Takezo stood by the portal, expression tense. He motioned with his head towards the garage exit.

  We walked out. Absolutely nothing moved on the desolate street. We moved through in silence. Since I had no idea where we were going, Takezo led the way.

  We passed through a toppled skyscraper, crossed another street, and then walked up on another toppled skyscraper.

  This one took us to a strange spot. Four fallen skyscrapers formed an empty square, the ground made of dirt. Rather than on the ground though, my gaze got fixated on her.

  Kallisto lounged on a broken beam, half lying, half sitting, her back braced on another beam, one leg dangling down, the other supporting a book she was reading. Her chain cloak hung freely from her back, her outfit the same mixture of a suit and an armor as the last time.

  We jumped down to the square, and walked to its center.

  Kallisto spared us a glance, focusing on Takezo. “No matter what translation spell I try, your language is hard to read.” She closed the book, put it down. “But it’s not terrible, which is rare. So, what do you want to challenge me over?”

  My heartbeat nearly deafened me. Count to four when breathing in, and then to six when breathing out. I started consciously focusing on that, but it didn’t work all that fast.

  “You have a soul that we want back,” Takezo said. “And we have knowledge that you want. We fight over that.”

  She smiled. “What do you know that I could care about?”

  “I know the precise composition of the poison used to pin your demons down here in Tokyo. Its knowledge will let you evolve your demons to become immune to it instantly.”

  “Nah.” Kallisto’s smile turned venomous. “I couldn’t care less about that. My demons will eventually out-evolve the poison, so I have no reason to trade for it. A few months or years mean nothing to me.”

  Crap. I had almost calmed down, but this really didn’t help. “We could bring you back Salieu,” I offered.

  “Don’t care. He got his dumb ass kidnapped, so he can get it tortured for a few years. It’s well-earned.”

  Takezo and I exchanged a glance. This wasn’t looking good. He turned his gaze back to Kallisto. “Your ship is being pinned down by continuous strikes of nuclear warheads. There’s an air defense system not that far from Tokyo, to which I could get you to, and make functional to protect your ship.”

  “Not interested. My demons will figure it out, eventually. It stops being a problem once they become immune to the poison as well.”

  An uncomfortable moment of silence passed. If there was nothing to interest her over, then all our plan was lost. Like, completely lost. I had no way to get Francesca’s soul back unless Kallisto returned it to me. “Surely, there’s something you want,” I said. “Otherwise, you wouldn’t have come here.”

  “Correct, Junior.” She jumped off the beam, landing thirty feet in front of us. While she wasn’t all that tall, looking at her felt like staring up a mountain. “I haven’t made an addition to my harem in a really long. And you two would look just right in some latex and leather. If I win, I take both of you into my harem.”

  My mouth gaped open. Good that I had the helmet to cover it. What an absurd request. But… whether I was going to die or to spend the rest of my existence in her harem made no difference to me.

  “There’s two of us,” Takezo said, “But we’re getting only one soul. Those are hardly fair stakes. Give one more item if you want both of us.”

  “You’re fighting as one, so I’m bidding for you two as for one.”

  “Two souls for one soul and one information,” Takezo insisted. “Or are you so afraid that you’ll lose?”

  She narrowed her eyes. Such a simple taunt wasn’t supposed to work, but it absolutely did, because this was the first reaction I had seen from her. “What information?”

  “How did you get on Earth?” Takezo asked. “You couldn’t have done that without being pulled in by someone from the inside. Who was that someone?”

  Kallisto smirked. “You don’t know that? I thought it was pretty obvious. Lillith pulled me in.”

  “Lillith? The angel of light Lillith?” I asked, not realizing I was speaking aloud at first. “Why would she ever do that?”

  “Have you seen Hell lately? It’s an absolute disgrace, filled with succubi and perverted art. Not only it barely gathers souls, but the ones it does get are mostly turned into coins, avoiding their deserved punishment. So, if going to Hell after death isn’t enough of a scare, then a sample of Hell needs to come on Earth. You wouldn’t believe how honest the faith gets when people see the punishment for the lack of faith.”

  This time, I exchanged a long look with Takezo. This was an absolutely crucial information, which we absolutely had to get back to our timeline. If we bailed on the challenge though, we were never going to get Francesca’s soul.

  Damn it.

  To Hell with it all. “All right,” I said. “We can fight over the souls then.”

  While pinning me with a murderous glare, Takezo drew his sword. He started drawing the circle we were going to fight in into the ground.

  Yeah. I knew. The smart thing to do was to run. She might not bother to chase us. And if we split up, there was a good chance she would hunt down one of us, and the other would escape. She never showed the ability to find people, more like the opposite of it.

  But I wasn’t leaving without Francesca’s soul, and Takezo couldn’t run away alone.

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  He finished drawing the circle. “We fight in this circle. The first team that touches the outside of it loses.”

  “Team? As in you two have to both touch outside to lose, do I get that right?”

  “Yes.” Takezo walked to our side of the circle. He drew his blade, taking his stance.

  With a long exhale, I walked to his side. I didn’t have a combat stance, so I kind of just stood there. Actually, no, that wasn’t my role. I made a few steps forward, stepping right to the center of the ring.

  I was the anchor. My role was to take as much space as possible.

  Kallisto scooped up her cloak, turning it into her spear. She walked straight to me, so close her forward-pointing horns almost poked me in the face.

  My heartbeat sped up, in spite me using the slow breathing technique.

  She didn’t have an overwhelming magical presence like Isabella or Lillith or Sora. No, she had a barely noticeabl

  e magical aura.

  But that was the most terrifying part of her, because she was by a vast distance, the strongest one of them all.

  She measured me. “So, have you prepared something to impress me with, Junior?”

  Not really. She wasn’t going to be impressed. But she was going to lose. “Ready?” I asked.

  “I prefer more foreplay, but I also have other things to do than to toy with you boys. I’m ready.”

  Takezo bolted by the side, his sword black, charged with the black lightning.

  As I stepped forward, Kallisto stepped back, shifted her weight, lowered her spear, and stabbed. I barely moved before I had to twist my body. The spear still pierced my left shoulder, pinning me in the spot.

  Takezo reached Kallisto from the side. He faked a slash. She bent her body, but instead of cutting, he sheathed his blade, switched stances into a lower one, and transferred the momentum into a drawing cut. The blade boomed through the air like a gunshot, hitting Kallisto square in the side.

  Takezo’s blade shattered her armor, the black lightning cracking from there. Before I even managed to make a step, he spun, and slashed again. At the same time, Kallisto let go of her spear, whirled and swung the back of her hand. Takezo’s blade cut Kallisto’s skin, releasing blood, black lightning blasting from the impact.

  But the back of her hand hit his chin. Takezo’s head jerked sideways, legs giving out. She finished the spin, completely letting go of her spear, launching a blend of a roundhouse kick and a straight high kick.

  Her boot hit Takezo in the chest. Bones crunched and got launched as if fired from a cannon. He flew from the ring, and smashed his back into a steel beam on the side.

  I finished the step, put one hand under her outstretched leg, and the other behind her back. Gritting my teeth, I pushed forward, lifting her up. She was light. I only needed three steps to carry out.

  Kallisto twisted in my grasp, slamming her knee into my chest. That shot blood into my mouth, but I made another step. Two more. She rammed an elbow into my shoulder, using it to prop herself up.

  A steel snake would be easier to hold. With the next step, I stop up my arm, and grabbed one of her horns. That was the perfect grip. One more step.

  She twisted her entire body, wrenching me over sideways. She stopped her fall her hand, fingertips on the line, and sprung her body like a coil to throw me out.

  Not a chance. I grabbed her leg with my other hand, using all my strength to holt onto her and twist us inwards.

  We felt into the circle. But she turned so that I landed first. The moment I was about to hit the ground, she sprung up from the right hand. Instead of jumping up though, she twisted in my grip, dug her fingers into my throat, nails slicing through the skin and muscle, and tore out a chunk.

  Pain blinded me. My muscles instinctively let go of everything else, hands shooting to my throat. I couldn’t breathe. Blooded sprayed from my neck like a waterfall.

  Kallisto jumped to her feet. “I want to see the real thing, Junior.”

  Trying to hold the blood in my throat was like trying to stop a high tide with my bare hands.

  “There’s none,” Takezo shouted from the side, voice strained, half broken. “He can’t even heal that.”

  “What do you mean there’s none?” Kallisto shouted back. “He’s not using any powers, and I’ve had enough of them being hidden from me.”

  “He’s got none. You’ve got to see that.”

  She pinned me down with a sharp glare, eyes shining to my fading vision. “He must be hiding them somehow.”

  Takezo finally pushed himself from the beam, falling on one knee while bracing himself with his sword. “Is that what you’ll tell Lucifer when he comes asking why you killed his son?”

  My vision started blacking out, the outflow of blood intensifying.

  Kallisto rolled her eyes, snapped her wrist. A spike of black steel shot down from the ground near me. She took a chunk from it. Within her palm, the steel twisted like a living clay taking shape. “I can’t believe you came to challenge without any ace up your sleeve. You two are absolute morons.”

  She ducked above me, removed caught by hands with her left, and effortlessly moved them from my throat. She put the twitching, black metal to my throat.

  The steel latched onto me as if it was alive, filling up the holes in my trachea and aorta. I drew breath, vision stabilizing. Under Kallisto’s guidance, the black metal remade all she tore out. “Anyways, this match is over. Your next stop are the baths, where my girls will prepare you for the harem. You’re going to be wearing a whole lot of leather from now on.”

  “Not really.” Takezo got up, stumbling towards us, using his sword for a cane. “This is our win. You touched outside first.”

  “Nonsense.” Kallisto straightened, stretched her hand, and spear flew back into it. She threw it over her back, the spear turning the chains-woven cloak in the process. “My fingertips were right at the line, at most.

  Takezo walked to the spot with the imprint of her palm in the ground. He ducked next to it. “But your nail touched outside. There’s a clear line in the dirt. Here.”

  I remained on the ground, breathing it out. Lucifer’s son? Why did no one tell me?

  Kallisto ducked next to him. She put her hand to the imprint. “Yeah. It is touching outside.”

  “Should have cut your nails.” Takezo straightened.

  Kallisto raised her eyebrow. “Bitch?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “But you thought it.” Kallisto walked back to me. “Why are you still on the ground, Junior?”

  Junior, right. “How can you just tell? How could everyone other than me tell?”

  “By the first glance. You’re like a discounted version of him. Same facial features, just quite a bit less handsome, older, with a different hair color, and nothing of his power or talent or aura.”

  Of course. That’s what the swiftly switching look I was getting from everyone meant. First, surprise, because they recognized me. Then, the realization that I was nothing like him, and then pity, for gap was unbridgeable. No one told me, because there was nothing that could be done about it.

  Not telling me a thing was an act of kindness.

  With a grunt, I started getting up. “Thanks. Literally no one told me.”

  “Why else did you think you could pass through the portal?” Kallisto directed a short glare at Takezo, who looked away. “Portals are Lucifer’s bloodline power. No one else can do anything related to teleportation in any way. Sword-boy can do it because he’s a demon made by Lucifer. You can pass through because of the blood connection. But anyways, what soul do you want? The blond girl I killed the last time I was here, right?”

  “Yeah.” My legs held, so I could stand up. Blood drenched my entire body, pooling around my shoes. My head spun a bit, but my thoughts were mostly clear. I pulled the crystal from my pocket.

  Kallisto’s cloak moved on its own, stretching to me with the spikes at the end. One nearly touched the crystal. “The first one.”

  I touched the cold, steel spike, and focused. I could feel the soul inside. Upon a focused thought, I felt through the soul. A memory flashed in front of my eyes, one where Francesca, vision hazy from booze, sat with me inside her bunker.

  I pulled out. That was her. I touched the crystal with the spike, and pulled the soul into it. The crystal lit up with a faint, inner light. I returned it to my pocket.

  “Well,” she said. “We’re done for now I guess. I’ll be seeing you later.” She headed away.

  We watched her leave, hoping she wouldn’t change her mind. Kallisto jumped out of the arena, and the clapping of her boots on the steel of toppled skyscrapers slowly faded.

  I shook my head, wondering if I was just imagining it. Hopefully not. “Can you walk?” I asked Takezo.

  “Slowly.”