Chương 80: Book 1, Chapter 80: Veins

John slipped through a pinhole in reality, an irresistible force pulling him into the depths. Tickticktickticktick. There was a fifth axis, one that mortals were never meant to perceive, something beyond comprehension of all but the most eldritch of mathematics; yet, he was moved along it anyway. Distance didn't matter. His organs compressed without squeezing or shrinking. His ears were no farther apart than the width of a hair, yet still contained his whole skull between them, bone unbroken and unbent.

John almost wished it hurt; it would have given him something to focus on besides the fact that he could see everything. His gaze stretched impossibly as if he were smeared across space itself, beholding everything between his origin and his destination, and a new direction between. He saw the inside of his disc, the ground, a skittering Nameless' guts.

Reality stretched above and below, greater truths sharpening upon the fifth axis before he twisted, watching as reality became more and more unreal as it faded away from the source, until it became nothing but half-sane memories. He went down, down, down, his sight grinding at the edge of his mi— He snapped back to reality, falling onto his knees atop a sheet of smoothed material. Tick.

Adrenaline flooded his system as he spun around in a panic, heat spilling forth from his gauntlet in a flood as John instinctively whipped his gauntlet around in a circle, reducing a torso-sized section of wall around him into a molten mass of red-hot goo.

"Well, that's one way to greet an old friend, isn't it?" Kiku cooed, echoing from all around him with no source he could determine. Her voice had far too much warmth to it. It reminded him of a cat trilling to a bird before they pounced and tore out its prey's neck. Standing back up on unsteady legs, John looked around and almost got sick at the sight. All around him was viscera. Not alive in the strictest sense, no, but not truly dead and rotting, either.

The room was a facsimile of some grand hall, with walls made of polished bone, save for where he had blasted holes into the Nameless material behind. The very floor beneath his boots was made of teeth, stretched out and filed into massive planks of enamel. Between it all, soft red flesh, holding everything together tightly, clung like a living jam stuffed into a crevice between bricks. The ceiling was even worse.

Only now did John notice that this place had actual light, unlike the rest of this cursed place, but he nearly wished it were as dark as the grave. Eyes lined the meaty ceiling, each emitting soft, warm light like twisted incandescents, even as they pivoted to watch him. It was like being in the spotlight on stage, yet even more upsetting. He ignored Kiku's words, even as terror threatened to seize his heart, instead keeping an eye out for her as he surveyed the room for any hiding spots.

There were thin shogi doors, framed in ivory, with the paper replaced with thin, translucent skin of unidentifiable origin along the walls. Light flickered behind them, too, although John doubted that there was a single candle in this accursed place. All around the room itself were low bone tables and leather seating cushions, but nothing that could hide a towering kitsune without a hidden panel.

Breathing in and out, calm flooded John's veins as he steadied himself once more; something colder and more analytical slipped into fear's place. Alright, he still wanted to blast all the nogitsune's limbs off and lock her in a cellar somewhere, so he wasn't mind-controlled like the first time she cropped up. He figured the most likely reason was that either she judged it was no longer within her capabilities or that his new toys spooked her in some way.

He was leaning towards the latter for safety, and suspected even now she was trying to probe his defences, although he wasn't sure how. Gauntlet snapping up, John demolished the ghoulish doors with a few quick flexes of his fingers, revealing long, sprawling passageways behind each of them.

"Tssk. Those were expensive, you know," she mock-pouted, making him frown. Still, he couldn't see where…

"I suppose I forgive you. We will be working together soon, after all." There. John could just barely see something flex between the bone panels, and if he looked closely enough, he could just barely see malformed teeth. His hand twitched up, and he nearly burned it on the spot before he realized his Sentinel System wasn't going off on it. It wasn't Kiku, but she was speaking through it, somehow, like some sort of demented intercom.

Now that he knew what to look for, he could see several similarly twisted "speakers" around the room. Hmm. Could she see from the eyes above, too? Now, where the hell was he? His first thought was that he was inside the area of Kiku's Transcendent Alchemy in some fashion, but his detector would be going off like mad if that were the case, even if she couldn't immediately crumple his will.

"I'd rather die than work with you," John spat, stalking forward, treating every single board as if it might suddenly collapse out from under him. Every step was double- and triple-checked before he was sure it would hold his weight, and he kept his Mage's Compass in sight at all times. It remained clear of visible threats, at least.

"I came on a bit too strongly, didn't I?" The monster sighed through a dozen hidden mouths.

"I know you don't trust me, but I truly do want to make the world a better place, and I do want those within it happy."

"If you want to make the world a better place, hurry up and kill yourself, then," he growled back, peaking down a corridor. He could start cutting through walls, but it seemed like a poor idea at best. Sure, there might be a hidden exit somewhere, but if he just started cutting holes into the structure, he might hit some sort of support beam and bring the whole thing down on his head. The nogitsune sighed deeply.

"I have a monster's power, John," she began, shaking him from his thoughts with a jolt.

"In an ideal world, I would be a healer. With a touch, I can restore limbs torn off at the base. With a glance, take away pain one no longer wishes to bear, but this is not an ideal world." The kitsune scoffed, bitterly laughing.

"Almost every way I can strike back against the evils of this world is against the very morals that drove the original me to try to free the mortals and yokai alike." She paused, letting her words hang heavy in the air, and despite himself, John couldn't help but stop in place.

"The Nameless, the tax collectors, and those accursed priests who hurt you were far from my first choices in allies, but most of the good-natured people in this era are slavishly adherent to the wills of distant gods who abandoned them. How do you free someone who doesn't want to be saved, when they have been taught nothing but the good of chains?" He thought of Aiki, how the man recoiled at the thought of something as simple as his magi-welder in more homes and thought it would cause nothing but death.

At least, he disagreed as much as the local mores allowed him to. Even after saving his life and giving him all the kind treatment he could, the man still saw an "Unbound" trying to be friendly with him as something akin to a ticking bomb. John forced himself to move. The corridor behind each door looked the same, but sitting here accomplished nothing other than giving her more time to worm her way into his head.

He picked the leftmost of them, quickly giving the area a quick sweep of heat to destroy any invisible tripwires before cautiously creeping forward.

"Seems like Yuki did well enough for herself without tearing people's free will to pieces and pissing on the ashes," he hissed back. Tick. John whipped around, levelling his gauntlet against the corridor behind him, but nothing emerged. His trembling hand fell back to his side, and he unsteadily turned back around, venturing down the path once more, constantly glancing over his shoulder.

"Have you ever wondered why any of the tax collectors under my thumb surrendered to you and Yuki? What about the priests?" He had never, but it was a bit strange, in retrospect. Kiku had mind control, after all, and Yuki seemed to think that she could do long-term damage with a bit of time. There was no reason to leave them with any that could give actionable intel.

"It would have been simple to make them unblinking, fanatical sociopaths. They would have faked defeat, only to deal as much damage as possible the second you turned your back. I could have taken that delightful couple, too, if I truly wished to hurt you. It would have been a simple matter to have Aiki bring his wife to me, then I would have had them steal as much as they could before fleeing into the night." A pause, again.

"Perhaps, if I had, you wouldn't have noticed the poison. For ages, I wondered how you figured it out, but I think I have an idea now that I've seen that artifact strapped to your wrist." Why was she telling him this?

"... So, what was in that poison, anyhow?" John tensely asked, blasting a hole through another skin door, only to behold yet another endlessly sprawling hallway. He sighed.

"A deliriant refined from a local plant," she softly explained.

"You would have been confused and unable to articulate clearly, and while my sister worried over you, I would have struck. Ideally, I would have killed her and captured you, but either seizing the contents of your workshop and destroying your supplies would have been more than sufficient. Perhaps we would have been talking under kinder circumstances by now, you sweet thing." This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

Rage burbled up in John, feelings of revulsion and violation surging to the forefront as the monster wearing kitsune flesh talked. How fucking dare she? After everything she had done to him, after every single life she ruined?

"Shut the hell up! Stop talking like we're friends!" he screamed into the void, cold emptiness flooding into his chest seconds later.

"I'm sorry," Kiku almost whispered, soft voice echoing through his mind nonetheless.

"I know no amount of repentance will be enough, but I want to say it anyhow. I was elsewhere, building connections for most of your time here in this land, and I thought you were just some foreign Unbound here alone by choice before I looked into things. Perhaps I could have helped you ages ago, had I the foresight. When I finally tried to investigate further, I saw you and one of my sisters about to kill one of my most valuable agents, so I panicked and acted early."

"It killed them, Kiku," he muttered back.

"I hope it killed them, at least. The look in those men's eyes as the spiders pried their jaws open is something I will never forget. How can you justify that? What about all the poor people in Broadstream who are about to starve come winter?" What was wrong with him? Why was he giving her the time of day?

"I'd never use them if I had the choice, but I need forces to fight my other sisters, and there are very few creatures you can make an army of so easily. Perhaps I should have broken its mind, so that the monster would never hurt anyone like that, but…" She trailed off, leaving the air heavy. John didn't respond, but the implication was clear enough. She thought it deserved freedom, too. He had to get the hell out of here.

It was clear that the nogitsune had the same charisma that her sister had, and he knew how easily Yuki could wrap him around her finger. As much as he hated Kiku, there was no doubt that she had the sort of easy charm that positively horrified him. He almost believed that she truly was sorry, if only for a moment. Maybe there was something in the air, weakening his will.

"There's something behind the door coming up on the right that you might wish to see," Kiku briefly added before going quiet.

"What?" John quickly questioned. For once, Kiku remained silent. John groaned, glancing toward the noted door. It was perhaps thirty feet distant still. This was absolutely a trap, but maybe he could use it to lure her out. Glancing up, he watched the eye-lights in the ceiling that tracked him. She was absolutely watching him through those, but starting to kill them off would only show that he knew. Besides, she'd be able to track him by where they went dark, anyhow.

John raised his gauntlet, checking over his shoulder one last time, before burning away the door and melting the walls on either side of it, cutting a line through the thin bone sheets. With a few easy motions, he left no room for someone to lurk in the corners and ambush him before creeping forward. He cleared the corners, anticipation driving a shiver through him as the plain room revealed itself and revealed nothing but an empty room with a vast series of small paintings framed at the far side of the room. Wait.

Those weren't paintings; they were three-dimensional. Sculptures in box shelves, perhaps? Hesitantly, he edged forward, more details slowly coming into focus. One was of a brain, standing at the top like a star upon a Christmas tree. Creeping dread started to sink deep into John's chest. Parts of a torso were towards the edge of the cluster of sculptures, circling the core. They seemed almost perfectly crafted and painted, bearing a series of little scars and blotches.

Half of a leg, individual hairs standing at constant attention in the chill of the room, formed a bar across the middle. In the strange hyper reality of this place, John could see the end of every artery and vein upon either of its ends. Then, right at the core was a heart. It silently beat. The eye still in its socket blinked; both it and the one sitting on the shelf focused on him. John took a step back, let out a horrified gasp as his mind stopped denying what he was looking at.

It—he was a man, kept alive through Kiku's dark powers. Bending over, John retched, spilling the contents of his stomach on the ground in an acrid pile, eyes watering. Tick. John instinctively wheeled around, almost tripping on his own vomit, blinking through blurred vision as he tried to locate the threat, but there was still nothing. Nothing he could see, at least. He feared turning back around, terrified of what new atrocities he might spot among the pieces. Yet, with great resistance, he did.

The partitioned face, the eyes, the forehead, and the two halves of the mouth all formed a mosaic of a butterfly, now that he looked more closely. Why would she do this?

"Hold on, I'll get you back together!" John quickly barked, scurrying over without a plan. Looking into the tired, resigned gaze of the eyes on two different shelves, John went to work. In a flurry, he grabbed a leg and stuck it to a foot, but they just wouldn't damn stay together, damn it! Maybe he needed to sew him together. The man's entirely separate lungs let out a wheeze. Yeah, that was it. John could sew the man together so he could move him in one—"Iwao Sada," Kiku stated.

"What?" John balked, glancing at another of the mostly hidden wall mouths at the sudden interjection.

"His name is Iwao Sada, and he was the Head Priest of the local shrine who had given you so much trouble. He triggered the trap for you and Yuki early, before I was in position to whisk you away in my arms, then tried to flee." The nogitsune gently tssked, and John had the impression she was sadly shaking her head in whatever hidden vantage point she possessed. This was him? Phantom wounds upon John's form ached as if they had just formed.

He felt the sting of stone spikes biting into his limbs, fresh burns upon his torso. Finally faced with the architect of his torment for half a damned decade, John felt his blood run hot. A snarl formed on his face despite himself as hot bile bubbled up, his gauntleted arm instinctively shooting up, but his limbs shook. John saw no malignance in either of his separated eyes, just a tired acceptance of whatever might come his way. His lungs, which lay flat like some form of twisted pillow, wheezed quietly.

He might have thought that there was nobody home if the man didn't track his gauntlet closely, eyes slightly widening as if he had only just realized who John was. The muscles in Iwao's limbs twitched, yet he couldn't move. His lips and tongue, both on entirely separate shelves, wriggled as his lungs expelled air, but no sound came out. John's arm slowly fell back to his side. This man, the source of years of torment, of isolation, looked just so small like this.

"He stopped being useful, so I finally could punish him for the evils he had committed. Even before I fed his greed for wealth, he had hurt far more people than just you, and I shall bear the burden of helping him until the day I die. Weep not for him, for he has plenty of time to contemplate his misdeeds. Still, you are one of the victims he has wronged the most, so I give him to you to do what you will with him," Kiku said, before quieting once more.

A great weight settled across his shoulders, the nightmare all around him seeming to disappear for a moment as John fell deep into thought. Damn it! What the hell was he supposed to do? On some level, some deep, dark part of John insisted that he should just leave the man here. Iwao had hurt him, hurt others. Maybe he would have been able to exist at the peripheries of the village, finding work through pantomime for food during the early years.

Yashiro and those soldiers would all still be alive if they hadn't needed to peel away those ofuda. But could anyone deserve being cut apart, trapped in their own body as Kiku cut them apart and put their gore on display like some twisted sculpture? Yet, John didn't have a bag. Even if he could somehow stitch the man together, he had no way of taking him to safety. Could he even survive after Kiku died?

Even if he did, and if he somehow survived when Yuki collapsed this extradimensional space, could they find him before a crow started picking apart his brain? How the hell could he even move the brain without risking damaging it, to begin with? Deep, gnawing dread settled deep in his bones.

"I… can you hear me? If you can, blink your eye twice," John requested, pointing to the only eye that was still in its socket. The right eye blinked twice.

"I'm sorry. I don't think I can get you out of here," John lowly explained, unable to meet the man's gaze. Was he really about to say this?

"I can offer you a quick death, if you want it. I can promise it'll be fast, nearly painless," John muttered, forcing himself to meet the man's eyes, no matter how hard it might be.

"Blink five times if you want me to." Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. No hesitation, then. Iwao didn't even wait for a second. His eyes… There was no fear in them. There was hope.

"I'm sorry," John heaved, raising his gauntlet, holding it with his other hand, too, in a futile attempt to keep it steady. He could just walk away. He didn't have to do this. The man was almost certainly going to die anyhow. Then, he thought of those men, lying in twisted piles as they begged him to do anything to stop the Nameless from taking them. He aimed at the mass of disconnected parts, careful to keep them all within the cone in case this twisted technique spread the man's consciousness between his parts.

John modulated the power to ensure it would kill the man instantly. Then, he fired. The man's flesh scorched black in a split second, dead on the spot. John should have felt horror, disgust, grim satisfaction, something! Instead, he just felt hollow. A tingle ran up John's spine, and he spun around in an attempt to spot some invisible watcher even though his Sentinel System hadn't detected the nogitsune for a while.

Maybe it was the guilt, finally kicking— The floor shifted under his weight, but John was too slow to react as the enamelled surface gave out, dropping his foot into a gap as the jagged, toothy surface clamped down around his ankle like a vice, warding flaring to life to protect him from the immediate damage. Then, the broken teeth twisted. White-hot agony lanced through John as he cried out, spittle flying from the edges of his mouth as his vision blurred beyond recognition.

Instinctively, he swapped to his drill focus, summoning a pillar of green light and cutting himself free from the bear trap before crawling free. His foot sat at a strange, twisted angle, the warding entirely bypassed as she dislocated the extremity with a single motion.

"I'm sorry, John. I wish it had never come to this," the demon in pink bemoaned.

"Stay right there, I will fix you soon." The eyes on the roof snapped shut, leaving John in darkness. That trap wasn't there before, was it? She had no way of knowing if he'd step on that exact part of the floor. The seeming false positives weren't just Kiku haunting him; it was her testing how sensitive his detector was. From there, she tricked him into standing in place so she could slowly alter the ground below him without noticing.

With a groan, he reached down, the sheer adrenaline flowing through his veins letting him roll his ankle and— Pop! He thrashed and screamed out in pain as the joint popped back into the socket. With great effort, sweat beading upon his brow and limbs threatening to give out, he pushed himself to his feet, donning the headlamp from his pocket and kicking it on as he limped back out into the hall. If Kiku thought he was going down without a fight, she didn't understand him as well as she thought she did.