. Make the right choices, and you can break the cycle. Except the higher powers got impatient while they were waiting for you to ascend to enlightenment, so they threw away all the choices but the correct one and added a time loop for good measure. Meaning that you can either take the path they laid out for you, or you can spin again and end up in the same one-choice decision set ad infinitum.”
There was a slight pause, and Shiki heard the click of a cigarette lighter.
“On second thought, I should have probably stuck with the first example; you never struck me as the religious type. I can come up with a better analogy, though, if you just give me a second--”
She’s actually having fun with this. That’s the kind of person I’m up against: someone who wants to save my life by talking me to death.
Sensing that Touko might continue this line of conversation unless Shiki demonstrated her understanding, she made eye contact with the mage and summarized her words.
“You could have just said that you’re set on annoying me, and that I can’t change your mind.”
Speaking hurt her throat, and Touko had gotten on Shiki’s last nerve. If Shiki’s soul were a placid reflecting pool, then Touko was intent on skipping rocks across it. Perhaps by some miracle, the other woman would take the hint and shut up. This place—a parking garage, apparently—was as good as any other for resting alone with her thoughts. And she truly would spend this time alone: SHIKI was still gone, and she saw no more purpose to his sacrifice than she had back inside the hospital.
“Harsh words for the person who’s spent considerable time and treasure to help you. Still, that’s roughly the response I should have expected.”
The magician removed her glasses and exhaled a cloud of strange-smelling smoke; with a practiced nonchalance, she gestured toward the rear window of the car.
“By the way, we might have picked up a tail on the way out of here. If it’s not too much trouble, take a look at what’s waiting behind us.”
Shiki caught sight of something red several meters away. After taking a second look, she identified it as the close-cropped crimson hair of a sturdily built man standing motionless near one of the garage walls. Though his features were indeed unusual, Shiki’s eyes immediately focused on his bloody left arm. The stranger had torn off the left sleeve of his tailored gray three-piece suit to form a crude tourniquet, revealing a deep cut just above his wrist. Blood loss of this severity would put the life of a normal human in serious jeopardy, yet the lines of death on this man appeared smaller and fewer in number than any Shiki had seen. They shimmered differently, too, as if the entropy inherent in him were somehow abnormal. This particular detail flipped a switch deep inside her psyche, and the killing impulse that had seemed so faint earlier that day rose back to the surface.
“Considering your ancestry, Shiki, you should definitely recognize him for what he is. If it helps jog your memory, the cut on his arm has already started to heal even though I hit him with the car less than a minute ago.”
The last puzzle piece clicked into place, and Shiki saw a reason to stay alive, at least temporarily. Actually, perhaps the word reason gave what was driving her too much credit, masking her motivation’s primitive roots. She still felt a certain ambivalence to death; that hadn’t changed. Rather, another drive had taken hold of Shiki and overridden her uncertainties. For a moment, she could stop asking who she was and what her chaotic memories really meant, if they meant anything; her current state of heightened awareness precluded that kind of indecision. Killing promised pure ecstasy, and no one could consider this an act of murder. Yes, here was a perfect chance.
A demon, maybe a powerful one. That coma must have really done a number on me if I didn’t notice what he was before now. I never enjoyed my father’s old stories about the Ryougi dynasty's previous line of work, but I remember the signs that set the nonhuman races apart.
Touko pulled an unadorned but well-made knife from her pocket and pressed it into Shiki’s hand. Before she tuned out rational thought entirely, Shiki took note of an unexpected brightness to Touko’s eyes. The two of them certainly didn’t share the same taste for murder, Shiki was almost sure of that, so this fight must have excited the magician for different reasons. Teasing out what those reasons were, however, didn’t seem worth the effort. After a few moments, Touko broke the silence.
“I take it that you’re ready to give this another shot. I’ll be right behind you, but in a support capacity only. This is your fight: own it.”
Touko’s words barely registered with Shiki as she examined the knife and felt its weight it in her hand. Its sharpened blade appeared well matched to its task, and it heightened Shiki’s anticipation of the approaching confrontation. With the unsheathing of the knife as an unspoken signal, both women stepped out of the car.
I’ll keep it simple and cut his clearest line first. That means a slash across the chest. He’s 30 meters away, give or take. I can cover that distance in a few seconds.
Shiki gripped her knife firmly, since her first strike would likely provide her best chance at eliminating the abomination standing in front of her, and began her sprint. The demon still betrayed no emotion on his face, as if the knife about to plunge into his chest posed no danger whatsoever. Shiki dismissed this as either insanity or ignorance and prepared to plunge the blade home. She had been bred for this moment, and she felt neither conflict nor emptiness.
Yet this monster would not die. More precisely, Shiki’s blade had missed the demon’s lines of death because he had deflected the blow by drawing a weapon of his own. Shiki noted a short length of steel protruding from the man’s right sleeve: he had evidently hidden a retractable blade under the bulk of his suit in order to lure Shiki in and facilitate a counterattack. Once she had approached close enough, he drew it out with inhuman agility and used his superior bulk and leverage to halt her advance.
Shit, I was having too much fun with this. He has the quickness to match me even if I were at my best, which I’m not. If I can just hold out until I get an opening--
The demon jumped backwards before Shiki could attempt to trace his lines of death again, causing her to belatedly shift her weight forward in order to give chase. This dance continued, with Shiki’s surprisingly mobile opponent blocking each of her slashes and stabs while retreating a half-meter each time. Soon, Shiki realized that these haphazard retreats formed a larger pattern.
He’s drawing Touko and me toward the garage exit instead of fighting offensively. With his size and speed, he should believe that he has the advantage; instead, he’s falling back. It doesn’t make sense.
Shiki sensed that her opponent had more in mind than simply killing her, but speculating on his motives occupied a lower priority than ending the demon’s life. Unlike during her initial charge, Shiki now understood how to use her Eyes to their greatest effect: since the demon believed that his wrist-mounted blade could neutralize her attacks, gaining the element of surprise was as simple as cutting the lines of death on her adversary’s weapon. Those lines had not been apparent to her during her initial headlong dash, but the demon’s feints had given her time to regain her concentration. What had once seemed like an unblemished length of steel now looked fragile and flawed, its ugly entropy begging to be brought to the surface. Doing that, of course, required that she catch the demon first. As he paused after backing into a parked car, Shiki saw her chance. Her sleep-dulled legs had so far prevented her from landing a decisive blow in the open space of the garage aisle, but if her adversary’s speed was taken out of the equation, then their game was all but over. Shiki vaguely registered the shape of Touko a short distance away, apparently acting as a spectator, but her presence did not seem important. She was well out of the way, in any case, so Shiki’s path to the demon was clear.
***
Though Touko would be loath to admit to forgetting the gravity of the situation, she probably would agree that seeing Ryougi Shiki in full motion was at least somewhat distracting. Touko’s previous interactions with the young woman had all been under the auspices of treating Shiki’s supposed aphasia; in that context, Shiki had little incentive to shake off her lethargy and walk around. Still, Touko had developed a certain appreciation for Shiki’s slender form even if it largely remained static. But seeing Shiki sprint, shift, and twist her body in the way that she was currently doing was another experience entirely. Though the magician remained ready to offer assistance if needed, drinking in the kinetic display in front of her occupied most of Touko’s attention. Even she, whose knowledge of the human form usually demystified any display of physical prowess, found Shiki uncommonly beautiful.
Nietzsche was right to believe only in a God who could dance, Touko mused as she followed Shiki and the demon across the garage floor.
Even the fight’s conclusion impressed her. Evidently Shiki’s eyes could see the death of physical objects as well as living creatures, allowing her to slice through her opponent’s wrist-blade once his retreat slowed down. With no way to defend himself, the larger man could only watch as Shiki drove her blade home through his heart. As she watched Shiki wipe the knife clean on the demon’s lapel, Touko found herself wishing that the confrontation could have lasted longer. Still, she reflected, she should not complain. The demon’s presence had seemed an unwelcome intrusion at first, but killing it had given Shiki a much-needed emotional uplift. Moreover, a dead adversary could hardly betray her location. Touko decided to walk closer to the entrance and congratulate her future employee.
“Excellent work, Shiki. Keep that up, and—”
Touko never finished her sentence, since Shiki’s kimono-clad shoulder knocked the air out of her chest and sent her sprawling onto the concrete floor. Touko briefly wondered if Shiki truly had gone insane, until she heard two muffled pop sounds from outside the garage and saw two small holes appear in one of the concrete walls. A moment later, she heard the squealing of tires.
Putting the evidence together, Touko quickly grasped what had happened: the demon that Shiki killed hadn’t simply appeared out of thin air; instead, another of his kind had driven him to the garage in order to spring an ambush. The driver had taken advantage of Touko’s inattention and fired at her, evidently hoping to take her out of the picture and recapture Shiki. Had Shiki not intervened, the consequences might have cost Touko another puppet body. Some mages could maintain a moving barrier around themselves to repel physical attacks, but Touko was not among their ranks.
I’d like to ascribe this to enchanted bullets, or some other sort of cheap trick, but the fact of the matter is that it’s all on me: I lost focus and failed to account for the possibility that the demon didn’t arrive alone. This has just not been my night.
Before Touko could lever herself up off the ground, Shiki stood over her with an angry stare.
“So you wanted me give me advice, huh? I’m sorry, but I have trouble trusting a so-called expert mage who nearly got herself sniped during a fight. You expect me to listen to someone like that? Thanks to you, the other guy who was after us just got away.”
Touko wanted to smile, but fought off the urge.
Feeling feisty now, aren’t we? Well, I suppose it’s better than the alternative, but I can’t let her get the wrong idea.
Touko wordlessly returned to her feet, her high-heel footwear allowing her to cut an imposing silhouette in the arc sodium lights of the garage. With her glasses stowed in her pants pocket, Aozaki Touko, false speech therapist had completely vanished; left behind was Aozaki Touko, sorceress.
“You’ve been taking me too lightly; that ends now, Shiki. If you only remember one thing about today, make it this: even if the other demon had shot me, I still would have had the upper hand. Do you know why?”
The change that Touko had just undergone grabbed Shiki’s attention; she remained silent because she honestly did not know the answer to the magician’s question.
“I didn’t think so. I’ve spent years refining my craft, so I had several layers of fail-safes already in place. The first is rune magic: had I been wounded, I could have woven a spell to concentrate as much energy as possible on stopping the bleeding and healing my injuries.”
Shiki seemed eager to find a fault in Touko’s argument, and she pounced.
“Last time I checked, the dead can’t do any of the magecraft stuff you seem to enjoy so much. A sniper usually aims for the head or heart, Touko.”
“True, but I had a fail-safe beyond the rune spell. Can’t talk about it, though; let’s just say that the demon’s friend caught me at a bad time, but under no circumstances was I in any real danger. Got it?”
Shiki seemed unimpressed, but Touko continued. She was on a roll.
“You, on the other hand, have nothing to fall back on. That means that whether you have the Mystic Eyes or not, one mistake during a fight and you’re through. Worried about the hole inside that SHIKI left behind? Then don’t desecrate his memory by dying before you have to. I can show you how to use your Eyes, and you can compensate me in kind. I do detective work on the side, and dealing with nonhumans is an occupational hazard; that seems right up your alley. So, are you in?”
Shiki looked away, though Touko remained unsure of whether the younger woman was considering the offer or had simply tired of listening. After a few seconds, Shiki spoke again.
“I suppose whether you can defend yourself or not isn’t my problem. You said you have a job for me, right? As long as you stay alive long enough for me to track down the demon who got away, then I accept.”
This satisfied Touko, who nodded in agreement before walking back to take a final look at the demon’s body and her wrecked car. The vehicle was registered under an alias, so she could leave it here without drawing suspicion. Even better, the Ryougi family could afford to bribe the hospital into erasing any inconvenient security recordings. This meant that the two of them could escape police scrutiny simply by taking a walk to the nearest train station. Although Touko did have questions of her own for Shiki, returning to her workshop and getting the two of them some well-earned rest took priority.
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Originally Posted by Dullahan
