1.38: The Taste of Defeat“Don’t talk like that, baka! It’s too soon to mourn, right?” Rui snapped, but her voice shook. She leaned down and pressed her ear to Akuchi’s back. “Ummmuu…” she mumbled, concentrating hard.

  I hovered anxiously nearby, watching her expression change ever so slightly.

  She was checking for his pulse.

  …

  ………

  “IDIOOOOOOT!!!”

  I jolted violently, scrambling backward. “Why are you calling me an idiot again, oni?!”

  “Th-that st one wasn’t me…” Rui whispered.

  She was staring past me… up the stairs.

  Slowly, stiffly, I turned.

  Noh-face glowed at the top of the nding, arms spread wide, its mouth-hole yawning open like a hungry void.

  “Welcome to… Yokai… come… see my collection…” it crooned, its orifice widening into something disturbingly close to a grin.

  Then, with an exaggerated little pirouette, it whirled around and vanished through the doorway behind it… cackling.

  SLAM!

  The steel door shut behind it like a guillotine.

  I froze.

  Then anger surged through me so sharply it hurt.

  I sprinted up the stairs and rammed my shoulder into the door. The knob turned, useless. Locked. I smmed again, grabbed the handle and yanked with all my strength.

  SLAM

  SLAM

  WHAM

  BAM…

  The hinges screamed.

  SCREECH…

  KRRRREEEEE…

  Behind me, Rui didn’t move from Akuchi’s side. She just watched, her fists clenched.

  Noh-face’s ughter erupted behind the door; shrill, unhinged, triumphant.

  “AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!”

  I roared back, tearing and wrenching at the door as rage tore through me. My size ballooned again, my body warping, my mind thinning. Midnight was already creeping past. My transformation was accelerating.

  “You… won’t… WIN!!!” I thundered.

  My inhuman voice boomed down the tunnel like a demon’s battle cry.

  “RAAAAAAAA!!!”

  I hammered at the door, each strike bending it inward… the frame cracking. Its hinges screeching. The metal began to buckle like cheap foil.

  “URRRAAAAAA!!!”

  SHRRRIIIIEEEEK

  WHAM

  THUM

  I staggered back, raised my leg, and with every ounce of my remaining humanity…

  I KICKED.

  The impact shook through my bones.

  THUD

  SHRIEEEKKKK

  GRRRRRRRRRKKKKKKK

  BAAAAAAAAAAAM!

  The door tore free and flew across the room, smming into the far wall with earth-shattering force.

  Inside… there were…

  Strange objects floating…

  There were dozens. No… hundreds of floating…

  I slowly approached one and stared at it in horror.

  They were all faces.

  They filled the room. Men. Women. Children. Elderly. Every age. Stolen. Vacant.

  Their eye sockets and mouths were the same pitch-bck void as Noh-face’s.

  It was almost a vision of hell.

  “AHAHAHAHA! You lose! There’s no hope now!” Noh-face shrieked, its back arching, its arms stretching out like grotesque wings.

  It gazed at me… gleefully.

  Victorious.

  “Now we won’t be lonely… Come… my… friend…”

  The faces swiveled toward me as if on strings. They began orbiting, spinning in a dizzying cyclone.

  My fists clenched. My whole body trembled.

  “I’m… not here to be your friend,” I growled, my voice rippling with a distortion born of my form becoming yokai. “I will bring you to justice!”

  My skin burned. My face flushed red. My whole being surged with power. My bodysuit seemed to complete itself around me, even without the helmet.

  I charged straight through a sudden storm of faces as they moved.

  Noh-face crouched, coiling its legs.

  Then it unched.

  We collided mid-air…

  …and everything exploded.

  THUD!

  “Be careful, Susumu!” Rui yelled from the doorway.

  Our hands locked together, cws against fingers, as we grappled in the whirlwind of spinning faces. They shot past us like shrieking comets. Noh-face’s eye-holes narrowed, widened, then narrowed again.

  “SUSSUUUUMMMUUUUU!!!”

  Hearing it scream my name chilled me to my core. My knees buckled under the force as it shoved me backward. And then unexpectedly, it yanked me forward, stepping back in a rapid twist that spun me off bance. For a moment it felt like we were locked in some horrific parody of a ballroom dance.

  It jerked me left, then right, then into a dizzying whirl. Its mouth-hole stretched disturbingly wide… in an imitation of a smile.

  My feet left the ground.

  Noh-face spun me faster, faster, faster…

  My stomach lurched. The world blurred.

  …

  …

  I couldn’t hold it back.

  I vomited a geyser at it.

  It spttered across the yokai’s face and torso in a grotesque sheet.

  Its eye-slits narrowed in pure, murderous rage.

  There was no time to react.

  “RAAAAAAAAA!” it shrieked, releasing me with explosive force.

  “Ewwwwww…” Rui muttered as my body sailed past her.

  I rocketed through the doorway, smmed into the fallen metal door, then ricocheted off it into the tunnel wall hard enough to crack the cement. Dust rained down over me like a filthy blizzard.

  It wasn’t easy getting up. My limbs trembled. My vision swam.

  But Noh-face didn’t wait for me to recover.

  It burst through the doorway, charging toward me with its whirling entourage of hollow faces… a macabre cyclone.

  “URAAAAAA! RAGE OF THE LOST!” it roared.

  The flurry of blows came immediately. I recognized the flow… familiar, frightening, instinctively readable. My mind flickered and burned, barely holding together. Every time I dodged the creature itself, a face smmed into me. They dive-bombed from every angle, battering me like aluminum against hail.

  “SUSUMU!!!” Rui screamed.

  I barely registered that she was running toward me.

  “Nooooooo!” I howled back, but she ignored me.

  She leapt, her umbrel raised like a broadsword, and smmed it down onto Noh-face’s head.

  “URAAAAAA!” the yokai shrieked, striking her with an open palm. “RUIIIIIIII!!!”

  But Rui snapped open her umbrel in the same instant, deflecting the blow midair. She twisted, nded cleanly, and charged again.

  She rained savage umbrel strikes down on its head, its torso, its arms so fast that the umbrel bent and twisted like a dying pretzel.

  Noh-face hissed.

  Rui jumped, raising her leg for a roundhouse kick…

  It caught her midair, cackling demented, and hurled her mercilessly into the wall beside me.

  “Nooooooooooooooooooooooooo!” I roared, blurring as my body moved on its own. I slid beneath her and took the brunt of the impact, shielding her.

  “N-no… be… c-care… ful…” I noh-panted, lowering her gently.

  I looked down at my hands.

  They were no longer human.

  My grace period had ended.

  I set Rui aside and rose, my new cws extending like living shadows.

  “DON’T YOU DARE TO HURT HER!!!” I screamed, my voice cracking and warping as my mind finally shattered under the strain.

  My transformation was complete.

  I lunged, fingers closing around Noh-face’s throat. My talons sank deep into its flesh. With a surge of monstrous strength, I swung it sideways and smashed its head against the wall.

  Again.

  And again.

  And again.

  “DIE!!!”

  My cws ripped into its torso. It sagged, but I refused to relent. Seizing the damaged door nearby, I brought it down on the yokai repeatedly, each impact cracking more of the wall behind it.

  Then, with a snarl, I positioned the narrow end of the door like a battering ram…

  … To drive it into Noh-face’s chest.

  Stone shattered.

  Noh-face colpsed beneath a mound of broken concrete.

  I hurled the door aside, seized Noh-face by the head with one cwed hand, and flung it down the tunnel. It crashed through the railway ties, tumbling violently.

  It hit the twisted door with a crunch, flipped, and skittered down the tracks like a skipping stone.

  THUD—THUD—THUD—CRACK—CRASHHHH!

  It rebounded off the curving wall.

  “URAAAAAAA!!!” I shrieked, sprinting after it with inhuman speed, fire roaring in my veins.

  “SUSUMU!” Rui cried out from behind me. “You’re doing great! BUT DON’T LOSE YOUR MIND! REMEMBER YOU’RE SUSUMU!”

  As I closed the distance to the Noh-face…

  I wasn’t entirely convinced she was right.

  Relwing