Naraka’s Palace, Endless Plains — The next day. Yatagarasu stood perched by its master’s side, tilting its head and blinking at Naraka while he sat in his foyer. A bowl of fish pottage sat cooling on the table in front of him. It was a food he often ate as a boy in the countryside. Back then, the meat was poor and scarce. A few herbs and thin vegetables were added to the stock for substance. His grandmother always made sure to give him two bowls in the winter, to help warm him after a long day of toiling with chores.

Nostalgia flooded back into his mind whenever he tasted it. It was peasant food, but still remained his first choice when presented with the vast wealth of delicacies he could choose now.

“Can’t believe I’m almost one-thousand years old, Yata… Heavens, I’m old,” Naraka laughed. His feathered friend squawked back in reply.

Taking an ornate pair of chopsticks in hand, he pinched a slice of fish and veggies between the utensils. With expertise and grace, he swiftly brought the sticks to his mouth and blew lightly on the morsels before eating them.

Naraka had been so focused on his memories that he nearly tuned out the television he had on in front of him. It was a large widescreen, displaying the image of a woman in a white suit while a band cued her in. The station was tuned to a late-night show from the previous evening, which Naraka had looked into upon a tip from Hurr Nidar. Clutching onto a microphone in hand, the suited woman looked into the camera with an experienced gleam in her eyes.

“Hello and welcome back, I’m Barb Baylock. Tonight, we have a special guest on the show! Coming all the way down from the imperial palace, it’s none other than the acclaimed hero and a distinguished member of our brave men and women out there in service to the Empire. Please, give a warm round-of-applause to Sinblazerrrrr Grendel!!”

The show’s band burst out into an introduction riff of horns and drums as Grendel walked onto the stage from behind a curtain. Naraka chewed as his eyes focused on the screen and Yatagarasu squawked.

The Jikininki waved to the audience, his usual attire stripped away for a more modest suit of olive green with a black and gold tie. Naraka panned his gaze down to Grendel’s feet, noticing he was wearing open-toed loafers.

—He can’t even be bothered to wear normal shoes for such an occasion…

Grendel made his way over to the plush seat situated next to Barb’s desk. Before reaching his destination, he spun on his heels and positioned his hands over to a few ladies offscreen in a finger-gun motion. With a wink, he sat down as the crescendo of music flared out.

“What an entrance!” Barb declared with a rehearsed laugh.

The audience began to clap and cheer afterwards, initiating a mock bow from Grendel in his seat.

“Thank you, thank you, haha! You know, I spent all night going over that one in my room,” he said with a calm, relaxed air about him.

With boisterous laughter, the crowd before him ate it up and laughed for a solid four seconds. Grendel smiled and crossed one leg over the other.

“But really, it’s very nice to be here tonight! You’re looking lovely as ever, Barb.”

Barb laughed slightly at the remark.

“Why, thank you!” she said to the audience before turning back to Grendel. “You know, I’m recently single,” Baylock joked.

Grendel laughed as the audience began to woo over the comment.

“I’m flattered, thank you. But my heart will always belong to every one of my wonderful fans!” he said, buttering up the viewers. “That’s right, every one of you out there!”

The audience went crazy with applause like they were intoxicated by Grendel’s very presence.

“I guess I’ll just have to share you then, Sinblazer!” Barb laughed as she segued into the next part of her interview.

“I must ask, Grendel. We’ve all heard about the new Jikininki in town, Bloodstrider Mura. Is there any chance we’ll be able to see him anytime soon?”

Naraka took another bite of his pottage. The public had no idea what had occurred with Mura; his arrest and trial were top secret after all. Perhaps this was what Nidar had referred to earlier?

“Yes, yes! He actually just got back from a very important mission, search and rescue, that kind of thing.”

—What?

“So ultimately, he’s been unable to make any official public appearances yet, but tomorrow actually, His Majesty is planning on awarding Mura personally with a medal of bravery,” Grendel lied through his teeth as the audience clapped in support. “Now, Mura and I get along really well. That boy is a patriot, through and through. He probably wouldn’t want me to say this, but Mura… he… he saved me from the attack at Tel Megiddo.”

People in the audience gasped and clapped solemnly for Grendel as Barb put her hand up to her chest in shock.

“My goodness, I had no idea!”

“Yes, yes… Mura is a truly humble man. A hero, more than I could hope to be. He pulled several people from the fire, including myself as I happened to be frequenting the tavern for a pint and got knocked out in the explosion by that… that cowardly terrorist.”

Grendel stopped himself for a moment as if to catch his breath, smiling and wiping his eye briefly.

“But yes, he may be new to the team, but I have to say… there isn’t a man I’d trust more than the Bloodstrider. I’m honored to have him by my side, and I know that His Majesty truly trusts him with his life—”

Naraka muted the television and set his bowl down. He reclined against the floor in shock at what he was processing. Of course it was all a lie, as they wouldn’t just come out and say what was actually happening. No government ever had. But what was this really, why go through the smoke and mirrors to such an extent?

“I feel as though we just lost even more than I had imagined, Yata…”

He hoped it was simply his paranoia, hardened by centuries of encountering such tricks. But everything appeared like what he was witnessing was another scapegoat being set up for the sacrifice. Just as Sierro had been.

—They still have Mura’s clothing in lockup… his weapon too.

He had to uncover the truth before whatever occurred tomorrow morning at the planned award ceremony. No doubt it would be televised, every award of that kind was, when given to a Jikininki. The people ate it up.

Yatagarasu flapped its wings and flew over to Naraka’s shoulder where it landed. Mura would never be safe as long as such corruption continued to exist within the empire.

“I have to protect him. I have to recover any strength of his that I can scavenge…” Naraka said, looking at his pet. “It’s my oath to him. He must survive at any cost.”

❇ ❇ ❇

Shores of Ema, Japan — That same morning. An ethereal blue stitch materialized in the skies above the Sea of Japan hours earlier. As the waves crashed together in the moonlit night, the foreign line opened into a gaping maw of cobalt. The void vomited forth two entities, causing them to plummet into the churning waters nearly twenty meters below.

It was eventually daylight when Lilith awoke, her eyelids spreading open as she lay prone on a rough surface. As she slowly started to realize what she was laying on was sand, her eyes shot open as Lilith’s lungs spasmed into consciousness.

The yokai got onto all fours, hacking and coughing as water from the sea spilled out of her mouth and nostrils. The sensation burned her sinuses and throat, but as it left her body, she became increasingly better. Looking down at the damp sand below her, the cawing of seagulls filled her ears as a cold draft blew between her legs.

Horrified, she immediately recovered her modesty and retreated into a more concealed position. There wasn’t much that she remembered. A spike… and blood. Screams of pain. Flashes of memory darted around her mind, but remained elusive. It wasn’t until she had covered her breasts that she saw the black mark between them. A series of lines arching into triangles and other occultic patterns.

“What did they do…? Mura?”

Lilith waited for a second before realizing her friend was absent.

“Mura?? Mura!!”

She looked around the beach, noticing no one around. Getting up while covering herself, she began to run across the beach until she reached a clump of shadows in the distance being washed over continuously by waves.

Approaching the odd mass revealed it to be a naked man, his skin partially sunburned and slick from the moisture.

“Mura!! Oh thank god!”

She rushed over to him as fast as her legs could carry her, stumbling along the way but regaining her balance. Getting onto her knees, she knelt beside him and rolled Mura over. The first thing she noticed was an identical black tattoo above his pectoral, bringing back waves of what had happened.

That could wait, though. For now, Mura was unconscious. Naraka’s first aid came back to her immediately, having learned CPR from the demonic teacher in their short time training.

She placed her hand between his pectorals and the other hand atop it, using her upper body weight to begin compressions. After performing roughly thirty or so, she began to notice a stinging pain in her knees. Looking down at the sand she was kneeling on, she saw something that surprised her.

Blood was pooling out. Not from Mura though, but her own knees. The sand was no longer granular, but a shining surface that had cracked apart underneath the weight of her body.

“Glass…?! When the hell??”

Sure enough, a thin layer of glass surrounded Mura’s stationary body like a crater. Beyond a meter or so however, it was just regular sand one would find at any ordinary beach.

She couldn’t let the surprise or pain get to her now though, she needed to continue her first aid.

Tilting Mura’s head back and opening his mouth, she resumed her compressions. With every push, it dug the small jagged shards further into her knees.

“Come on… wake up, Mura. Don’t make me do the kissing thing!”

As if on cue, Mura shuddered and coughed up a mass of water and phlegm. Rolling over, he continued to cough until his body regained consciousness.

Similar to Lilith, he wasn’t sure what had occurred prior to this moment. Only brief images remained in his aching skull, the wound from Nergal having scabbed over by now.

He weakly propped himself up, blinking a few times before noticing Lilith before him.

“Lilith…?” he asked as if trying to regain his senses. He looked into her eyes, noticing the girl’s knotted, messy wet hair. Glancing down briefly revealed more of the girl he wished to notice, causing his gaze to immediately shoot straight up to her blushing face.

“You bastard! I didn’t look at your… thing!” she shouted, covering herself.

“I’m sorry!! It was the mark, I swear!!” Mura shouted back, covering his crotch.

—They really had to take our clothes, the pricks…

Mura looked up at the clouds and the blue sky, noticing the familiar white sun shining down upon their skin. Shifting his weight, he heard a crack like someone stepping on a bottle.

“Ow, shit! What the hell!?”

Mura recoiled and rolled away from Lilith, feeling something scratch his lower back. Sitting up, he saw the crater of fragmented glass where he was once laying. That, and the blood on the sand from Lilith’s wounds.

“You’re hurt!! What happened?!”

“It’s nothing, don’t worry about it! Just… look away for a sec!” Lilith said back as Mura complied.

Lilith grimaced, sitting down on the sand as she gripped a small shard of glass within her kneecap’s flesh. Closing her eyes and gritting her teeth, she yanked it out and tossed it aside. She did the same for two other pieces until the foreign objects were removed entirely from her body.

“There, all better… Stay here and rest, okay Mura? I’ll go find something for us to wear, we can’t keep going around like this.”

Mura nodded, covering his eyes and flashing her a thumbs up.

“Good luck! Let me know if you need anything!”

Lilith got up, her cuts feeling slightly better now but still stinging. Covering her body with both hands, she walked across the beach on her trek for clothing.

Meanwhile, Mura sat back as he took in his surroundings. There were a few fishing boats in the far horizon, with no people or trash on the beach. Just a few gulls, which would serve as their breakfast if they couldn’t find anything. The main feeling he felt right now was hunger, not having eaten anything proper since his meal the previous day before the trial.

Looking down at the new mark on his body to take his mind off the pangs in his stomach, he noticed it sparkled faintly in the sunlight. He didn’t feel powerless? Testing to see if it would sting or shock him in some fashion, he braced himself and touched the mark.

It felt like scar tissue, causing Mura to realize that it wasn’t a simple marking inked into his skin. It was singed into the flesh, as if he had been pressed with a hot iron. Yet, there was no pain. Not even any inflammation. It was numb, nothing more.

Without warning, footsteps approached him from behind; shifting the sand.

“Lilith? You back already?”

Mura turned to see his friend, but was met with something much different than what he expected.

“Oh shit!! Wait, no!!” Mura screamed out in terror.

All the while, Lilith walked back towards where she had left Mura. After looking for about six minutes, she came across an empty trash bag which she fashioned into a makeshift dress. It was crude, but workable.

“Hey, Mura! I found one for you too! What do you think, pretty fashionable…” she trailed off, noticing Mura was gone. “… Right?”

Scanning the beach, she didn’t see any trace of her friend.

“Mura?? You better not be hiding from me, I’m really not in the mood right now! God, he’s worse than a kid wondering away from a parent in a department store…”

Once again, without Lilith realizing it, someone approached her from behind as she looked around for her friend.

Sensing someone behind her, she smiled and turned around.

“Nice try, but you really shouldn’t walk around so loudly—“

Looking up and opening her eyes, she saw it wasn’t Mura before her. Instead, it was a bald man in his sixties. Lilith’s ego deflated as she shrunk down in fear.

“Mura!!! Creeper alert, creeper alert!!! This guy can see me!!!” she yelled out, looking around frantically.

“Hush, girl!!” the man spat out in a thick regional accent. He sounded like the protagonist from a yakuza movie with the physical appearance of someone you’d expect to find on a fishing manual. He crossed his arms before speaking once more at the frightened girl.

“You must be the yokai your friend mentioned. Come with me, we’ll get you fixed up proper instead of looking like a gremlin,” he sighed. “My name is Zuiho Matsumoto. Welcome back to Japan, kid.”