Chapter 31 - Daisuke KuroganeHollow NightThe whispering started once I’d reached Shibuki Main Store, north-west from 104.

  I knew the others had been there from the scorch marks littered across the tarmac, pieces of rubble piled up and scattered anyhow.

  Hell, I even remember standing over this one random-ass hole in the middle of the street, around where a sewer drain usually sat, as if some kind of Kaiju decided now would be a great time to go for a morning stroll.

  And then, as I thought about the Kaiju me and her used to imagine lurked at the end of Shibuya River, I had the weirdest suspicion I was being watched. Within a few seconds, I came to the conclusion that I was right, and more; I was being spoken to.

  “…Who’s there?” I threatened into the dark backstreets. No response.

  I must’ve only been standing there for a few minutes at best, but shit, it felt like forever. Steadily, the ghastly murmurings crescendoed, until I could barely even hear my own feet hitting concrete once I’d started running.

  If I was going to fight, I’d do it the way I’d always done it – on my own terms, and nobody else’s.

  At first, I was pleased to hear the mutterings die down as I created distance. But the worst thing about it was that it never quite went away. By the time I’d stumbled into freaking A-East of all pces (which, at this point, should be renamed ‘Hood of Shady Deals and Not-So-Friendly Neighbours’), I could still hear it gnawing at the furthest recesses of my mind. I wouldn’t give it the chance to move any nearer.

  Deciding to hold my ground, I braced as it gradually grew louder and louder. God, it was incessant. Any longer and I thought I would have to –

  I felt it before I saw it. If my senses were even a millisecond too x in taking control, forcing my body to jump back, I would literally be half the man I am now. The fresh gash across my chest informed me of that much.

  But you know what they say: ‘Every cloud has a silver lining’. In this case, I guess the more appropriate adage would be ‘Every invisible murder attempt has an ethereal, mouth-shaped ghoulish abomination.”

  I kid you not – that’s exactly how this thing looked. Jagged grey teeth that’d trigger Red Riding Hood’s PTSD, lips thick and lifeless, trailed by a cloak of tattered, shredded rags that waved in the same cool breeze that chilled my skin.

  Perhaps it felt as uncomfortable showing its appearance as I felt having to witness it, because within moments it had vanished again. Here was when I was starting to understand this freak’s game.

  And for the first time in a long time, I hoped I was wrong.

  When the whispering had started back up again, I crept slowly toward the metal pipe I’d been eying since our first go-round. No sudden movements. By the time my hands had felt the cold embrace of steel, fingers coiling around my unlikely defender, the airy mumblings were almost at their climax. I lifted the pipe, and I would only have a second, if even that, and I sure as hell couldn’t waste it.

  Without warning, the mutterings came to an abrupt halt, and there it was again. After thrusting my pipe into the ground, using it as a makeshift shield, I stared right at the creature, summoning all the damn strength I had avaible. To my utter fucking disappointment, all I was left with was a decapitated pipe, and an impact that send me flying back a few meters.

  And, of course, another round of everybody’s favourite – more ghoulish whispering.

  So, I thought as I picked myself up off the ground. It doesn’t have eyes. Go figure.

  My body processed the thought before I could even finish internalizing it.

  I’d better fucking split.

  After some trial and error I’d rather not get into, I compiled all the facts together.

  This thing’s whispering was its calling card – its way of letting me know it was out for my neck.If I kept moving while it was talking, the whispering would stay at a minimum level. If I stood retively still, it would only grow louder and louder.Once the volume reaches its peak, it reveals itself for just the slightest moment, before unleashing a cleave forceful enough to make Miyamoto Musashi jealous.However quickly I ran, the whispering would never go away.I’m sure I don’t need to tell you how desperate this situation was. Anyone with at least a walnut-sized noggin and just one working eye could see that much. The most straightforward pn of action would’ve been to target the moment just before it attacked, and pray that your bde was quicker than the other.

  In other words, to put everything on the line, and seize that singur moment. That’s what I’d have to do.

  Strangely, I feel like I’d come to terms with it already – with the fact that death would always be loitering around the next corner, concocting a scheme to add you to its collection of cimed souls.

  In truth, ever since that run-in with the snake and bull from earlier, something about the world – about me – felt different. Like everything I was, everything I’d known, had been taken apart and reconstructed from the ground up.

  Simply put, that moment was my awakening.

  And if I had to dance with Death to savour this irresistible high that was gripping my heart like this, and pulsing through my veins, then so be it.

  Eventually, I’d found myself at the rge construction project south of Shibuki, the end goal being the completion of a new hotel-office building. On the few occasions I’d pass by, the chorus of metal cnging and drills gyrating irking me to no end, I’d note how intimidating the building mock-ups looked. Whoever had designed this building had more than just a pce of working and residence in mind, I’ll tell you that for free.

  But that didn’t matter, as the incessant murmurings in my ear reminded me. Sometimes, if I scrutinized the sylbles that sauntered in and out of my ears, I’d hear names, or phrases, that felt like scenes of a movie cut-out from the context of the plot as a whole.

  “Is…true…Ren…killed…”

  “Can’t…Asuna…”

  “…Inja…missing….”

  Whatever the story behind the inclusion of these names, I had the weirdest suspicion that the truth was buried inside that journal I’d been received by killing that rabbit thing.

  That must’ve been why Reaper took such an interest in it.

  Shit, they’d probably figured the whole thing out already. I made a mental note to get them to spill after school tomorrow - provided we both live that long anyway.

  As the hooked edge of my kusari weaved and coiled around the scaffolding, gradually propelling me upwards, I felt a stark chill in the wind. In the distance, I could see something shiny, and golden, but was too far to make any specific detail. Was that one of these ‘artefacts’? Something about it set my hairs on edge, so I ignored it to focus on matters at hand.

  “Almost…there…”

  Once I’d reached high enough altitude, the dull lights of Shibuya now resembling a child’s py set, I took a deep breath and waited.

  Unfortunately, at this height it became real easy to mix up the whistles of the wind with the whispers of this thing, but I didn’t care. My sight was really all I needed for this to work.

  Soon enough, I felt a cold chill down my spine. The air became deathly silent. This would be the moment of truth.

  I closed my eyes, and greeted Death once again.

  Ssh!

  Upon opening them, I was pleased to find that I was still in one piece. Literally. The bastard either completely missed, or harboured a deep hatred for steel pipes, as evidenced by the decapitated remains of one rolling about listlessly on the floor.

  I couldn’t tell whether it was the relief of having still been alive, the thrill of having figured this fucker out, or both, but I was ughing my head off.

  “…You’re mine.” I taunted, before reaching down and grabbing one half of the sliced pole.

  To my utter shock, the garbage they’d had us learn in physics actually turned out useful.

  With enthusiasm, I swung, leapt, and darted through the metal maze I’d led trapped my opponent into, banging and crashing my steel pipe into just about any other surface or object I could find. Honestly, I felt like some kind of shitty delinquent, and man, did it feel good.

  Judging by the sporadic, random sounds of wooden pnks crashing, or the occasional cement block plummeting down from a higher level, it had lost me. And it was not happy about it.

  In hindsight, it had taken me way too long to realize what this thing had been using the entire time. It had been navigating the environment far too well for a creature who was literally blind.

  Not to mention I was making constant sound with the pitter-patter of my footsteps, the heavy huffing of my breath, the clinking of my kusari – the list goes on.

  But in a pce like this, full of reflective surfaces like mirrors and metal panels that bounce the sound waves of its whispers back in unpredictable directions, it really was blind. Not to mention all the sound distractions coming from yours truly.

  All I had to do now was find a way to damage it. Deciding that I’d kinda had enough of its ugly mug, I figured I’d end it in one shot. As the desperate, aggressive sounds of commotion gradually grew closer and closer, I got to work setting up my masterpiece, applying my knowledge of mechanics, of all things, to set up the perfect showstopper.

  After a while, the pce grew unnervingly quiet. Even with my discovery of its secret, this was still a life-or-death situation. One wrong move would be all it took to get me killed, and no way would I be the first loser to get done in. I seriously pitied whoever it’d end up being.

  Slowly but surely, my hairs stood on end as the chatterings faded came back into my auditory range. I held my taut kusarigama chain tight. If not for the strength increase I got in this pce, this would never have worked.

  “What’s up?” I taunted. Did these things even understand Japanese? Maybe they were foreign monsters. Oh well. “Oh, don’t mind me. Just getting my workout in. Then again, you can’t see me can you? All you have to rely on…”

  The whispering reached its climax faster than ever before, but I was ready.

  “…is echolocation!”

  The split second it appeared, I loosened my grip on the chain, and began zooming upwards. As a wooden pnk that was previously standing behind me was sliced clean in half, a cackle I didn’t recognize began to bubble up of me.

  Still travelling upwards toward the pivot of my man-made pulley, I looked down, and gave a breezy two-finger salute.

  “See you around, big mouth.”

  Invisible did not mean intangible, as the poor bastard soon discovered once the rge metal pipes I’d been using my weapon to carry over a beam crashed down onto it, plummeting through floor after floor of wooden pnks. I managed to unhook my kama just in time, taking refuge on the metal beam I’d used as a pivot for the pulley, whole body heaving in deep breaths.

  A while ter, I descended through the array of fresh holes, finding another one of those white orbs and something I hadn’t seen before. I decided to take care of the snack first, crushing the orb in my hands and drinking in the power.

  The rush I felt from this consummation of sorts was unlike anything I’d ever felt before. I could feel it now – that I’d hit my maximum potential…at least for now.

  But just beyond my reach, y a force so insidious, deep, dark and powerful that I could hardly believe it was coming from me.

  On the horizon, I could feel that the true essence of my EXS was just waiting to be unleashed. I pledged there and then that I would go the distance, and discover who I really was - no matter how many corpses I’d have to stand on.

  Now, to the other matter at hand. I scrutinized it from afar, concluding that it was probably another one of those treasure thingies. Once I began to hold the fwed gemstone in my palm, a splitting pain shot across my head, forcing me to my knees.

  When I came to, someone was standing in front of me. They were translucent like a hologram, glowing the same sinister shade of purple as the gemstone. Even so, there were still some distinct features I could make out, like his hooded dark gray trench coat with a reptilian pattern, grey joggers, and bck ced ptform boots.

  Their hood stayed up, obscuring their face completely in shadow, much like another person I know. Even so, I caught a glimpse of an intense amber gaze emanating from beneath the darkness.

  “You know the equation, Kenjiro.” He spoke darkly. “We’ve solved for all the variables, calcuted entropies, and can conclude that there’s no mutual information to be found by selecting those trivial features.”

  It was only then that I noticed he was staring directly at me. Why was he calling me ‘Kenjiro’? My question was answered by the other purple, see-through figure who quite literally walked through me, feet unsure and unsteady.

  “A-Are you sure about this, Minami-kun? There’s no turning back from something like that.”

  The cloaked boy, presumably ‘Minami-kun’, turned away, as if gazing at the pale moon.

  “…It’s our only option. In order to approach infinity…”

  Weird mathematical lexicon aside, I didn’t need to watch any more to confirm one thing – we really weren’t the first ones here.

  I had the strangest feeling that, for whoever was here st, something terrible happened.

  And for perhaps the first time since I’d come here, I wanted to see the others.

  For the first time since I’d come here, I was afraid.