Chris barged into the room and locked the door.

“What happened?” He asked with urgency.

A jittery, disheveled Tayte was pacing around the room with her sneakers on. She stopped to look at Chris in his striped pajamas and holster belt around his waist. “My reflection,” she began to explain while she was still jumpy. “It got out of the mirror and attacked me, and…” she looked to the open bathroom door and froze.

“What is it?” Chris asked.

Tayte walked towards the bathroom. Chris followed.

She stared back at her messy reflection in the square mirror. “This mirror…” Tayte spun back to Chris. “What shape is the mirror in your bathroom?”

“Square.”

Tayte nodded and looked away, thinking back. “The mirror used to be oval-shaped. But I also remember it being square-shaped…” she recalled. “The mirrors changed shape at one point. You have to believe me—”

“Of course I believe you! Why wouldn’t I believe you? I left you that note for a reason.” Chris stroked his chin and eyed the shattered glass on the ground. “Mirrors? This has the ungaikyo written all over it.”

“Oh, right. That’s one of the roaming Relics. Wait, how did you know? Do you know the abilities or not?”

“I know about the mythical creature that the Relic is based on. Relics don’t have the exact abilities as their beastly counterparts. Ungaikyo is a yokai, a tsukumogami. It shows a monstrous version of anybody who looks at it, and that’s about everything according to the legend.”

Tayte rubbed the bump on her forehead. “Well, we know now that it can make copies and when you hit it. You suffer from the same damage.”

“Seriously? Shit…” Chris took a moment to think and shuffled out of the bathroom. Tayte was right behind him. “I don’t know who could be behind it. If it’s Adisa, then we’re both dead, but then again, this isn’t his style. Our opponent is attacking while in hiding.” He banged his fist onto the desk. “How did they know we checked into this hotel?”

“We have to go find them and then take them out.”

“We need a plan,” Chris said austerely.

“Sure, but I know it doesn’t involve us staying here waiting to be attacked again.” Tayte ambled to the door and unlocked it.

Chris caught up with her in the darkened hall. “How did you get rid of the copy if you can’t hurt it without hurting yourself?” Chris whispered.

“It just disappeared on its own. Maybe the owner of the Relic called it off,” Tayte said on a normal level. She looked around. “Where could she be watching us from?” Her eyes fell on Chris’s matching slippers. She raised her eyes to give him a flinty look. “Slippers? You’re called in for an emergency and you take slippers with you?”

“They give me much needed mobility in fights, okay?” he whispered.

“So, you are more reckless than I thought,” Tayte chirped.

“This is a perfectly calculated choice, Tayte, and keep your voice down!” Chris hissed at a low level. “Let’s see if we can sneak up on the Relic Wielder and take them out without waking up the entire—”

Chris screamed in a high-pitched voice and jumped back at the sight of a smiling duplicate.

Tayte stopped and focused on Chris as he regained his composure.

With his hand over his heart, he looked back into the oval mirror by his side. His reflection had a fixed devilish smile. “That’s a weird place to put a mirror…” he trailed off. The copy moved its hand toward the mirror. “Oh, damn.”

Tayte grasped Chris’s shoulder and pulled him away from the mirror as the copy dove out of the looking glass and got up quickly.

It beamed at Chris with its glowing blue eyes and said, “Uoy lliik ot gniog si wonk ot gnideen htiw noissesbo ruoy.”

Chris was scrambled for a moment and then shouted back, “Yeah, your mom, too!”

The copy’s smile grew.

“Stay back,” Chris took a step forward and made a grappling stance, hunched over slightly and hands raised with open palms.

The copy made the first move and zipped to Chris. It was bested by a perfect counterattack. Using another grapple move, Chris spun behind it and locked it in an expert chokehold.

“Kamaitachi!” Tayte equipped the Relic out of the hole in her chest.

Chris’s eyes bugged out at the sight. “Whoa! What’re you doing?” He said in a choked voice. “You said that any damage to the copy is reflected onto the original!”

Tayte’s face went blank, and she lowered the Relic. “Oh, yeah…”

Chris rolled his eyes and then started coughing. “This is… so weird, it’s like… I’m choking myself.” He released the copy, shoved it behind him, and reached for Tayte’s wrist. “Let’s go!”

They bolted across the hall. “Strategy is important in battle, okay?” Chris reassured. “And right now, we are doing what’s called a ‘strategic retreat’.”

Tayte looked over her shoulder and an empty, dark hallway was all she saw. Chris did the same and they both stopped.

Chris let go of Tayte as his eyes narrowed, peering down the corridor. “Where did the copy go? Did it disappear?”

“The Relic Wielder called it off again,” Tayte said, scanning the area.

“Do you think it’s a time limit thing?”

“No, it can’t be. My copy lasted longer than that.” Tayte tightened her grip on the scythe’s shaft with both hands, making a scowl. “Is this really how this fight is going to go? The opponent is just going to keep throwing surprises at us while they stay in hiding? That’s so cowardly… and boring.”

“I’m sorry this fight to the death isn’t too entertaining for you,” Chris rasped.

“Ah, it’s okay. It’s not your fault—”

“I was being sarcastic!”

“What happened to being quiet?”

Chris glowered at Tayte in silence for a couple of seconds.

“So, are we going to check every room until we find the Relic Wielder?” Tayte asked while deliberately avoiding eye contact.

The question made Chris’s brows raise. “We may not have to check every room.” He snapped his fingers. “I know who it is.” His expression darkened as he paced his way to Tayte’s bedroom. “I hope I’m wrong though…”

They were in Tayte’s room once again. Chris moved quickly, diving onto the floor and searching under the bed, rolled out on the other side and looked under the desk and dresser.

“Are you looking for the boogeyman?” Tayte teased.

Chris got up and pulled back the drawers of the dresser. “No, but something real close to the boogeyman.” He darted to the wardrobe, opened it, and fished around. He found nothing. “Let’s go to my room.” They exited in a hurry.

Chris’s room was identical to Tayte’s. He was less cautious with this search and ransacked the room, flipping the bed over and rummaging through the contents of his dresser, and then tore the drawers out, dropping them to the floor without care. Tayte watched and then put down her scythe and hunted around the room, unsure of what she was looking for. She reached the wooden wardrobe and opened it; two carry-on suitcases stacked on top of each other greeted her.

“Of course!” Chris sped over to the wardrobe and nudged Tayte out of the way. He crouched, spread his arms wide, and picked up the first green suitcase. He walked to the desk and zipped the luggage open.

Tayte approached Chris and stood by him as he turned over the top.

There was a balled up body inside.

Chris and Tayte, gaping in horror, analyzed the compressed body and noticed a bundle of mint green curls between the folded arms and legs. The hair parted revealing a light green face with shining white eyes. The face teased them with a smile.

Chris winced. “For fuck’s sake—!”

A leg shot up from the suitcase, and Chris caught a foot to the face. He flopped onto his back.

Tayte stepped back, but kept her eyes glued on the suitcase as another leg raised. They did a little show for her and then arms popped up from the carry-on.

The freak elevated herself from the suitcase in a twisted spider pose and then unfolded into a handstand. The desk had no trouble supporting her weight and remained sturdy as ever as the woman lowered to a sitting position and crossed one leg over the other, beaming at her opponents. She wore a skimpy circus costume that showed off her emaciated figure and was covered from her head to toe in makeup; her complexion was a light green and her face was heavily masked with special effects.

Chris kept his hand over his nose as he scowled up at the contortionist. “So, your Relic is the ungaikyo. Ironic, since you’re the one who really needs to have a hard look in the mirror.”

The contortionist’s eyes widened, making her undead, white contacts pop. “My, my. It’s Chrissy, the weakest link,” she said, with a slight Russian accent.

“Hello, Lissa.”

Melissa’s face soured. “Don’t call me that.”

“Oh, but you’re allowed to still call me ‘Chrissy’?”

Melissa ignored the rebuttal and looked over at Tayte. “You’re such a cutie. Getting captured by Domingos was all part of the plan, wasn’t it?” Her green lips narrowed, making her drawn stitch lines that went from ear to ear more apparent. “You’ve been working with the vexed moron for a while. How did he snatch you up? Bribery? Blackmail?”

Chris raised himself onto one knee, pulled out his gun, and aimed for Melissa’s head. “Tayte, there’s no need to answer her. She’s just a scumbag.”

“What makes you say that?” Tayte asked.

“Do I really have to explain this to you?” Chris responded, giving her the stink-eye. “She is a part of Post-Mortem.”

“So were you,” Tayte responded.

“I was planning to betray them and steal the Kamaitachi from the start!”

“We were,” Melissa said. “Did you already forget?”

Chris remained silent.

“Right.” he then said, showing a wolfish grin. He stood up. “You never told me why you wanted to win the Trials.”

“Maybe because I didn’t want to give you the luxury of laughing right into my face again,” Melissa badgered, her eyes welling a bit. “Some hero you are…”

“I never claimed to be a hero,” Chris said.

“But you sure liked to act like one. You always loved to act like you were the most righteous person in the group.”

“Because I was the most decent person in the group! You’re human trash. I consider you to be the worst after Adisa and Mayumi.”

“What did she do?” Tayte asked, with a childlike curiosity.

“She used to abduct kids for a living.” Chris hissed and then pulled the trigger.

Melissa flinched and then glanced at the fuming bullet hole by her foot. She fluttered her eyes at Chris, tilting her head a bit. “Now, was that a warning shot, or did you just miss, Chrissy?”

“Forfeit your Relic or die, Melissa,” Chris said, glaring at her.

“How about you die?” Melissa bounced onto the edge of the desk and flipped towards Chris, taking him down with a swift kick. She landed on her hands and struck a gawking Tayte with a spinning kick.

Melissa flipped back onto her feet just as Chris arose.

He fingered the trigger, as Melissa folded into a ball and rolled out of the room. None of the firing bullets hit her.

Chris helped Tayte up with his free hand. “You okay?” he asked.

Tayte stared blankly and went for her scythe. “Let’s get her!” she said, overly excited.

They ran out and looked to their left and then right. Melissa was gone.

As the pair mentally debated with themselves on which way to go. A few doors down on the side to their right, a middle-aged native in his underwear cowered out of the room, gaping forward in horror. His malicious copy was skulking out of the hotel room. The man fell onto his back and prayed in an Ugandan dialect.

Chris pulled out his gun and aimed at the copy. He stayed put, looked at the original, and grunted. “Shit. I can’t!”

Tayte stormed at the copy, spun her Relic around and whacked it across the face with the bottom of the shaft, taking it down. The original let out a cry of gratitude.

More doors opened and terrified guests came out of their rooms facing their sinister doppelgängers

“How many mirrors did she set up…?” Chris muttered, staring wide-eyed at the horror.

Doppelgängers of all ages and sizes attacked their original counterparts without mercy. Sounds of confused screams, warped backwards speech, connecting strikes and blunt blows filled the room.

Chris put his gun away. “We… can’t help them all. We have to get to Melissa first!”

Tayte responded by taking off. Chris reluctantly turned himself away from the desperate cries and ran alongside her. They shoved their way through a rabble of copies and their victimized originals. The duo took a turn and an eerie occurrence brought them to a stop.

Bouncing across the tribal print carpet on short, thin legs was a hand mirror, prattling in reversed speech. The small creature paused at the top of the staircase and ogled back at Tayte and Chris, revealing its cartoonish face on the reflective glass. It swirled its short arms and stuck its curly tongue at them.

“Is that…?” Tayte started and then stopped, lost for words.

The Relic made a childish laugh, hopped high into the air, and then frolicked its way down the stairs.

Tayte and Chris went after it. Reaching the end of the stairwell a short while after their tiny adversary, Tayte dropped her weapon and chased it around the main lobby alongside Chris with no regard for furniture or decorations. Knocking over chairs, crashing into the tables, destroying artwork, and breaking lamps to catch it, but with every attempt to grab a hold of the pest it slipped, hopped, and spun its way out of their grasp; not forgetting to tease them with its tongue every time it got away.

The ungaikyo made a break for it, luring its giant foes to another area of the hotel. It came across a glass door entrance and slid right under.

“Kamaitachi,” Tayte summoned her Relic once again and launched a wind slash. The door was decimated.

As soon as Tayte and Chris dashed into the cafeteria, the ungaikyo jumped into the air and conjured a floating mirror.

Their reflections were caught instantly.

“Shit,” Chris hissed.

Tayte’s copy lunged out first and was equipped with the scythe. Tayte and Chris hit the floor and slid out of the way as it swung aggressively.

Chris’s copy slipped out, and then the floating mirror vanished.

The originals stood up and looked around for the ungaikyo; it was nowhere in sight. Their copies scoffed, calling back their attention.

Chris waggled his fingers and braced for battle. “Looks like it’s going to me and you versus…”

“Me and you,” Tayte finished.