went back to our shared room to fetch a change of clothes; I remembered seeing some folded up Yukata for guests, and considering this was a ryôkan type inn, it made sense to provide lodgers with clothes to wear after coming out of the hot spring. I would change into that, even if it was only to satisfy my habit of always changing clothes after a bath, regardless of whether they were dirty or not.

The room, located in the very rear of the inn, took me past the Zen garden again. I took my time, looking at its simplistic beauty, when I noticed something green on the branches of the white tree. It was a bud, suggesting that the tree would begin to carry leaves soon. Adjusting my view of the underground and its perceived infertility, I stared at the tree I had thought to be dead, to find several more tiny green buds. Spring had come to Hell.

"No, stop, don't touch there!"

"Oh, it's so soft. How cute!"

"Wait, that's..."

Through the door, the gleeful voice of Suika and the distressed whimpers of Riguru were clearly audible to anyone who might pass by. Of course, at this point everything was still conjecture, but I knew what a mean drunk could do, and the little Oni was almost always drinking. I stood in front of the door, my face the dictionary example of the expression "what the f-

"From here to here, huh?"

"Ah..."

"No, wait. Maybe it's this pattern, where they are doing something completely innocent, and it only sounds perverted because of my dirty mind," I reconsidered the possibilities.

"I... I can't take it anymore..." Riguru's voice grew pained, as if she was pressured into a sensation she was trying to avoid. My face went expressionless at this and I put my hand to the sliding door, ready to throw it open.

"Wait... if they are really doing something fishy in there, I shouldn't go in just like that," I thought, realizing the idiocy of entering without at least knocking.

"Ahh, no! Don't rub it!" The firefly Yôkai cried out and I threw my rational thoughts overboard.

"Stop it, Suika! This is sexual hara-" I threw open the door and shouted, to find that Suika had stripped Riguru and was playing with her stomach; the part that was capable of emitting light through a thin membrane that laid bare some bulbous inner organs. My jaw dropped at the sight, and the little Oni spit out the Sake she was drinking at my expression.

"Ahahaha! That's an awesome face, Kyôma!" She pointed at me and howled with laughter. She was clearly drunk.

"What the hell are you doing..." I walked up to her and lifted her by her collar, away from Riguru. The little Oni let me do as I pleased, as she put the gourd to her lips. With anyone else, I would have tried to stop them from drinking even more, but I knew not to stand between an Oni and their Sake. I had made the mistake once before, and if it hadn't been for that very miracle brew, I might have had to drink my food with a straw for the rest of my life.

I put Suika down at the window, before returning to Riguru and putting a Yukata over her. She looked up to me with tears in the corners of her eyes, upon which I quickly averted my eyes. Her vulnerability stirred a part of me that I did not ever want to show. Looking back to Suika, I just hoped I would not become more like an Oni in that respect by filling the empty half of my soul with her nature.

"Suika, you shouldn't do things others don't like!" I reprimanded her.

"What was this saying humans had about Oni? You know, the part about... being an Oni?" She responded, a snide grin on her face. I could not find any comeback to that and sighed.

"I'll be going to take another bath. My journey around town was quite something."

"Oh, do tell, how was your visit to Chireiden? Did you meet Koishi's sister?"

"Yeah, I..." I interrupted myself, as I remembered everything that happened involving Koishi. Suika looked at me with concern, as my face contorted into a pained expression. I had forgotten about her again, and I had not even been aware of the fact that I had until the Oni mentioned her. "How..."

"How can I remember Koishi while you can't?" It was not what I wanted to ask, but now that she mentioned it, I had to wonder. "Because I knew her from before she shut her third eye." The little Oni revealed an incredible fact so nonchalantly. However, her expression spoke volumes about her emotions, as a hint of sadness appeared on her features. She did not seem to want to continue talking about it and turned around to look outside the window again while indulging in her alcohol.

I felt like beating myself up over forgetting Koishi and for letting her sister get to me by playing on the guilt from it. As a mind-reader, she had properly utilized her powers to achieve her goals. I was not angry with Satori; she was caring for her little sister, after all. I was angry with myself, for being unable to do anything about it, and for letting her simple words leave me unable to respond.

"I have to go," I whispered, and stormed out of the room. I thought I saw Suika smiling to herself at the very end, before the paper sliding door obscured her from view. My feet carried me past the entrance area, where Yûgi sat in the reception boot, indulging in the treasured Sake she had received from the little Oni. She saw me rush past and laughed, before going up to see Suika in her room.

I ran through the streets, dismissing the stares on me from all the supernatural inhabitants. Keeping a low profile was the least of my concerns, as I felt that time was of the essence; I had to get to Chireiden as long as I still remembered Koishi. To not forget her, I uttered her name to myself repeatedly along the way, as if my own voice was an anchor for the frail memories of the girl who had been with me almost since the day I came to Gensôkyô. The girl who had closed her heart so that she would never be hurt again, but had opened it up for this worthless me, who could not even remember her once she left my sight. The very fact that I had not even fought her sister's decision made me an idiot, but that I had done so without asking Koishi what she thought about it made my actions all the worse.

I sprinted with all my strength, paying no heed to all the hungry looks on me along the way, repeating the green eyed girl's name like a mantra. All my fatigue had been blown away by this one thought that occupied my mind: I had to find Satori and convince her that it was right for me to be with Koishi. I just felt that if I did not do it now, I would regret leaving her for the rest of my life.

Chireiden came into view, and I quickened my pace. If the illusion of the endless corridor was there again, I would break it right away. I was sure that after my training with Suika, I could handle a bear or a boar, if they tried to stop me. As for the Kasha, I would just have to find a way around her. Nothing would stop me from meeting Koishi and telling her that I wanted to stay by her side. I realized that maybe - just maybe - I was in lo-

Something hit me from the side like a truck. I heard the sound of something breaking, was flung into the air like a ragdoll, and sent flying through a wooden window on the other side of the road. Then the world went black.

An indescribable pain in half my body shook me awake from my dreamless oblivion. I held back a scream, as I attempted to sit up and even greater pain assaulted my right side. Something similar had happened before, when I had encountered a Great Yôkai in the forest and been unable to escape quickly enough; it had swatted me like a fly and sent me flying, breaking half my body's bones in the process. Suika had been merciful enough to save me on that occasion, and it was her Sake that had let me heal up within a few days.

I found myself in a dark, moldy room, into which sparse light shone through a hole, about the size of a balled up person, in the wall. It appeared that the impact had been the result of an accident of some sort, since I was still in the same location in which I had landed after the contact. If it had been an intentional assault, without the help of anyone, I would have already ended up inside a Yôkai's stomach - or several ones.

Checking my right half, I realized that my arm and most likely several ribs were broken; I was in no condition to fight. I was in a foreign village of potentially hostile beings with a half-broken body, and could not trust on anyone's goodwill to call for help from those I knew. I would have to fend for myself, and even if the pain was unbearable, I had to do as an Oni did, and simply shrug it off. What good was becoming more like one, if I did not gain one of their greatest traits - that of hardiness?

"Oi, human. Ya still alive?" A familiar voice came from outside. The last time I had heard it, the one it belonged to had been getting ready to fight with Suika to the death. A shiver ran down my spine when I pictured the girl in the gakuran and the broken wheel embedded in her shoulder, and realized that the giant wheel she carried must have been the thing that hit me. It also meant that I had only lost consciousness for a very short period of time. I quickly lifted myself from the ground with my left hand, ignoring the protesting ribs that were crying out from the unreasonable abuse so shortly after they broke. Clenching my teeth at the pain, I looked around to find that I was actually in a storage room.

"If yer alive, gimme a holler!" Kurara shouted out in my direction, as I found a trap door directly under me. However, a wooden beam was lying over it, most likely knocked down from me crashing through the window. In my current condition, I would be unable to lift it, despite my increased physical strength. There was no other way out than in the direction I came from. "Yer breathin'... 'ight? Aye can't 'ave ya dead, O-hakuka-sama still needs ya."

Footsteps approached from outside, as my mind began to work in overtime to find a way out of this desperate situation. I could not hope on anyone to help me, since Suika and Riguru were most likely still back at Gorakuin. In this underground village, I had no other people who would come to my help, so I was on my own. The only thing that could save me from capture was a miracle.

"Hey, I'm the only one who can cause a traffic accident here!" Another familiar voice exclaimed from outside, and my heart jumped. "If he's dead, give him to me." And it dropped to my feet at that demand. The voice belonged to Kaenbyô Rin, the Kasha that had abused me as a pack mule for the better half of the afternoon. I could not expect any help from her, even though hope had welled up at first.

"Who're ya? Don't get in ma way."

"Nyafu? You want a piece of me?"

Were they starting a fight out there? I had to find an opportune moment to slip away while they were occupied with each other.

"You don't need him dead, do you?"

"He shud be still alive... but if he's not, ya can 'ave him."

"Alright, then let's check together."

"Damn you, cat!" I shouted involuntarily, and exposed myself as alive and at least somewhat kicking. My discovery was inevitable either way, so I had to at least voice my frustration at the way the Kasha's mind worked.

"Alive, aren'cha. Aye'll 'ave ya come with me," Kurara's proclaimed, as she finally looked inside the room I was trapped in. Her expression was much more amiable than when she had talked to Suika and Mima before, but her eyes were dangerously focused on me. I was out of options; surely, the stupid Kasha had already left, disinterested after learning that I was still alive.

Suddenly, an impact sent Kurara flying through the hole I made, past me and into the wall behind me, before a mischievous face, rimmed with red braids on both sides, came into view. It was Rin, who looked like she had just succeeded in a prank. "Come with me, if you want to live, Kagami Kyôma." She made it sound like a cheesy line from an 80s movie, but I was thankful for any potential way out. I hobbled to the door and pushed it open with my body's weight, nearly toppling over from the pain in my arm and ribs. Outside, Rin was pushing a large, black, two-wheeled wheelbarrow, which looked like it was crusted with old dirt. Then I remembered what line of work she was in and saw the stains in a different light.

"Get on, we're getting out of here," The Kasha said with a laugh. I looked at the discolored dark crust and was about to protest, when I heard crackling sounds behind me. It appeared that Kurara was about to explode. Without a word, I jumped on, sending a silent apology to Yui that I was literally dragging her hair through the dirt. Then Rin started pushing, at a considerable speed considering her apparent constitution and the fact that it was a simple cart. Behind us, the house exploded and a giant burning wheel came rolling out of the dust, a furious Kurara attached to it.

"Yer not gettin' away! Aye'm gonna run ya'll over!" She shouted in a rage and the wheel exploded in flames to form the oxcart I had already seen at the Hakurei Shrine. However, it was burning, unlike the previous time, and Kurara was standing on it rather than sitting in the driver's seat. It suddenly accelerated and began chasing after us. Kurara's speed was a level above Rin's, as the distance between us nearly closed in an instant. The Kasha looked back to find the burning cart fast approaching, and puffed her cheeks.

"Hey, stop that! We have too many overlapping qualities already," She said, apparently unconcerned by the dire situation. The wheelbarrow I was sitting in burst in flames as well, specifically the wheels did, at which we also gained an incredible speed burst that nearly gave me whiplash. "Red hair, burning wheels... that's already cutting it close. Luckily, you have such a stupid boondocks accent." I turned to look at Rin, who was having the time of her life, taunting the absolutely enraged Kurara right behind us. Their speed seemed similar, as we sped through the streets of the village. I found myself in a genuine "car-chase", in a place called Former Hell, which had the apparent age of an nineteenth century Japanese rural village.

Villagers looked on, some pointing at us with amused expressions, while others did not even seem to pay enough attention to mind. I wondered if something like that was an everyday occurrence to them. At this point one part of my more rational mind had already analyzed that Kurara was most likely a Wanyûdo, a type of Tsukumogami resulting from an oxcart's wheel gaining a spirit and turning into a Yôkai. This particular one, her red eyes looking like they were burning with an intense fire, appeared to be an especially passionate one.

Suddenly a large wheel crashed into the ground right next to us and I turned around to see Kurara summoning another one out of thin air. I was about to argue that a Wanyûdo was not supposed to be able to create more wheels, as two floating skulls, burning with blue fire, appeared from underneath Rin's skirt. Kasha were not supposed to control burning skulls, either. I rolled my eye at my common sense and simply enjoyed the life and death race. An exchange of burning wooden wheels flying in our direction and burning, exploding skulls flying in Kurara's accompanied our high-speed chase, which soon took us out of the village and into the air. The wheels no longer touched the ground and appeared to speed up even more. The cart chase had become an aerial dogfight.

"She's persistent," Rin clicked her tongue, when several explosions did not seem to affect the Wanyûdo's speed in the least, while she gained on us once again. The wheels were not very well aimed, but any one of them could take us out instantly, and I had to give credit to the Kasha for being able to weave through stalactites and flying burning wheels so seemingly effortlessly. "I have an idea." I was not sure whether I would like that idea or not, but there was no much I could do either way.

With this, we suddenly plunged straight downwards, back towards the village, specifically the direction of Chireiden. However, apparently her aim was the large, glowing hole behind the palace, as she corrected the angle and we swiftly went in, Kurara following on our heels. Indescribable heat assaulted me just as we passed the threshold, and I noticed that underneath us, only a few dozen meters below, was a sea of magma. This looked much more like hell.

"What'cha tryin' to pull. This heat is nothin'!" Kurara shouted from behind us, and as if to prove a point, launched another wheel at us. Rin dodged it skillfully and continued to speed along, right under the cavern's ceiling, as if to spare me from the hellfire below. Still, I could feel the cart heating up uncomfortably, as it was most likely made of metal. I would not be able to survive here for long.

"A grilled Kyôma is fine, too," The Kasha commented, a mischievous grin that showed off her canines on her face. If I had had control over my whole body, I would have turned around and hit her over the head for that. However, I was hurt and at her mercy, so there was nothing I could do to vent my irritation.

"There you are!" Rin suddenly shouted. Something large and black flew past us, crashed into the oxcart on our tails and detonated it. I saw Kurara going down with pieces of charred wood and spiraling towards the sea of magma underneath, before she disappeared into what looked like a black hole that opened in midair and closed again once its target had been swallowed.

Rin stopped and turned us around to face the thing that had rid us of our persistent pursuer. Only now could I make out that it was a girl with giant jet black wings and messy long hair of the same color. Her dark red eyes were glowing with an intense heat that seemed to surpass that of the magma underneath us. Half covering her wings was a cape that was white on the outside, but of which the inside had a galaxy-motif. When it fluttered, however, no folds in the fabric could be seen, and the stars and planets inside shifted as if the cape was in fact a window. The girl wore a white shirt, which seemed like it was adorned with a large, almost head-sized dome on her chest, glowing in an eerie red with what appeared to be an eye in the center. She wore a green plait skirt with black rims that reached down to above her knees. Two glowing particles circled around her lower left leg and her right foot appeared to be covered in a large and rough gray boot. Her right arm extended into what looked like a metallic hexagonal tube with a bronze sheen from the elbow down.

"Thanks for helping me out there, Okuu," Rin greeted our savior. I could not help but stare at her. Her presence exuded a pressure similar to when Suika was being serious. "Let's go up, this human won't be able to hold out for too long down here."

The girl called Okuu nodded expressionlessly, and we made our way to the hole and back up to the above layer of hell. All the while, I could not take my eyes off the winged girl's majestic figure, which was compounded upon by the power she seemed to emit during her flight. Her overall presence somehow reminded me of a fighter jet, especially since she flew with her wings angled backwards, cruising alongside us with a speed that seemed to not fit her physical appearance. I could imagine her easily reaching Mach velocities.

The way back to the upper layer was longer than I could remember us having gone down, mostly compounded on by the fact that suffering seemed to change the laws of physics and slowed down time. Mine was not something a normal human would be able to bear while awake, and the last time I had a wound like that, I had instantly fainted. Maybe there was enough supernatural inside me to help me sustain my mind despite the horrendous pain. My arm had swollen and the ribs felt like they were poking into my insides. I had to get back to Suika quickly, and have some of her miracle medicine.

I looked over the edge of the black-crusted wheelbarrow to watch the girl called Okuu, whose expression betrayed no qualms about so one-sidedly beating an opponent down as she had done with Kurara. However, there was something in her eyes that seemed to suggest an inherent sadness, deeply seated within her soul. The fact that Rin had gone into a deeper layer of Hell to find her was enough to tell me that Okuu must frequent that desolate and hostile place. As a Yôkai, the lack of humans meant lack of food, and as far as I could see, no human could survive anywhere near that sea of magma; the only explanation that was left was that she sought solitude on her own accord.

Finally, we passed through the tunnel and emerged from behind Chireiden. I was about to ask Rin to take me to Gorakuin, when I noticed that the village was on fire. There were figures running around in the streets, shouting, screaming and apparently fighting. It did not take long to figure out that they were fighting each other, as I coincidentally spotted the Yôkai with the single eye, fighting with one of the long-necked Rokurokubi. I had heard enough about the Spell Card rules to know that they were clearly violating all of them. They were certainly not just playing around.

There were some bodies on the streets, unmoving. I saw one Yôkai sinking her claws deeply into another one's back and ripping out its flesh, laughing manically throughout the act. Others wielded weapons ranging from small knives to large clubs. I spotted one petite girl wielding a gigantic silver hammer, with which it crushed a Yôkai with a single swing. I finally realized that there were actually two factions, with one faction being the primary aggressor; female Yôkai were preying on male ones, some with an unholy fury while others seemed to drown in laughter-filled delight.

A group of Yôkai stormed in the direction of Chireiden, and from our vantage point, disappeared behind its central structure.

"Satori-samaaaa!" Okuu screamed and disappeared from next to us. A split second later, a sonic-boom and the air rushing into the space the winged girl had previously displaced rocked Rin and the wheelbarrow, sending pain into my ears and throughout my body. Rin composed herself again and quickly accelerated towards Chireiden's roof, into which Okuu had outright blown a hole with her speed. Passing through the scorched entrance, Rin landed in the middle of the endless corridor; the security spell had been activated again. The front door, which led to the fake entrance hall, had already been blasted open from the outside, apparently not by the group we just saw running towards the estate. The Yôkai who were approaching entered, all female and wearing various levels of deranged expressions.

At this point, I had some strange suspicion that this was the result of someone using a supernatural ability. I hoped that Suika and Riguru were safe and unaffected, but judging by the nature of this incident, it was a shallow hope. When I looked in the other direction of the endless hall, I noticed that Okuu had already disappeared in the darkness that plagued the hallway whenever the security magic was active. I wondered whether she had a way to get around it, or just charged blindly into the eternal corridor.

However, there were more pressing matters to put my mind into than worrying about a person I just met; Rin was the only one between my broken self and a group of Yôkai, who began to charge in our direction. There were an overall of five of them, each one looking like they were out for blood. One had long black hair and an even longer tongue sticking out from her mouth that was distorted into a wide leer. Another was a girl with a red, demonic face. Two appeared to be a pair of some sort, as they both featured only one arm and were performing mirrored movements. The last one was the most terrifying, as she wielded a large meat cleaver, her face hidden behind her hair, with only two glowing eyes shining through. There was not much that I could do than sit tight and let the cat girl save me, once again.

"I don't know what got into you, but I'll have to stop you," Rin said and a number of burning skulls appeared around her. They shot forward and bombarded the approaching group mercilessly, resulting in them disappearing in a smoke screen. From movies I knew that the thought "did that get them?" meant that it did not, but I hoped this was not a movie, since at the moment I could not see myself as the protagonist of one. Rin apparently did not know or care about this common trope and summoned another salvo of skulls that shot off right at the moment when the red-faced demon charged out from the smoke. She dodged the skulls skillfully and approached quickly. Behind her the woman with the meat cleaver left the smoke behind and followed. She actually cleaved one of the skulls in half, causing the two parts to fly right into the faces of the twins that just emerged behind her, detonating there. Of course the only two to make it through had to be the scariest looking ones.

"I see nyow..." Rin's tone changed completely when she saw the two still charging at her. The hairs on my neck stood on end when I heard it behind me and I inadvertently turned around. The cat girl's eyes had turned into slits and she was showing off her canines in a furious snarl. Flames danced around her and two gigantic burning skulls, blazing in green fire, materialized out of thin air. They seemed to rattle in silent laughter, as they charged towards the two remaining Yôkai, growing in size as they travelled, until they almost filled out the entire hallway. The red-faced demon skidded to a halt and looked at the enormous skull with wide eyes, before thinking of turning tail and running away. However, she did not make it and the skull bit down on her, detonating the instant its jaws came together. The explosion rocked the entire building, and the heat wave scorched my face. From the flames, the woman with the meat cleaver emerged, only to be met by the other skull, which opened its jaws.

She did not seem deterred and raised her weapon to attack it, when suddenly Rin ran past me in a ferocious sprint. The cleaver hit the skull, which instantly blew up right in front of the woman. Once again, she emerged unscathed from the explosion and charged forward, only to be met by the Kasha's boots to the face. I imagined that if an explosion did not daunt the Yôkai, this assault would not, either. Apparently I was wrong, as it sent her flying backwards. What followed was a one-sided massacre, as claws emerged from Rin's fingers and tore into the woman until she was only a bloody mess.

I sat in the wheelbarrow, watching it all until the end, dumbfounded by the visceral actions of the Kasha. When she was done, she licked her bloodied hands and picked up the enemy's remains, before returning to me.

"Make some space for this," She said, her tone of voice so cold that the inferno that was the hallway behind her seemed to freeze over. I did not want to sit next to a corpse in that shape and climbed out of the wheelbarrow, ignoring the pain in my right side. "There are three more corpses to cart away, so either help me or stay out of my way." I decided I would rather stay out of her way, and leaned against a pillar, as she began to put the burned or dismembered corpses into the wheelbarrow. I knew that the thick dark crust inside the cart was not from hauling coal, but now I had certainty as to its true identity. I wanted to take a bath so badly that it might have ranked higher on my priority list than getting Suika's Sake to heal my wounds at this point. I even ignored her mentioning only four corpses even though five had come for us.

Then a pulse of pain ran through my body and reminded me of how badly I was injured considering I was still a human being, and the only thing I wanted was to pass out and stop feeling it. However, watching Rin collecting body parts and licking her fingers from time to time, I had to hold onto my consciousness, lest I would be considered another corpse and thrown into the mix.

When she was done, she began pushing the wheelbarrow towards the exit, her mannerism reverting back to her previous mischievous and playful self with every bouncy step she took. It appeared that she was in a good mood from having collected a number of bodies. I hated to bring her down to earth, but there was a reason we had come here.

"Weren't you following Okuu?" I pressed out from between my lips, suppressing a tremble caused by the pain of the ribs stabbing into the lung. I needed medical attention fast.

"Ah, I almost forgot, I need to protect Satori-sama!" Rin yelled and turned her cart around, before running towards the residential direction of the hallway. "Hm, but the defense spell is not responding. Something might have happened to her."

I closed my right eye and opened my left for a split second, knowing that it was enough to break the spell with just this; any more than a glimpse would put too much strain on my body considering the state I was in. The hallway snapped towards us, and with it the still flying Okuu, who did not stop and instead crashed into the heavy door at full speed. In fact, she crashed through the door right at the moment the spell was deactivated, and left a hole in the wood. As if the laws of physics were delayed, the entire door disintegrated into fire a split second later. My jaw dropped at the destructive potential of this Yôkai.

"Who is she?" I pointed at the hole.

"Reiuji Utsuho," Rin just commented and pushed her wheelbarrow through the doorway, behind which the girl with the jet black wings had come to a stop. I pushed my protesting body off the pillar and followed them slowly.

The room had been completely transformed. A number of animals I recognized lay motionlessly on the floor, most of the furniture had been smashed and there were marks in the walls that resembled bullet holes. One particular mark of destruction stood out from all the others, though; a crater in the floor, spanning at least four meters in diameter, was right underneath a large hole in the ceiling. Somebody or something had crashed through there and directly into the room, to cause all the havoc we now witnessed the evidence for.

"Satori-sama!" Utsuho screamed and walked around frantically, searching for her in the rubble. Rin let go of her cart to help in the search.

I wanted to help and thought that maybe through my true vision, I would be able to see a hint as to what had transpired in this room. I closed my right eye, ready to open my left, when a faint whisper in the depths of my mind stopped me. It must have been a single word and I had not been able to make it out on a conscious level, but it triggered a cascade of emotions unlike anything I had ever felt before. In an instant, I revisited my cataclysmic dream of a shattered, bifurcated dimension of existence and nothingness, as I felt like my soul wandered its desolate madness for another eternity. It caused me to flick open both eyes at the same time in a reaction not much different from waking up in response to the climax of a nightmare; I had broken free from it, unlike last time, when I had lost something precious. There was no feeling of loss this time.

However, the visions of the world before me rushed into my mind, for the first time since the departure of half my soul from the temple of my body, through both of my eyes. Unexpectedly, no pain assaulted me, and an unprecedented calmness flowed into every corner of my battered body, as a feeling of warmth spread out from my left eye. All my pains gradually faded, as if they had been all just a dream, and sensation returned into my ruined right arm. The world was not a play of maddening colors and spiritual fragments superimposed on the reality witnessed by my human right eye, as I thought the result of opening both eyes would be. Instead, I could see the flow of energy in the air, footprints of the souls of the living and the dead, and the strong flames within those present and alive.

There was no surprise in my mind, as I turned my head to look down on my right arm, to see that its discoloration from internal bleeding had disappeared. Instead, a thin glow surrounded it, prompting me to move my hand to realize that the damage had completely healed. The same must have happened to my ribs, as drawing breath no longer caused a stabbing pain in my chest. I returned my gaze to the room, to look at the fiery outline that surrounded Rin's body, and the intense whiteness that was Utsuho's form. It felt like I was looking into the sun and I instinctively turned away my gaze. It fell on the crater in the middle of the room, from which like smoke from a departed rocket, a trail of glittering spirit dust disappeared through the hole in the ceiling. Whatever had broken through here had gone back the same way as it had come in. Despite having never seen them, within the dust I could make out three distinct souls, of which, I somehow just knew, two belonged to the Komeiji sisters.

I blinked, and the moment of transcendence was over. The floating feeling disappeared and I was brought back to reality by the realization that throughout the entire moment, I had not drawn breath. My lungs were burning and I fell to my knees, gasping for air.

"What's wrong?" Rin noticed first and turned around alarmed.

"They..." I gasped, trying to tell her my discovery as quickly as possible. "... have... *hack*... Satori... Koishi-" Drawing in painful breaths all the while suppressing the shaking in my body from the lack of oxygen, I attempted to press out words in a coherent manner without wasting time or precious air for unnecessary syllables and repetitions. "Up!"

Utsuho, having listened intently, was the first to react, as she shot up through the hole, once again causing a storm in her wake. After recovering from it, Rin walked up to me and pat my back, as I was coughing violently from having inhaled ash and dust from Utsuho's takeoff.

"How...?" Was all she asked.

I only responded by looking up at her with both my eyes open. Through my left, which still retained an enhanced level of vision, after the peak moment had passed, I could see myself in the reflection of Rin's eyes. And in it, my left eye's colors had become inverted, featuring a white iris and a black sclera. I was not surprised, but the Kasha was taken aback by its appearance.

"You were hiding something like that in your closed left eye all this time?"

"I... never knew... it looked like that," I honestly responded. During my training with Suika for the past few months I had never had the opportunity to look into a mirror, no less with my left eye open. Or maybe it had actually been normal up until a few moments ago, when something happened, of which I was certain was irreversible. I finally caught my breath, and while the pain in my lungs was slowly subsiding, I stood up to ascertain myself of the feeling in all my limbs. I had not lost something else in exchange for becoming able to see rather normally with my left eye again, apparently.

Suddenly, Utsuho crashed back through the hole, impacted the ground with her gray boot, causing the floor to dent, and fixed her gaze - and the bronze octagonal tube - on me. Something was burning in its depths, just like the flame in her eyes, both of which I did not like being on the receiving end of.

"There... was nothing 'up'," She growled. For the first time I could properly make out her voice, as it was not used for screaming. Her tone was menacing, and the roughness in it, accompanied by what I could only describe as an "ashen" pitch, gave me the impression that it was not only rarely used, but that the place she chose to reside in affected her lungs. The voice, coupled with her jet black wings, reminded me specifically of a crow or raven. "You... know something! Speak!" Intense heat spread from her body and seared my face, but Rin stepped between her and me fearlessly.

"Kyôma was with me all the time, and he brought Koishi-sama back from the surface. He wouldn't do anything to them!" She defended me, causing both Utsuho and me to look at her in surprise. The heat wave subsided slightly, but the intensity in the winged girl's eyes did not disappear, as she focused on me. Her expression left no doubt as to what she thought of me, but since she had no evidence regarding my involvement with Satori and Koishi's disappearance, she could not refute Rin's defense.

"I saw a trace of their spirits and another, unfamiliar one's, leading up through the hole. I don't know anything else," I responded truthfully, trying not to sound defensive. "But I have a general idea of what might be going on." The last line I added under my breath, and only Rin seemed to hear it.

"I'll see if I can pick up their trace. Okuu, please be patient," Rin quickly said and took out a bottle from the folds of her long skirt. Within that bottle was a tiny person with translucent butterfly wings and a bluish glow - a fairy. Opening the bottle, the Kasha shook the fairy out of it and grabbed it by its tiny body. "This guy here says that there are traces of Satori-sama and Koishi-sama's spirit. Follow it!" With this, she threw the fairy towards the hole in the ceiling, where it stopped for a moment to rectify itself, stuck its tongue out to her abusive owner, before searching around her. Apparently she found the same trace I had and disappeared up through the hole.

"Okuu!" The cat-eared girl yelled, and Utsuho instantly followed. Rin took her wheelbarrow, still filled with corpses, and moved to follow, when she realized that I would not be able to climb in to come along. She stopped to look at the pile of body parts, then at me, as if to assess whether to keep her loot or take me in. I did not plan on sitting in the cart again, now that I had seen first-hand what it was used for, and shook my head. An expression that was the mixture of relief and disappointment on her face, she took off after Utsuho and the fairy.

I was left alone in the rubble that remained of the previously elegant living room of the Komeiji sisters.

I have images (fanart) for all the characters from the original game series, which I use as guidelines for their appearances as I describe them. I'm thinking of posting them in an encyclopedia-kind of chapter, but I would like to hear your opinions on that: Do you prefer to imagine their looks yourself or do you not mind seeing pictures? I'm aware of the fact that anyone can Google the names that have appeared so far either way. But I also have some of my original characters drawn, and they're included in my offer to post images.