The closer they approached to the front door of the hospital, the more that Wraith seemed to grow uneasy, his expression becoming sterner with each step until they finally came to a sudden halt in front of the double doors. A concerned Izumi stared at Wraith, waiting for him to speak, but he only continued to glare forward. The expression was familiar to Izumi: bared fangs and raging eyes, just like when he had first learned of Ianthe’s intrusion in his territory. But this wasn’t Wraith’s territory, so what could be getting on his nerves? Just as Izumi opened his mouth to ask, Wraith spoke first.

“You’re likely safer with me than alone in here.”

“Huh?” That was the last thing Izumi expected to hear, and he still didn’t understand what was going on.

“Spirits. Listen.”

Straining his ears, the sound soon became clear. Wild cackling. The thunderous movement of mountainous amounts of bodies. Shrieks and roars. The abundant noise only grew louder with each passing second. They were getting closer, and fast.

“What are we gonna do?”

“What I’m going to do is not going to be very sightly for you. Sadly, I can’t leave you alone, and Dahlia and Neio are doing something for me right now. So, what I’ll probably do is do something so you can’t see-”

“No, it’s fine. I...can handle it.”

“I really don’t think you can.” The sentiment behind this statement was due to the shiba from earlier on in their relationship, this, Izumi knew, and he appreciated that Wraith was concerned, but if he was going to be around Wraith, he knew he needed to come to tolerate such things.

“Even if I can’t I will. If I’m going to know you, I want to know the unfiltered version of you. Not just as your medium, but as a friend too.”

Even though he didn’t mean to, the line unexpectedly gets a scoff out of Wraith, “Pfft haha, I don’t know if you want to think of me as a friend.” Although he says this, Wraith’s eyes are full of melancholy. “I…-”

BOOM

A winged beast shoots through the wall, rubble crumbling onto it, twitching before finally lying still.

“I suppose this conversation will have to wait.” Wraith snickers, then returns the sudden blaring noise with one of his own, as with a powerful kick, he sends the double doors flying forward, which slams into several spirits, knocking them out of the air.

The horde of ravaging spirits push and shove each other to get a look at the legendary specter of despair, vigorous voices clearly itching for a chance to battle and take him down. Victory cries and taunts such as “ A human pet? How pathetic!”, “His head is mine!!”, “What a poor excuse for a specter.”, “Even a specter couldn’t defeat this many spirits.”, “This is the specter of despair? He looks like a human frat boy!” could be heard through the growls and snarls of the beasts. All odds seemed to be against Wraith, as he was more than outnumbered, with the sky colored in spirits. Despite this, Izumi held hope. Wraith was considered the strongest of not just the specters, but of ghosts period . He couldn’t lose. Right? Almost for reassurance, Izumi looked back at Wraith to see how he was fairing. What was once an expression of fury was now that of pure delight, and Izumi didn’t know if he should be glad...or frightened. Wraith didn’t pay their taunts any mind, and as though they didn’t even exist, he rematerialized his smoking pipe and threw it into the air, turning into two enormous malformed creatures with jagged teeth, torn skin, and a multitude of appendages. “Forgive their look, I promise they’re the sweetest.” In order to display, he pets one of them, still, Izumi doesn’t buy it. “They’ll protect you though. Don’t worry, I’ll still be here, but it’s for the off chance something gets past me.” Reaching his hand out, Wraith ruffles Izumi’s hair with a smile, his heart pitter pattering for a moment before the barbaric hound-like creatures stand between the two, circling around Izumi and demonically snarling at the horde. With a grand welcome, Wraith flung his arms outwards and beckoned the swarm to bare their claws. No words needed to be said. The grandiose gesture was all that was needed for the spirits to beg to put Wraith’s arrogance to rest. Little to their knowledge, their decision to challenge the specter of despair was about to become the cause of their demise. A flurry of spirits swiftly charged through the air, stumbling one over the other in order to be the first to take a bite in their imagination. The real outcome of their efforts was not just demoralizing, it was beyond repulsively horrid. Through the gust of wind did Wraith’s robe come alive, the thorns becoming animated and detaching themselves from the flowing cloth, branching out infinitely at an unbelievable pace and forming several towering walls. The unfortunate spirits that came into contact with the branches soon met their ultimate punishment as consequence of their unthoughtful rush forward, if the branches themselves didn’t catch their pursuit by default and shred them like a barbed wire trap. They entered through every hole, every orifice, of every spirit they secured and entangled, travelling through their bodies and piercing their internals as they went through. A deadly cancer for thorns overcame their body like a parasite, wringing around the organs, leisurely digging into them and compressing tightly, as though to mockingly express the helplessness of its victims. Blood gushed out of the spirits which were touched by the hands of death, first from their jaws, then their ears, then eyes, until finally, the branches completed their parasitic control by emitting from their agape mouths in waves before locking themselves into the ground beneath, creating a disgustingly falsified image of a deceased evergreen. Still, this was a much preferable outcome than to die by the hands of Wraith himself.

For those who escaped the clutches of the thorns, the specter of despair himself eagerly awaited on the other side. Cloth merged with skin to form his infamous ebony static talons over his arms, giving each adversary the same slow death as his thorns. Clenching his fists, blood dripped from his palm, sending those who approached into a wild frenzy. Specter blood was every spirit's dream to consume. It brought an unimaginable boost in magical and physical prowess, but the chances of one having even a drop in their lifetime was impossibly low. Hence, just the smell alone was a mouth watering sensation for the horde, resulting in their lack of an ability to discern an obvious trap. Wraith was the most powerful specter of them all, and thus, his blood was the most sought after. At the same time, he was the only one who not only learned how to control the rate of his healing abilities, but he also knew how to manipulate his blood as well, particularly, how to make it lethal rather than power inducing. A beastly claw would rip into their chest, the blood on his palm leaking inside. Like a thin threaded needle, his blood would traverse within, weaving into the rib cage of its host. From here, two scenarios were created. First, it would sew itself into the individual ribs, securely clasping them together, and in some cases, bones overlapped and grinded against each other. Then, it would violently pull, creating an excruciating pain that could only be likened to horses pulling on the opposite ends of one’s body. This would be done until the rib cage bursted from the chest, tearing the muscles and tissues apart in an attempt to break free, revealing the lungs which once laid encased inside. If this wasn’t enough to end their life, then the blood would continue to the spine, weaving inside the cervical region located in the neck and tugging and towing until the spine breached free, splitting the back into two halves of flapping flesh. The second outcome was the reverse: first the spine, then the ribcage. However, there was a third fate which possibly awaited them, which was the most preferable of the three. Those who believed themselves to be more intelligent than the rest inferred that the trick was to ambush Izumi first. This, however, would result in the individual being gashed by sawed tusks and canines. Cleaved, mangled, and mutilated; their unrecognizable jagged strips of meat clashing with the dust below. With the combination of Wraith, his hounds, and his thorns, the horde was reduced to mere nothingness in no more than a few minutes. Although Izumi requested his eyesight to be free of obstruction, the beastly pets of Wraith blocked most of the revolting scene, yet at times he saw flashes of the events occurring before him. There was not a single spirit left after the one sided battle, and the creatures stepped aside when this was ascertained, allowing Izumi to absorb the image the best way his body felt fit. Nothing. An immense gut churning desire to vomit overwhelmed him, but he couldn’t, or he wouldn’t. Should he vomit, Wraith would only believe that he was indeed right, and that the true nature of himself was too much for Izumi. So, there he stood. Motionless.

The unruly hounds made their way over to their owner, nuzzling against him and licking the blood off his skin. He then whispered a command to them, which became clear what it contained, as they then parted from his side and began to devour all the corpses which remained. While this was being done, Wraith’s branches of thorns made their way back into his robe, becoming the still design once more. At this point, Izumi didn’t even realize the approaching figure until he waved his hand before him.

“Izumi?”

The once motionless young man blinked several times, coming to. “Y-Yea?” He tried to suppress the quivering in his voice.

“Are you alright?”

“K-kind of…” Izumi tried to avoid eye contact with the feasting creatures, trying to unsuccessfully mentally deafen the sound of the crunching of bones, gnawing of flesh, and slobbering.

Wraith clearly didn’t believe him, but he had little time to provide consolation, if at all possible, as it was evident to him that they had visitors.

“Show yourselves, shades.” He barked into the darkness.

Through the shadows emerged a small group of shades: the once residents of Hodaira. A man who appeared to be the mayor based on his well dressed appearance stepped forward.

“Y-you’re not going to kill us, right?”

“No, or I would’ve done so already.” In order to demonstrate his peaceful intentions, despite what the display before them would lead one to believe, he retracted his talons, regaining his human limbs. Conveniently, his pets had finished cleaning the remains and made their return to Wraith, reforming into his smoking pipe and dematerializing once more. Izumi, realizing it’s his time to shine, shook off his nerves and regained his senses.

“U-um, I’m Izumi. I’m not a ghost or anything, just a human that can see ghosts, but we’re not really sure why yet. This is-”

“The specter of despair.” One of the townsfolk bitterly hissed, inviting a roar of like minded statements which had a discernible loathsome hate for his kind. “What is a human like you doing with a savage barbarian like him? Did you not just see what he did?!!”

Izumi pressed his lips together, still trying to forget the grotesque event. “We’re here to help, we’re trying to figure out what happened to the town.”

Murmurs amongst themselves filled the air, testing Wraith’s already limited patience. Sensing this, the mayor hushed the villagers.

“We WILL hear him out! If this human could come to trust a man such as the specter of despair, even after that display, then we shall as well. This human is more at risk than the likes of us, as he still has a life to lose.” The townsfolk whisper to each other in progressive agreement with the mayor’s words.

Looking back to Wraith, Izumi gestures in suggestion if he wants to take over, but Wraith shakes his head, letting him proceed.

“At the least, we were able to find out that the head doctor had been poisoning some of you, and we gathered that those that had been poisoned were then fed to a spirit, who later came and consumed the rest of the town. Is that at least correct?”

“To some extent.” The mayor sighed, a solemn recollection filling in his eyes. “It is as you said, the doctor which we had fabled as our savior served us on a silver platter to a spirit.”

“I thought shades typically don’t have a recollection of dying to a spirit?” Wraith skeptically intrudes.

“We don’t, but all of us here had been felled by the hands of the same spirit. We’re unsure of its name, but it was similar in appearance to that of your creatures, specter of despair. Yet we are certain it wasn’t them. The appendages of the spirit were much thinner, and it was much taller. The doctor had made a deal with the spirit: in exchange for fortune through ‘miraculous’ healing, a number of admitted patients had to be fed to it in return. Eventually, we came to uncover the doctor’s deception and they were sentenced to death. In a fit of fury, the spirit had destroyed our city, killing all of us who resided inside at the time before mutilating the shade of the doctor before our very eyes.”

One of the shades spit and shouted, “Good riddance! The wicked witch of a woman.” Several of the others cried in approval, while the mayor ignored their comments and continued.

“The spirit had then threatened us, saying that we would meet the same fate if we didn’t attract humans into the town and entrapped them. So, we did. When others had come to investigate our disappearance, we butchered their vehicles, allowing no chance for escape. It’s not something we’re proud of but-”

“You had no choice.” Izumi completed. For the life of the dead to still be at risk...Dying a second time was not something anyone wanted, least of all those who already had a short life, such as the residents of Hodaira.

“No...we didn’t. This allowed the spirit to feed and overtime, he used this to bait other spirits into appearing to feed on the humans. However, he then ate the spirits and the humans which entered the village, only adding to his growing strength over the years. We hide when people enter the town, only emerging to prevent their exit so that it may feast, letting us live another day. But...you two were different. It knew you were coming before you even entered Hodaira and it told us that we were free.”

“Free?” This didn’t sound right, that much was obvious not just to Izumi, who spoke up about this, but to Wraith as well, who merely continued to listen intently.

“We aren’t sure either, but there looked to be an expression of contentment on its face, which we have never seen before. Yet that is all that we know that we can convey to you along with this message: I am awaiting in the cave located at the Northmost mountain . It shouldn’t be difficult to find. If you exit Hodaira and follow the trail, it will lead you to it directly. In the past, before this town met its ruin, it was a well known location where people went for some peace of mind. I do not doubt your safe passage, but still, we wish you the best.” The mayor clears his throat to signal to the rest of the town before they all bow. Although seemingly indirectly, the arrival of the pair had granted the shades of Hodaira their freedom.

Elbowing Wraith to do the same, the two thank them, although only Izumi smiled, before setting off for the mountain.