"Akuma!" Kasai yelled, kicking open the door and drawing her katana. "What happened?!"
Akuma focused on breathing. Her windpipes didn't seem to be working - her breath was shallow, her lungs wouldn't fill with air. She felt as if she might die of the shock of nearly being killed, rather than the fact that someone had tried to assassinate her.
Now her entire group was standing around her: Aya, Kasai, Yuri, and Heishi; all with identical looks on their faces.
"It - it was Mizuki!" Akuma choked out, fear still partially paralyzing her tongue.
"What happened to her?" demanded Aya.
"She - she . . ." Could she really believe what she had just seen? Could Mizuki really . . . ?
"What?" prompted a disturbed-looking Yuri.
Akuma steadied her breathing. "She . . . Mizuki's in the secret organization. The Order."
A collective gasp rang through the group.
"Where'd she go?!" Kasai frantically searched the room, looking for the traitor.
"How do you know?" Aya asked.
"Just now," Akuma said, "she tried to kill me."
"But she can't have," said Heishi. "I just passed her room and the knife you gave her was outside the door for tomorrow."
"It was a different knife." Akuma stood and paced the room. "It was shorter, and shinier."
"Aha!" Kasai yelled. "Knew there was something about her!"
"Too late, though," muttered Aya. "Too late."
"Can't we just follow her?" Yuri asked innocently. Everyone turned to her. "Just saying."
"She went out that window," Akuma offered before anyone could ask, pointing to the window across the room.
Aya glanced out the window, which was, in fact, open as if someone had just jumped through it. "She's too far away. And besides, she probably -"
But Kasai had already climbed out the window.
"Kasai!" Aya shouted. "Oh, I really hate when she does that!"
The rest of the team followed, running not only to find Mizuki, but at least to catch up with Kasai, whose enhanced speed made her hard to keep up with. Luckily, her bright colored hair and clothes made her easy to spot, even in the darkness of night.
Akuma half wondered whether Kasai knew where Mizuki was going. Were they just running endlessly? Or had Kasai seen her going this way?
Suddenly Kasai stopped running. As Akuma, Aya, Yuri, and Heishi all came to a stop behind her, panting, she just looked at them for a moment before saying bluntly, "I found it."
For a second, Akuma wondered what in Sekai Kasai could possibly mean. But then she saw the castle.
It resembled the Sureiyazu castle in many ways. It had slanting roofs and pale-colored walls. It seemed very vast, created to house very important people. But the Sureiyazu castle had not been built in the middle of a forest, like this one seemed to have been. This castle also seemed to be crumbling before the team's eyes. Vines clung to the sides, and in some places the roof had caved in.
"What is it?" Akuma asked. No one had an answer. The building gave off an eerie feeling, as if something sinister were going on inside its dilapidated walls.
"I think there's a demon in there," said Yuri.
"I think you may be right," Aya agreed.
"Yay!" Yuri's cheerfulness echoed oddly in the darkness. "I love slaying demons in an old creepy castle in a dark forest in the middle of the night! That's not cliche at all!"
Kasai facepalmed.
"Let's move back to the point," Aya said somewhat forcefully. "Why would Mizuki be . . . in there?"
"More importantly, how'd Kasai know she was in there?" Akuma asked curiously.
"I have skills," Kasai grinned. "The skills to pay the bills. Unfortunately, we don't have to pay any bills. We legally own our castle."
"Again," Aya said irritably, "let's get back to the point."
"Okay, okay," Akuma said. "Okay, okay, okay, okay."
"Should we . . . go in?" Yuri suggested tentatively.
Aya walked slowly towards the door. Slowly, she pulled it open, sliding it away to reveal a room inside that was just as sinister as the outside.
"Oh," Aya said, "oh, no."
"What is it?" Akuma almost didn't want to know what what making Aya so nervous.
"The castle," Aya said slowly, "is a Demon's Domain."
As Akuma looked around her, she could see that it was true. There was that dark mist that hung around every Demon's Domain, and the fact that not a thing in the room was out of place, despite the outside being in ruins, seemed too perfect.
"The only question now is," Akuma whispered, "where's the demon?"
Where is the demon?
"Did you hear that?" Heishi asked frantically. Everyone nodded, unsure how else to answer. It seemed they had found the answer to their question in that voice that was there but not there, everywhere and nowhere.
Oh . . . I see, you wanted to slay the demon?
"Y-yes," Aya shouted, trying her best to sound bold.
A sinister laugh followed. Humans . . . so naive.
"So . . . you're the demon," Akuma yelled.
Ooh, we've got a sharp one here . . . yes, the strange echoing voice inside you head is coming from a demon. Thank you for making that so obvious. Some of your friends might have needed that helpful little tip.
An fiery anger started up in Akuma's stomach. What right did this demon have to go insulting her only friends? He thought he was so much cleverer . . . but she would show him . . .
"Akuma," Aya muttered. "He's toying with you. Fight it."
Akuma came back to reality and realized she had been holding her kyoketsu shoge as if to strike.
Yes, fight it, fight it . . . I love when they know exactly what I'm doing . . . it makes the game so much more fun . . .
"Where are you?!" Kasai demanded.
Find me if you care so deeply.
Kasai growled in response.
"Oh, we'll find you!" Heishi assured him.
Will you . . . and who might you be? You aren't a demonslayer.
"I am Heishi Kiyofuka," he said in an extermely authoritative voice, as if he were addressing his men, "head of the Hana Firudo guard, master in her swordsmaship, and personal soldier to her queen; and I will slay you, demon!"
So here we have the hero. The voice sounded bored. And I suppose we could dub the others: False Bravery, Miss Obvious, Brawl and No Brains, and . . . Blonde.
"'Blonde'?" shrieked Yuri. "I'm way cooler than that!"
So then we shall dub you Shrieker. Is that better?
"No!" Yuri protested in a very high pitched shriek.
Suddenly something came whistling through the air, small and shiny - Akuma dodged it only a fraction of a second before it would have hit her, straight in the heart.
"Who's there?" Akuma asked as the demon's voice laughed hysterically.
Her answer came - in the form of four more identical weapons flying across the room, which each of her team members dodged as narrowly as she had.
"Come out and fight us if you've got any self-respect!" Kasai bellowed down the dark hall the weapons had come from as the demon continued to laugh.
Hm, I guess the fun is over. Come out, then. It was worth the laugh.
Mizuki stepped from the shadows, looking different than any had ever seen her. She had gotten a change of clothes; she now wore a leathery-looking shirt and pants, black as night. She had seemingly abandoned the dagger she had gotten from the Sureiyazu, because she now held a short blade in each hand, the one in her left a little longer than the one in her right.
"Mizuki." Now it was Akuma's turn to growl. She had been deceiving them all, had even befriended them, and then, even after everything, she had tried to kill her.
"Yes, it's me," Mizuki said in a bored voice. Her tone was different, too. She no longer had the air of trying to be happy that the Mizuki any of them knew had - this Mizuki didn't seem to have any emotion.
"It that still you in there?" Yuri asked, trying to sound hopeful, but the tears behind her voice were obvious.
"Don't worry, Yuri," Mizuki sneered, "I'm the same person you always knew."
"N-no you a-aren't!" Yuri shouted. "You were my friend! Not - not - this!"
Mizuki just laughed, and the demonic voice inside their heads laughed along with her.
"I guess you want me to apologize?" Mizuki asked mockingly. "You want to make me feel bad for working against you? For betraying you?"
No one said anything in response as the tension grew higher and higher.
"The terrible thing," she said quietly and dramatically, "is that I can't. I don't feel anything towards any of you. I don't do anything for anyone but my master. I serve him and him alone."
"And who is this master of yours?" Heishi, who seemed to have regained his dignity, asked.
"Don't you know? You've already met him."
I've told you countless times Mizuki. Ordinary humans' intuition is usually severely lacking. Honestly, most of them don't even realize that this castle is my Domain.
"I know, master," said Mizuki. "But these humans are slightly more perceptive than most. That's why they've been chosen as the Sureiyazu. And that's why . . ." She looked back at the group, a dark hunger behind her eyes.
"So," Kasai cut in, "you were trying to lead us off the trail that day, weren't you? When you kept questioning everything?"
"Oh, yes," Mizuki agreed. "Honestly, I'm surprised someone like you caught on to that. I would have expected it to be Aya."
"So it was your organization causing people to disappear," Akuma thought out loud. "But where are they?"
"I would have thought you'd have figured that out by now as well," Mizuki said, disappointed. "Shame."
"What do you mean?" Aya asked immediately.
Mizuki smiled secretively. "The note . . . the story . . . the people . . ."
"That literally does not help," Kasai complained.
"Let me show you then . . ." Mizuki whispered. "Can I, master? Can I show them?"
Would I deprive you of such a pleasure?
"Everyone who has gone . . . they're here." Mizuki raised her arms in a sweeping motion, and out of hallways all around came the sound of footsteps, and then, people emerged from the gloom.
Their eyes saw, but they didn't see anything. They moved, but they didn't really register where they were going. They raised their weapons, but they didn't know what they were doing.
It was an army of unknowing people.