Sureiyazu

Episode 56: Contact

Back in the castle again, Akuma sat alone with Hayato. 

His breathing was still slow and labored, and he didn't make any move to hear her, even as she kept a monologue, just to save herself from silence. 

"You know . . . You and me . . . We might be more alike than I thought." 

Hayato breathed. 

"You say a part of you is gone, right? Well, I was dead once, and they say a soul can never fully come back from Yurei, but -" Akuma sighed. 

"Maybe that's not what's wrong with you - I mean, I'm the one with the weird visions, after all. Maybe I'm just delusional. Maybe I'm insane." 

The silence threatened to take hold of Akuma's throat, so she rambled on. 

"But what if I'm not? Yuri's missing a part of her soul, and she's alright . . . mostly. But then . . . if I'm really missing something of myself, why am I the one talking right now? Why are you . . . ?" 

Hayato didn't have an answer for that. 

"I'm scared," Akuma whispered. "I - I read - while I was doing research on other worlds - once I read - that . . ." 

His silence was enough of a prompt for her to voice her fears. 

"I read that your soul wears away, no matter what world you're in. It's always wearing itself down, so that one day you'll be gone. In Jufuku, it happens faster - at least for humans - and it's slower in Yurei. I mean - according to what I read." 

Akuma looked away, at the wall. 

"But - it happens while you're in Sekai too. That's how natural death works - the soul becomes too weak for Sekai, to take it wearing down on it. But if . . ." 

Hayato still breathed. 

"But if you and me have less of a soul than everyone else -" 

There was the silence. 

"I don't want to die. Not without doing something . . ." 

And it finally reigned supreme.

~~~

"This isn't awkward at all," said Kasai sarcastically. 

"Or dangerous," Aya added bitterly. 

Because as if they had needed more help, a Summoner's Creature had followed them back to the Sureiyazu castle. 

She looked around for something to say, trying to ignore the stares from both Netsu and Shinrin. Her feathered wings were hard enough not to look at. 

"Can you really fly?" Tora asked after a moment of sitting on the floor, blankly staring. 

"Yes," Sukai answered somewhat stonily. "I am representative of the sky." 

"Yeah, I know, because of all that formality. You already told us," Tora nodded. 

Sukai glared. 

"I knew you were a dumb mascot, Sukai, but I didn't think you were the dumb mascot of a dumb army, too," Netsu said. 

Shinrin looked over her nails. "They sound so unprepared. I've seen bigger armies." 

"They're better than you're thinking of them," Sukai defended. "They intend to save their race from the demons of Jufuku, and that is a noble cause if I've ever heard one." 

"Yeah, it's just about the same cause as literally every demonslayer ever," Kasai said. "But don't worry. I'm not offended." 

"Good to know," said Tora. "Can I have some food now?" 

Aya got up to get some food for Tora in the kitchen. 

"So how many of you are there anyway?" Kasai asked. 

"Really?" Netsu said. "We're called the Seven of Power. And you wonder why we hate humans so much." 

Kasai put her hands behind her head. "I'm not a wizard. I couldn't care less about magic stuff. I'm just wondering how many more rooms Aya's gonna need to take up." 

Aya had come back. "I never intended to bind any of them." 

"Hey," Tora said, squinting his eyes. 

"Except for Tora," she added. 

"But you did," Kasai pointed out. "So I'm just trying to estimate how long it'll be until you have them all." 

"Mizu already hates me, so count her out of the numbers," Aya said flatly. 

The three of the Seven pretended not to hear. 

"Well . . ." Shinrin said. "Going back to the original question . . . There's seven of us, to represent the seven forces of life." 

"That sounds dumb," Kasai said cheerfully. 

Shinrin glared for a minute before continuing. "There's me, and I'm the forest; Netsu, fire and heat; Mizu, water and tides; Sukai, air and the sky; Korudo, cold and ice, Kuragari, darkness and inevitability, and Tsukihi." 

"And Tsukihi is . . . ?" Kasai prompted. 

"Time," Netsu said. "The only thing with power over all of us." 

Shinrin nodded. "But . . ." 

"None of us know where she is," Sukai finished. 

"What?!" Aya exclaimed. "That's impossible! You can sense each other, can't you?" 

Sukai shifted her wings uncomfortably. "We should be able to." 

"But we can't," Netsu said. "Not with her. It's . . . weird. Disconnected. Like a how great distance would feel to a mortal." 

"Like a fog," Shinrin added. 

"Like the night," said Sukai. 

Tora yawned. "Like another dramatic development from the Seven of Power. Figures. I'm going to bed." And he waddled out. 

~~~

But days later, Aya stood on the steps outside the castle, holding a letter from the Army of Sekai. 

"Hm. Well, they did promise we'd be doing something."