Kishin walked out of the alleyway, slipping the white glove off his hand and casually shaking away the ethereal blood dripping from it. He made his way across the sidewalks; acting as if nothing had happened just moments earlier.

Not too far from where the station was, there was a small restaurant nestled between a few surrounding buildings. It had a sign is neon Japanese characters that read “Park Yakisoba”. Clearly the place didn’t have enough cash to afford a more luxurious sign, but Kishin preferred things simple like that.

He removed his black coat and folded it overtop his arm before walking in through the automated sliding glass doors. Kishin was greeted inside by a man who bowed and greeted him in a friendly manner. The inside was filled with nostalgic décor of black wood carved designs and motifs along the walls, with wooden floors covered in pale green rugs and traditional zashiki seating.

“Hello, I should be expectin’ another for a business meetin’,” Kishin told the greeter.

“Of course, sir. Shall I take your name?”

“Sure, name is Kisen.”

“Aha, like the old poet? Quite an uncommon surname this day and age!”

“Tell me about it, haha! I get that all the time,” Kishin laughed in a friendly manner. “Just send him over to my table when he arrives.”

The greeter nodded as a waitress appeared and smiled at Kishin, who then led him over to a table close to the floor. He bowed and thanked her before taking his seat at the head of the table, facing the entrance. Kneeling in front of the table, Kishin took the customary warm towel placed there for him and washed his hands of any remaining dirt and blood.

—Gods, times have changed. I remember back when this city was stinkin’ of horse shit as far as the eye could see. Kinda makes me wish for that again… before everyone just decided to get themselves in a goddamn hurry.

After about seven minutes, an older man walked into the shop with spectacles and a brown suit jacket over his arm. His hair and beard were whitened with age. The man’s face and brow were lined with wrinkled creases as well, but the most striking feature was his long hooked nose. The same greeter conversed with the man, but Kishin couldn’t make out the words from his distance.

—That the guy? Crap, he’s older than I thought he’d be! Maybe I should’ve waited before sittin’?’

The waitress led the old man over to the table Kishin was seated at.

“Aha, Mr. Kisen, sir! Good to see you!”

The two men bowed to each other as the waitress stood confused with a smile still on her face.

“H-He’s your senior, sir??” the waitress asked the elderly man. The man raised his thick bushy eyebrows in shock.

“Of course he is! Mr. Kisen is a great achiever, I just happened to get through life with little success! Don’t go off judging by appearances, missy!”

The waitress apologized with widened eyes and bowed repeatedly before leaving to get the complimentary tea.

Kishin smiled nervously as the woman left before looking back at the old man. The elder looked vaguely familiar to him, somewhere he had seen that nose before nearly an eon ago.

“Lord Zenkibō!” Kishin proclaimed in shock.

“So you do remember me, I had hoped so!” the grizzled elder laughed. “How many centuries has it been since you sought out your old teacher?”

Kishin immediately bowed before the man. This wasn’t his junior in any sense, despite what Zenkibō claimed. The old man was a tengu lord in actuality, having command over Mount Ōmine. It was Zenkibō who had trained Kishin a millennia ago in the art of swordsmanship.

“Alright, stop with that bowing nonsense you’re embarrassing me. Sit down, we have a lot to discuss.”

Kishin nodded quickly and sat down after Zenkibō had. As Zenkibō cleaned his hands, Kishin gave him a serious look.

“Is everythin’ okay, my lord?”

“Yes, my apologies for the late arrival. I received an updated scrap of intel from one of my scouts on the way over,” the old tengu said, whispering to Kishin. “We have confirmation that the Poacher known as Shuten is contracted to a female student in Ema. Not only is he enlisted, but the student has a second Poacher in her services.”

“Does the second one have an identity or alias?” Kishin asked, his face alert.

“Unfortunately, none we know at the moment. Reports show she wears a discernible sick mask in public, one with a smile motif.”

The waitress walked back over with a ceramic tea pot, seizing any talk of the supernatural from the two.

“Thank you, hon,” Zenkibō smiled.

Kishin accepted his wordlessly, but bowed nevertheless. He kept his eyes on the woman, never letting go of the notion that someone in the building could be a spy. He waited until she had left before resuming their conversation.

“You’re positive this place is cleared?” Kishin murmured.

“Absolutely. I’m certain in everything I do. Perhaps your true sight is failing you if you’re this paranoid?”

“It’s not from your lack of trainin’, my lord. These days we’re livin’ in, folk don’t need to have a mark to verify an allegiance...”

Zenkibō nodded grimly, agreeing with his student’s assessment. Reaching into his coat pocket, the beak-nosed man retrieved an envelope; bound and sealed. He passed it to Kishin underneath the table, keeping it from any prying eyes.

“Take this, it contains everything we’ve collected on the investigation so far.”

Kishin took the envelope, sliding it into the pocket of his coat that sat on the seat next to him.

“While we’re on the subject, I had an update myself on the walk over.”

“Oho, do tell!”

“A shitidama in the makin’, tryin’ to possess a girl from Limbo,” Kishin spoke in a hushed tone. “Exterminated him, but before he left, he told me there’s a soul supplier here in the city. Should be a Grafter, by the sound of it all. He told me the supplier is a woman runnin’ things out of a cabaret.”

Kishin took a sip of his tea before resuming.

“Any of that ring a bell?”

Zenkibō stroked his silver beard curiously.

“And you trust the words of a shitidama?”

“Lies rarely spill from the lips of doomed men,” Kishin said with a grin. “I could hear it in his voice. He was strugglin’ to remember everythin’ he could so I’d spare his life.”

“I see…” Zenkibō said, slightly perturbed. The murder of his Thrall impacted him in ways the old tengu hadn’t seen before. “Well, I’ll have my men gather a list of cabarets in the city. Any that have changed hands recently or displayed odd activity will be at the top.”

Kishin’s smile relaxed as the waitress came back yet again.

“What can I get for you gentlemen this evening?” she said jovially.

The two men stopped their conversation for the time being, having exhausted their exchange of information. As they readied for a relatively normal meal in the yakisoba restaurant, evil continued to lurk within the unseen ethereal gutters of Japan.

❇ ❇ ❇

Sekien Academy, Ema — 2:45pm. Tomoe Nagata sat in her uncomfortable chair while listening to Mr. Oka’s lecture on anatomy. Ever since that night roughly two weeks ago, she couldn’t shake the thought of what had occurred with the strange man she had met. All she could remember were vague flashes of memory, which seemed more like nightmares after waking up in her bed the next morning.

Despite the logistics of everything however, she could swear what she experienced was real. Tomoe was able to recall a handsome detective with long shaggy black hair tied down by a headband. She even fought a large monster and managed to defeat it! But then before that was the revelation of finding Junko’s body… missing a vertebrae from her neck. The acrid stench of maggot-infested corpses filled her nostrils every time the ghastly image was brought back from the annals of her mind.

The academy was closed that day on account of police investigating the schoolyard. They had discovered Junko’s body and several others in a cave down within a local park forest, along with signs of a disturbance at the school’s entrance. Tomoe never feared for her safety. She just saw the news report that day, feeling as though such a coincidental discovery validated the events that had occurred in her dreams supposedly.

But were they dreams? They couldn’t have been, everything felt so real. From the freshly washed clothing by her bedside to her fuzzy memories. If monsters could exist, it wasn’t out of the question that methods to erase memories of such concepts did as well. She attended the funeral of her best friend the following day after the discovery. It laid some questions she had to rest, but unearthed too many more. The killer was caught, at least that's what the news said.

“Miss Nagata?”

Tomoe snapped out of her thoughts, turning her attention to Mr. Oka who was looking at her.

“Yes, sorry. What did you ask?”

She smiled sheepishly as others in the classroom giggled. Mr. Oka sighed and smiled, turning his attention back to the rest of the class.

“So kind of you to return to the land of the living, Miss Nagata. To catch you and any other daydreamers up, the topic is the spinal column,” Oka said, circling an illustration of the human spine on the classroom’s projection board.

“Now, the spinal column has always been the backbone of many beliefs throughout history, haha. In many old cultures, the spine is what linked us to the gods. It served as a medium between heaven and earth, keeping our souls linked with the gods during our earthly stay.”

Mr. Oka clicked a button, causing the projector board to display a hologram of the spinal column with the topmost disc highlighted in red. The sight made Tomoe sick to her stomach, but as to why she couldn’t say. It was peculiar, but worrying.

“Now class, this topmost disc is named after the figure from Greek mythology!” Oka said to no one’s excitement. “Exciting, I know! Does anyone remember from their homework what this is called?”

A thin arm immediately shot up, belonging to a girl with rectangular spectacles and wispy black hair. She barely had any fullness to her lips, her face slightly gaunt and pale but still retaining an alluring beauty.

“Ah yes, Miss Katsukami!” Oka said, pointing to the bespectacled girl.

“That’s the Atlas,” Katsukami said, her voice faint and slightly deeper than most girls her age.

“Correct! In Greek myth, Atlas was the titan condemned to carrying the entire globe on his shoulders for eternity. Similarly, the Atlas vertebrae supports the weight of our globes, being the strongest and most superior.”

Katsukami smiled as the teacher congratulated her briefly. She looked around the room at several others to see if they were impressed, but didn’t see anything out of the ordinary.

Her smile dropped, especially after seeing her crush Hideki looking at another girl named Ichika. She had brown hair tied back with beautiful features and a large bust. But most imperative was that she had Hideki’s attention. In total it was everything Katsukami envied.

She balled her hands up underneath her desk in subdued anger. Just as she did, the speaker in the classroom and halls chimed out the same tune they did every day.

“Well, looks like that’s everything for today everyone! Make sure to write down notes for tonight’s homework because that will be on the test, guaranteed!” Mr. Oka said as the teens collected their belongings and talked over him, making their way out of the room.

Katsukami grabbed her books, slipping them into her bag and slinging it over her shoulder. She looked for a chance to catch Hideki alone on his way out so that she could talk to him. Her confidence had recently been bolstered and she believed this was the day to ensnare her teenage love.

Scouring the flood of students for her crush, it took her some moments to find the handsome boy she sought after.

“You can do this, Kiriko… You got this,” she mumbled to herself.

She tailed him as he walked into the wood-décor hallways, talking to a friend of his. When he said goodbye to his friend to get a drink from the water fountain, Kiriko Katsukami made her move.

Arching her back to make her small chest seem more robust, she approached the boy.

“Hey there, Tanaka…”

The boy looked up to see the girl standing to his right, looking oddly erect in her posture.

He swallowed the water in his mouth, a small drop escaping his lips which he wiped away with his sleeve as he stood straight.

“Oh, hi Katsukami!” Hideki said obliviously.

“I attended the game last night! I just, uh, wanted to say that you were pretty cool, heh.”

Hideki smiled and ruffled his hair.

“Oh, that? Thanks for coming! I didn’t know you were there, wait… I think I remember seeing you in the bleachers, haha! Glad you liked the game, even happier I could score that goal against the rival school.”

“Seriously! You were just like a player from this basketball anime— I mean, one I’ve seen on commercials, you know.”

Hideki smiled, raising an eyebrow.

“Do you watch Kero Ball?! Dude, I like, love that shit, haha. I wish I could jump like a frog-human does, I’d never have to train again!”

“Y-Yeah! I mean, I totally watch it too! When he shot that goal by jumping over his rival, Goutaku, I shouted from the hype!” Kiriko said happily, her heart beating faster and faster. This was going better than she had expected. “Honestly Tanaka, you’re m-much cooler than anyone in Kero Ball…”

Tanaka blushed and laughed lightly, turning his head away.

“Damn Katsukami, thanks. Hey, you wanna maybe… go to the mall this weekend?”

Kiriko’s heart felt like it stopped, causing her head to go all dizzy. The advice she received really had worked.

“YES!” she unintentionally shouted out. “Yes, please. Here’s my number, okay? Can I have yours??”

“Haha, sure thing. Hit me up in texts later, I wanna know what other fights you enjoyed.”

Hideki gave his number to Kiriko, blushing when theirs hands touched during the exchange. She slipped the paper containing his digits into her skirt pocket, smiling giddily.

“I’ll see you later, Tanaka!” she shouted as she prepped to leave. Hideki waved goodbye with a smile, watching as she ran off through the halls.

On the train home, Kiriko immediately programmed his number into her cell phone; marking the contact name as “♡Hideki♡”. Her mind cooked up all kinds of fantasies of what they could do at the mall and what might lead after, passing the time until she got home.

As she raced into her large and beautifully maintained home located in the Daimae District, she kicked her shoes off; noticing that her parents weren’t yet home. Pounding up the stairs, she flung open her door and squealed with joy.

“It worked, Kuchisake! It really worked, he asked me out on a date! Oh my godddddd~!” Kiriko screamed excitedly.

Extending from the shadows of her room walked two figures of differing size, Shuten and Kuchisake.

“I’m so happy he accepted, Kiriko!” Kuchisake said, smiling behind her black sick mask as Shuten smiled too.

“Thanks guys! Now to seal the deal, we just need to kill that slut Ichika so she can’t steal my sweet Hideki away,” Kiriko said jubilantly. “After that, we’ll snuff out the interloper Tomoe. At last, I can finally have my happily-ever after~”