Chapter 44 - Arthur CunninghamHollow Night I stood at the brink of another confrontation. Another moment where my actions could decide whether someone’s son, daughter, sister, or brother would see another sunrise.

  The image of Edvard Munch's tortured figure in The Scream fshed in my mind; that raw, distorted face perfectly mirrored the turbulence in my heart.

  The pain was excruciating. Knowing that your very existence threatened the wellbeing of others, especially the ones you cared for most. Yet, giving up your life would only hasten the outcome you desperately wished to avoid.

  Still, as unwelcome as this situation was, it wasn't entirely unfamiliar. No. I had been a burden since the day I was born. The stakes had simply risen higher.

  As a child, I imagined myself as a knight in shining armor, strong and unyielding, protecting those I loved. But reality was far grimmer. My worthless, sickly body had betrayed me time and again, and my mother’s tired eyes were a constant reminder of the burden I pced on her. Now, it seemed, I had transferred that burden to Mizuko and Junko.

  With a leaden weight in my chest, I trailed slightly behind the sisters as they took a sharp right into Usumizu Street, just as we had pnned while Junko was unconscious. Mizuko was leading us to the Shibu Department Store. Being out in the open was too risky, and the store’s supplies offered more possibilities than roaming the streets.

  And, while she'd never admit it, the store’s proximity to Center Street allowed easier access for other pyers to come to our aid. Though, given our cohort’s earlier interactions tonight, the likelihood of that was slim. Despite that, Rusuban had assured us that he and Miharu would come to our aid as soon as they could.

  Of course, he hadn't mentioned how he would find us, or what was holding them up. I hadn’t forgotten the events on the rooftop hours before – now, more than ever, I was certain Rusuban was not who we thought he was. I prayed I would live long enough to expose that truth to my comrades.

  These thoughts swirled in my mind as I dodged the steady fire of projectiles from the red light in the distance, focusing my essence on the rise and fall of EXS with each shot. I barely noticed when Mizuko and Junko came to a sudden halt.

  For a split second, relief washed over me as I saw Katoru appear ahead. But then I noticed he was blocking our path with a terrifying bck wall of fme. The air grew colder despite the heat, the night pressing in around us like suffocating darkness.

  He did not come as an ally.

  To his right, across the road, y the back entrance to Shibu Department Store. I leaped at the brick wall of a jewelry shop, digging my cws into the gaps in the cement to survey the situation. I had only five seconds before the next shot.

  What did Katoru want with us? We’d done him no harm and had our own problems.

  Four seconds.

  Had he become selfish? Maybe he wanted our EXS for himself. But in that case, wouldn’t there be easier targets than us?

  Three seconds.

  How could he guarantee that the Noise hunting us wouldn’t see him as a nuisance too?

  Two seconds.

  Too many unknowns, but a decision had to be made before things worsened.

  One second.

  Right on cue, I leapt from my perch as the bullet zoomed past, cnking into the wall. Landing softly, I set my eyes on Katoru and rushed toward him. With my heightened EXS perception, I could hold him off long enough for Mizuko and Junko to get to safety.

  But what I didn’t expect was Mizuko speeding off in front of me to confront Katoru herself.

  “GO!” Mizuko cried as I hesitated behind her. “Take Junko and run, you fool!”

  No. No, no, no. I wouldn’t allow it.

  Sensing my refusal, Mizuko spun around, her arm outstretched. The tips of her fingers became enveloped in a snowy white essence as a solid blue began to fill her palm.

  I halted in my tracks, a few paces in front of her. I couldn’t look away.

  “I can take care of this riffraff,” she said firmly, nodding towards Liu. In the distance, I saw him perched atop a bck mass, completely still.

  “Take Junko and run. Stick to the pn. I will rendezvous with you once I’m done here.”

  My shoulders began to shake. Katoru was strong – too strong. Especially with the Tainted, Mizuko would be—

  An ear-splitting boom shocked me back to my senses. I turned around too te. The bullet sailed through the air, heading straight for me. I had let my guard down.

  If not for the dazzling slice of silver that swept down in front of me, blocking the bullet with a cng, the night would have been over.

  “Pay more fucking attention, idiot!” Junko snapped, panting and raising her sword off the concrete. I stood in stunned silence. I didn’t know how she learned the firing pattern, but if she hadn’t…

  Suppressing a sigh, Mizuko turned back to Katoru.

  “I won’t ask you again,” she reminded. “Leave. NOW.”

  This time, I wouldn’t let myself get distracted. Regaining my composure, I offered a solemn nod to Junko, who grit her teeth in response.

  “…Fine,” she groaned. I couldn’t imagine how she felt. “Just make sure you take care of him quickly.”

  Mizuko began to walk into the inferno.

  “Naturally,” she responded.

  As we scurried towards the Shibu Dep. Store backdoor, dodging another sniper shot, I swung the door open and Junko rushed inside. The st thing I saw was Mizuko readying her naginata and Liu rising to his feet before I had to shut the door.

  “W-What now?” Junko inquired shakily as I barricaded the door with a nearby drawer. I flicked on the lights and surveyed the area.

  The hall was dark and damp, a stillness in the air setting my hairs on end. Down the hall were doors beled ‘Storage’ and ‘Staff’ on either side, with a final door at the end likely leading to the main shopping space.

  We needed to proceed carefully.

  “Keep watch,” I instructed. “I’ll investigate.”

  Crouching down, I closed my eyes and concentrated, paws gliding across the roughly carpeted floor. My nose got to work.

  Katoru’s EXS was so uncontrolled it was hard to ignore its scent, even from here. It was like a jagged spsh of paint on the Night’s canvas. Mizuko’s, on the other hand, was calm and steady. Calcuted. Unwavering.

  Junko’s was somewhere in between, like a ticking time bomb. The stress of the situation was getting to her. I’d have to make sure she was taken care of, even though I could barely keep myself together.

  Strangely enough, I found more of Katoru’s EXS inside the hall. Specifically on the floors. Following the trail, I noticed a massive bck burn mark on the carpet beneath the drawer. This wasn’t like Liu’s current shade of EXS; it was much more desperate. And it wasn’t recent. Whatever had occurred here happened a while ago.

  Upon further investigation, I found the slightest remnants of a certain someone’s EXS, piecing together what had happened.

  Junko must have noticed the graveness in my expression. “What did you find?”

  I stood up. “Nothing,” I lied. “W-We should get a move on.”

  Junko remained silent, but I could feel her gre burning into my back as I crept further into the hall. I knew that if I told her what I discovered – what I believed happened here st night – she would run right out that door to Mizuko’s side.

  I was struggling to stop myself from doing the same.

  Shibu Department Store, for the uninitiated, was an upscale department store right next to Shibuya Station. Dominated by well-known, famous brand names, they sold just about everything your average person would need on a day-to-day basis – clothing, tools, stationery, and recently even food items (to mixed reception). Despite the fact that the department store was only a single part of a bigger shopping complex, the location had become so popur that people began using it to reference the entire shopping center.

  Like old Greenwater back home in Kent, there were multiple different stores avaible in this building, from jewelry stores to opticians. I’d heard rumors of there even being a new maid café on one of the upper floors, which made sense given the absolute hustle and bustle the pce had been getting recently.

  As we stalked through the silent department store, however, the only sound echoing through the barren halls was our footsteps. It was dark, save for some very frugal lighting emanating from panels on the ceiling.

  “Are we alone?” Junko whispered as we snuck through the empty aisles. Her grip on her odachi was tight enough to affect blood flow.

  I kept my nose active to alert us to any potential threats, though nothing was coming up on my radar.

  “I think so,” I offered cautiously, before adding, “Stay on your guard, however. We don’t know when that’s going to—”

  The world suddenly became drenched in red. The hypermarket’s fire arm had been sounded. Immediately, I backed up against Junko, who also sidled up against me, eyes darting in hypervigince.

  “What’s going on?!” Junko cried, her voice barely audible over the constant ear-piercing screeches of the arms. I couldn’t focus. There were too many external stimuli for me to access my EXS detection. We were, for all intents and purposes, blind.

  Deciding to trust my eyes instead, Junko and I rotated in back-to-back formation, ready for a confrontation at any given moment. We remained that way for several moments, and I became acutely aware that we were being watched.

  Suddenly, I heard a mechanical clunking from above, followed by the sound of something like a fire extinguisher echoing from the ceiling. I looked up to find that a strange yellow gas was being distributed by the sprinkler system above.

  “Jun..ko!” I strained, now beginning to cough hard. “Need…to…run…!”

  Covering her mouth with her hand, she led the way as we scrambled back toward the main entrance to the store from the shopping center’s pza. In the distance, I could see a grey screen slowly covering the front doors and adjacent windows.

  They were bringing down the fire shutters!

  Pushing past the painful irritation of my throat, I got on all fours and leaped toward the entrance, grabbing the bottom of the rapidly descending shutters and keeping them in pce.

  In another world, I would’ve simply broken through the shutters; but whatever this gas was, I could feel it sapping my strength the more I was exposed to it. I couldn’t rely on my physical strength anymore.

  I couldn’t even open my mouth to tell Junko to hurry. I didn’t know how long I could keep this up, let alone with my breath suspended. After a few horribly arduous moments, I heard Junko’s rapid footsteps break into a smooth slide below the shutters and back into the pza.

  “I..I have an idea!” she sputtered, inhaling haggard breaths and tching onto the bottom of the shutter.

  An 'idea'? Now?

  I grunted, irritated as if to say, “Now isn’t the time!” but she was stubborn.

  “Just hold on a sec, damn it!” she replied as though having understood. “This might sting a little!”

  The other side was silent for a few moments, before I felt a stinging shock at my paws that caused me to recoil in agony. As I quickly withdrew my hands, I was surprised to see that the shutter was frozen in pce.

  Not only that, but the fire arm and sprinklers had both turned off. The gas was no longer being distributed. I took quick, sharp inhales with my snout covered to avoid getting any of the remaining gas in my system.

  “I think it worked!” I heard Junko call from the other side. The lights were beginning to flicker on. “Most shutters are made of steel or iron, right? I figured if I could conduct enough electricity through them, it might short-circuit whatever control system it’s connected to and cause a failure.”

  I rose to my feet slowly, equal parts amazed and relieved by her dispy of quick thinking.

  “G-Good work!” I tried to cheer, but it was taking a while to find my voice. I surveyed the area. All of the windows had been barricaded by the same steel fire shutters, the small gap awarded to us being my only point of contact with the outside.

  “Just give me a minute to recuperate my strength, and I’ll—”

  I became aware of a subtle rumbling, unlike the tremors that rose to the surface just before a serious earthquake. Junko must have, too, for I saw her feet become deathly still. We stood there for a few moments, listening as the rumbles grew louder and louder, until I just about heard Junko scream, “GET DOWN!”

  With a desperate leap, I jumped over the shelves and across the aisles as a giant crash erupted from the ceiling above, into the middle of the store. As the ceiling caved in, massive shards of debris flew in all directions as though a bomb had been detonated in the middle of the store. I ducked behind the nearest aisle shelf, bracing as various objects went flying past.

  Eventually, when the projectiles ceased, I cwed my way back up the shelf to see what was at the epicenter of the crash.

  A broad, armor-cd mass almost as tall as the store’s ceiling (or rather, where it used to be) stood erect, with piercing yellow eyes that sliced into my soul.

  As the lights began to flicker on and off, casting the figure into and out of shadow, only then did it seriously begin to occur to me that I may never get a chance to say goodbye to my mother.