In a different portion of the now silent anomaly, Mizo was having a staring contest with her reflection in the pool below. She was losing badly.

It wasn’t that she didn’t want to report, but the sheer absurdity of the situation left her with a sour taste. As the saying went, misfortune had run amok. In one stroke of impossible bad luck, she had lost track of both the Outsider and, well, her.

“Is something wrong?” Malon quipped.

The yurei species weren’t the most active possessors among yokai-kind. Their ability with Metamancy allowed them to create physical projections that could pass as bodies, yet also be deconstructed or reconstructed on a whim. And Malon only boasted a Level-1 Possession skill.

Which was why it was ironic that Malon had not just possessed the vanir girl, but also messed with her spiritual matrix down to the very core, mutating it, merging with it. The result was the creation of a spiritual hybrid, one that was neither yurei nor vanir, but something greater than the sum of its parts.

An oni.

One that had access to the vanir’s tremendous reserves of lifeforce, while also staying true to Malon’s skill of metamantic projection. The oni behaved perfectly like the vanir girl did before and even called herself Maude, but followed Malon’s interests. There was zero conflict over dominance, an astounding event in itself. Instead, the vanir girl seemed perfectly happy to blend in with the yurei and work in their collective interests.

Mizo got a headache just by thinking about it. Which was also why she was staring at the pool below.

Hopefully, Leader would know what to do.

“You’ve been staring at the water for half an hour,” Mal—Maude observed. “Any more and I’ll have to call you a coward out of sheer principle.”

Mizo gritted her teeth. She herself had been flung out of the Asukan’s body by that thing. Mizo refused to even think of it as anything else. It didn’t matter what its physical features were. It didn’t matter if it was small or large, aerial or sedentary, physical or ethereal. All she could remember was an overwhelming aura that violated her soul the moment she matched its gaze. Those serpentine slits had stared at her—at her—and—

And—

Mizo dropped to the floor and squeezed her eyes shut, feeling her control over her current host, a reptilian quadruped monster from the anomaly, waver. She was certain the thing had an appearance but couldn’t register any details through the haze of absolute wrongness that surrounded it. One gaze was enough for the thing to know her inside out. Her deepest secrets, her ugliest thoughts, and her darkest desires were all sucked out of the recesses of her mind and gobbled like a tasty morsel.

“Do you want me to do it?” Maude offered.

Mizo shook her head in the negative. She could do this.

Conjuring potent ether at the tip of her index finger, she drew a familiar sigil upon the water surface—just enough for the energies to touch the liquid, but not a hair deeper. It would not do to distort the liquid. Once Mizo was sure the connection was established, she slumped down, and reached out to wet her paws in it. It was shiny, just like ice—

“Ice is my Soul.”

Mizo shuddered, closing her eyes, struggling to force the memory away, but it wouldn’t leave her. She remembered that childish, unrestrained glee in the girl’s eyes.

Just like her, and yet—

Mizo shuddered. Nothing could have prepared her for this. Warden had to know. Her duty demanded nothing less.

The water in her palm stirred, and a reflection appeared on it. Warden Nihil’s face looked even paler and more grotesque than it normally did. The amanojaku was powerful. Nothing compared to Leader in combat, but his prowess in intel-gathering was second to none. He was also the oldest among the yokai in the desert, and one of the rare few who stood witness to the demise of the yokai kingdom.

It was Warden Nihil who’d appointed her and Malon to keep an eye on the Outsider while he completed his mission.

“Report!” Warden barked.

Mizo abruptly felt like a gangling cow and crouched as much as she could.

“Mizo,” Warden snapped. “We felt the tremors. The energy currents are flowing inward. What is going on out there?”

“I— We be having information, sir.”

Warden nodded, his expression brusque. Even through the monochromatic reflection, Mizo spotted brain matter slightly oozing out of the cracks of his forehead. It had only been months since he’d possessed his current host, and it was already showing signs of disintegration.

“Your report. Let’s hear it.”

“Yes, Warden. Follow the Outsider, Mizo did with Malon. Successful we were to find Asukans. Kami-wielder attack Outsider and we attack back.”

The facial tissue between Warden’s eyes cracked open, the sign of a terrifying rage taking hold of him. Even so, his outer expression remained cool and composed. “I see,” he replied, with all the patience in the world. “What element?”

“Water.”

Even in the reflection, Mizo could see calculations running in Warden’s head. The Outsider had been trained in fire. It was naturally weak to water. “Is he alive? Was he taken captive?”

Mizo shook her head. “We attack water-wielder. Outsider gets away. Mizo host killed. Mizo get new host. Malon—Malon morphed.”

“Morphed?” came a feminine voice from behind Warden. A voice that could be none other than Leader herself. Leader peered at Maude, past Mizo’s arm. “Is that its new host?”

“Not a host,” Maude corrected. “I’m not the vanir that was possessed, or the yurei that did the possessing. I’m…me.”

Leader’s eyebrows rose. “An oni. By a yurei. This is most unexpected.”

“A great many things have happened here, Leader,” Maude replied. “This body knows things. Secrets. Lies. Treachery and betrayal among those living among the Eternal Light. A vanir, follower of the Lost Eir, walking the Asukan halls with pride.”

Leader’s eyes shone with curiosity.

“A great many things,” Maude continued, and began her report. Mizo watched with a mix of awe and concern as the oni relayed information that the vanir portion of her would’ve probably fought tooth and nail to keep secret, yet there was no resistance on her part. None that Mizo could see, anyway.

Finally, Maude came around to the main topic. “A Nightmare,” she murmured. Mizo could hear a sharp inhaling from Warden. “Someone among the Asukan crowd wields a Nightmare.”

Maude stared back at Leader with empty eyes. There was no recognition in them.

“The last time a Nightmare was spotted was during the Great War,” Warden muttered, his eyes shifting uncomfortably. “First, the emergence of an Outsider, and now—”

“We don’t have time for your lunacies, Nihil!” Leader snapped. Then she turned toward Maude. “What happened after?”

Mizo and Maude glanced at each other. “Mizo be possessing kami-wielder. Mizo shatter ritual and free kami. But then—” She hesitated. “Mizo look at Nightmare.”

“And what did you see?”

“Mizo—Mizo saw—saw—”

Mizo suddenly felt weightless. The monster host she had procured for herself sagged down, no longer held up by her spiritual tendrils. The reiki known as Mizo rose above its host body, floating like a swirl of mist and lights. And then, she spoke.

“Knowledge. Truth. Power. The ripples in the curtain of the Haze flickering. Rise and fall of great shadows, of realities lesser mutating with those greater and becoming nothing. The Cold Fire burning deep. Cold. Slow. Sweet. Mizo saw—Mizo saw—MIZO SAW—”

“MIZO!”

A sudden, incandescent rage flooded Mizo’s body as Leader’s words shook her out. Mizo screamed, a wailing sound that rattled the walls of the chamber around her. Her spiritual shade splintered into several clouds before swooping down into the monster body she had chosen as a host.

The horrible cold inside her faltered, and Mizo curled up, trying to will it away. It took her a while until that hideous void-presence lingering against her spirit faded. Focusing on her host’s limbs, she stood up, wanting to see Leader’s reflection in the pool.

“Mizo?” Leader repeated.

“Mizo sorry,” she croaked, “Mizo—”

“Not well,” Maude interjected, eyeing her from the side. “She’s been suffering since the incident. I asked her to leave for the territory, but she didn’t want to disobey your commands.”

Leader’s stern facade faltered, if only for a moment. “Tell me everything that happened, and I’ll decide if the two need to stay there any longer.”

Mizo flinched at her words and made a small, squeaking sound. “There is more, Leader.”

Leader’s voice was very quiet. “Rest. Let Malon do the rest.”

“Maude,” Maude corrected.

“Where is the Outsider now?” Leader asked. “Is he healed?”

Mizo panicked. This was another reason why she faltered in front of Leader. She had failed her mission.

“The Outsider—well—he—” Maude fumbled.

“He joined the Asukans,” Leader finished, making Mizo look at her in blatant shock. “He proved to be more interested in joining hands with the enemy than remaining true to his word. Am I right?”

Mizo blinked up at her, startled. “Leader, how—”

Leader shrugged. “I suspected. When you reach my age, you see others clearly. Through their actions as well as their lies. I saw the signs during his training with Ryu. It seems that particular seed has picked a rather vicious moment to bloom.”

“You suspected?” Mizo asked. “To us you told nothing?”

“Could you have kept it from him?” Leader asked, smiling. “The Outsider is a tricky one. He hides many skills in ways the eye cannot behold. Could you have continued protecting him had you known this beforehand?”

Mizo clenched her teeth rather than speak in anger. Leader was right, as always. She’d never have protected him against the Asukan that attacked him using the marid’s power. She and Malon fought and bled to save his life, and he joined hands with those who sought his death to begin with.

“There is more to it than that,” Maude said. “When we—Mizo faced the Nightmare, one of my associates, Tanya, also suffered from it. And then she did something odd.” Maude looked at Mizo. “Tanya is a master aeromancer, but after that, she began conjuring Frost. Frost that feeds on lifeforce.”

“What…did you say?”

The words were slow and soft, and Mizo had never heard anything more terrifying. Maude stepped back in fear, afraid of what might happen to her.

“Soldier!” the normally composed Leader hissed. “Repeat to me right now what you just said. Be warned that if you lie, you will only wish you were dead!”

Maude gulped, but she could not muster the ability to speak.

“It true,” Mizo suddenly said, backing her up. “Asukan girl use Frost. Frost consumes lifeforce. We fled her. We see Outsider fight marid and consume it. We see Outsider fight Asukan girl and defeated. Then—” She glanced at Maude. “Then he defeat her. Badly. Make her return to be ‘girl’ again. She joined him.”

“How…intriguing.” Leader hummed. “I did not think he would have progressed so much. Unless he was hiding his true potential all along somehow.”

“I don’t think so,” Maude interrupted. “The Outsider was losing horribly to Tanya the first time around. And then, he just changed. He became more. His power…it was almost divine.”

Leader’s eyes narrowed again. Mizo suppressed the urge to run and hide behind Maude.

“Tell me everything.”