The Sureiyazu were almost back to the castle when, in the distance, they saw a disturbance in the hills.
Hachirou came running towards them.
"What's going on?" Akuma demanded.
"Honestly, I have no idea," Hachirou admitted. "You have to see this. C'mon."
The demonslayers, who had only yet returned from their days-long trip, anxiously followed behind him as he took off.
They stayed silent as they ran over the hills, worry choking their voices.
They were equally as silent when they looked down into the pit. Days ago, it had been alive and evil. Today it was silent and dead, bottom cracked and dry, with only strange skulls littering the bottom.
Heishi, Taichi, Mizuki, and Ryou stood by them.
Ryou jumped into the pit, landing casually on his feet. "A couple of days ago it opened up from the ground - from Jufuku. But all that's left now is completely in Sekai."
Aya bent down to gaze into it. "And there were demons, presumably?"
"Not presumably," Mizuki snorted. "There were. They flew out all over the place. We kept most of them contained though - that is, we killed them all."
"Slayed them all, you mean," Ryou said absently. "Demons remain alive in Jufuku, in one form or another."
"I sent a report to the Army of Sekai," Heishi said. "I figured this was a major occurrence and they might want to document it."
"Goody-two-shoes," Mizuki muttered.
"And they said?" Aya prompted.
Heishi immediately went scarlet. "I, uh, only sent it today. They couldn't have gotten it yet, even."
"Yeah, he only sent it 'cause they sent a report to us first," Hachirou said.
Aya crossed her arms. "And you decided to tell us about the hole in the ground first?!"
"We thought that seemed more important," Heishi said awkwardly.
"Their research could mean the fate of the world!"
Taichi, who had remained silent, finally spoke smugly. "I told you we should have given her the update first."
"Shut up, Taichi," Mizuki huffed.
~~~
Enclosed is a full report of the recent discovery of the Army of Sekai regarding the once strange and mysterious plague, the Demon's Kiss. It is our hope that, as the Sureiyazu, this knowledge will aid you in your travels, and in our mission to together rid the demons from Sekai.
"The Demon's Kiss," Aya breathed. "Fascinating."
"Open it, then," Taichi said.
Just inside the castle, the demonslayers were gathered around the envelope, though Aya was the one who held it in her hands. She opened it up - it had clearly been opened before, very carefully - and she mimicked that carefulness.
"I've, ah, read through it already," Heishi explained. "Just to make sure there was nothing of immediate emergency."
Mizuki rolled her eyes.
"Well?" Akuma said after a minute of Aya reading. "What does it say?"
"Yurei," Aya breathed. "They've cured the plague."
"What?!" the others exclaimed.
Hachirou whirled on Heishi. "You told us it was nothing of importance!"
"I just said that it wasn't an immediate emergency," Heishi defended. "None of us have the plague!"
"Let me see that," Taichi said, taking the letter from Aya's hands. He was silent for a moment, in disbelief. "There's no possible way . . . They've really done it."
"What does it say?!" Kasai demanded. "Stop beating around the heart."
Aya steadied herself. "The plague - the Demon's Kiss - isn't a disease."
"So it is sort of a demon kiss?" Yuri asked.
"Kind of," Aya continued. "It is caused by demons, that's for sure, at least according to their research."
"Demons are of Jufuku," Taichi prefaced. "Being in the human world begins to wither them away - as any soul is when outside of their home world, except that demons are able to regrow their souls. But possessing a human gives them a sort of shell to hide in while in our world. It still hurts them, since they've moved themselves from their world, but it isn't nearly as fast."
"Right," Aya agreed. "Exactly."
"I've been reading," Taichi boasted.
"But it seems they've found a way around that deterioration," Aya went on, ignoring him. "By way of the Demon's Kiss. Whereas doctors couldn't identify the cause, when looking at it from a spiritual standpoint, it makes sense. Look."
She layed down a statistic in front of them that had two different maps of Sekai: one that highlighted areas where magic was more commonly used, and another that showed where there had been the most cases of the Demon's Kiss recorded.
"See? They almost overlap," Aya pointed out. "And remembering the common symptoms of the Demon's Kiss - extreme fatigue, vacant behavior, vivid dreams, even sudden death - it makes sense that demons could be causing it. Like possession, only the demons are leeching off of the energy, regaining their power at the same rate that they lose it, letting them stay out of Jufuku and wreak more havoc for longer periods of time. There's another map here, too."
The next page she put in front of them showed places in Sekai where demon attacks were more common - and though the areas were smaller, they concentrated in the same places.
"That's insane," Hachirou said in disbelief, breaking the stunned silence.
"I know," Heishi agreed. "It is insane."
"Now why isn't this information published?!" Aya exclaimed. "This needs to get out there!"
"It is," Heishi said. "Next page."
"Oh."
"Woohoo!" Kasai cheered, unsheathing Inochi to swing it around dramatically. "We can cure the plague! Now all we have to do is chop up some demons and everyone will get better!"
"Not quite," Aya cut in quietly. She had turned to the next page. "The demons are stealing pieces of their souls. They won't get better. The best we can to is hope to prevent it."
"Oh. Right." Kasai sheathed her katana and stopped her dance. "That's depressing."
"But this information is getting out to people, slowly," Aya added. "More and more people are becoming demonslayers, anyway. That's a start."
"And then more demonslayers means less demons means less people get infected means more people are living means more people can become demonslayers!" Yuri said matter-of-factly.
Kasai blinked. "Did she just make sense or am I becoming slowly more fluent in Yuri?"
"Or in optimism?" Mizuki snorted. "I guess she would rub off on you after a while, though."
"Could save us to be optimistic, if you think about it," Ryou, who had stayed strangely silent, pointed out. "The other alternative is that demons feed off of us which means there's less of us to stand up against and more of them to feed off of us and then . . . you know."
"Gah, the logic, my head," Kasai complained. "Can we just get to the part where we kill something?"
"Slay something," Ryou corrected quietly. "Demons don't die."
~~~
Heishi went out every morning to look for any reply from the Army of Sekai. It was nearly a week later when his cry of triumph finally rang through the castle.
"Yes!" he screamed happily. "It's here!"
Still, he opened it with care as the others came running somewhat sleepily into the room.
"I got a thank you for sending the thing about the hole," Heishi noted smugly.
"Yeah, a whole sentence devoted to you," Kasai replied sarcastically, reading over his shoulder. "Good job."
"They write in long sentences," Heishi defended, whining.
"Can we just get on with it?" asked Mizuki. "Your celebrating woke me up."
"Fine," Heishi huffed, scanning the page. His eyes stopped suddenly on the words -
into Jufuku
"No way," he breathed as he went back to read the context. "Now they think they've found a way into Jufuku."
"These people don't really waste time, huh?" said Kasai.
"How?!" Aya and Taichi demanded together.
"Relax, wizards, you'll get your information," said Heishi. When he looked up from the letter there were two glares staring back at him, and Taichi had a ball of light in his hand.
"Say that again?" Aya dared him.
"S-sorry," Heishi stammered. "Too far."
"No duh," Hachirou yawned. "These guys could throw stuff at you out of thin air."
"Yeah, like humanoid demons," Ryou added. He and Hachirou high-fived.
"Humanoid demons who are in love," Yuri sang. (She then high-fived with Ryou and Hachirou as well.)
Aya crossed her arms, frustrated. "What does it say?"
Heishi's face became serious. "They say there's a place where you can actually jump off a cliff and land in Jufuku."
Kasai laughed. Then she realized he was serious and stopped. "Really?"
"Yeah. There's a rift there," he explained. "Well, not a rift - apparently that's a totally different thing. But this is a physical sort of . . . abnormality. Where you can jump off a cliff in Sekai and land on the ground in Jufuku."
"I've read about something like that," Aya remembered. "There are only a few in all of Sekai - usually into Jufuku."
"This place is called - oh, that's not very creative," Heishi rolled his eyes. "This place is called The Cliffs."
"Of course," Aya nodded, recalling her research. "A few hundred years ago, there was a major battle between humans and demons there. They say that so many demons gathered together and used that one spot as a place to go from one world to another that it caused The Cliffs to form in the first place. And now that the door is opened, it can be walked through both ways."
"Uh, well . . . yeah," Heishi said. "You didn't really need this letter then, huh?"
Aya paused. "Of course we needed it."
"How come?" Mizuki asked. "You're already a fountain of knowledge and your boyfriend's a walking library."
"Obviously," Aya said slowly, "we needed to know that the Army is planning to go to there. That gives us an advantage, doesn't it, Heishi?"
Heishi felt very put on the spot. "Well, yes, the Army is planning to get to Jufuku by way of The Cliffs. That's what this letter is about - asking us to come. But as for your question about it giving us an advantage, while there are advantages to having more numbers -"
"See? Heishi agrees. We needed the letter for strategic purposes," Aya cut in, barely caring that she had cut him off.
Perhaps she should have cared.
Because as Heishi snapped his mouth shut, he kept silent his unspoken words - sometimes getting yourself into someplace else is easier with less people.
That was fine, Heishi decided to himself.
Maybe one day they'd listen.
~~~
That night, a full moon rose over the castle, casting its pale light onto Mizuki's face as she stood against the crenelations, eyes dark as the night around her, lost in thought.
Still, she wasn't unaware when Taichi appeared next to her, his dark hair being caught in a gentle breeze. He didn't say anything, but Mizuki didn't meet his gaze.
For a minute they stood there, silent, until Taichi finally spoke.
"Are you alright?"
Mizuki scowled. "You never get less annoying."
"Only asking for your sake."
"Yeah. I'm fine."
"You're sure?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Yeah," Mizuki said shortly, turning herself slightly away from him to look into the sky again.
Taichi looked out with her. "Beautiful night, isn't it?"
"Mm."
"I can see why you'd want to stay out here, then," he tried to laugh.
"Yeah, I guess," she agreed quietly. "Better when I'm alone, though."
Taichi stopped his awkward laugh. "Oh. Right. I suppose it is."
Mizuki blinked at him. "That's your cue to leave."
"You're sure you want to be alone?" Taichi asked again.
"I just . . . don't feel up to humoring people," Mizuki replied wearily, allowing herself a small smile.
"I understand," he said gently, placing his hand upon hers.
Mizuki hastily pulled her hand away, averting her gaze from his eyes. "Taichi -"
"Mizuki?"
She hesitated for so long she thought he might leave - to do some errand or other, cast some spell, read some book.
But he didn't. His gaze stayed firm but gentle as he looked into her shadowed eyes that dared not look back into his.
She was almost as surprised as he was to find that her eyes were filled with tears; her throat burned with the effort of keeping the emotions inside.
Finally, her voice croaked out:
"Taichi . . . I . . . I know about you and Aya and - and I just -"
She couldn't speak anymore, the effort of keeping in her tears overcoming her voice.
Still he only came closer. "I understand. Spare yourself the pain." He reached out to touch her, but she shied away.
"I tried to ignore it but - I -"
"Don't. You don't have to say a word more."
They were facing each other now, closer than before, and their eyes locked.
"I'm sorry, Mizuki," Taichi whispered. "I am so, so sorry."
The tears finally fell down her face - for the second time in her life: the first for an impossible friendship, and the second for an impossible love.
And all was still, balanced, calm.
Until Mizuki's face contorted into an awful grimace, breaking the serenity and backing away, wildness in her eyes.
"Don't pretend like you care," she growled. "Don't even try!" She stumbled a little as she backed away in a frenzy. "I was never a person in your eyes!"
Taichi's eyes were wide. "Did I -"
"What do you think I am?!" Mizuki screamed. "Some kind of lost puppy? A wounded sheep that needs you to guide it back home?"
"Mizuki -"
"Don't Mizuki me!" she roared. "You don't care about me - I know it, now just admit it! To you I'm an object that's broken, that you're trying to fix, because it makes you feel like a good, helpful, member of society."
"I never -" Taichi pleaded.
"Lies! You never admit anything's wrong with you, only me! I'm the one who's falling, I'm the one you need to steady with your healing magic and your ideals!"
"Please -"
"Stop. Just stop. I don't want to hear another perfect word out of your mouth. Look. I don't want you to pretend that you feel anything for me, because I know you don't. You just look at her differently - I've seen it since the day you walked into the castle."
Taichi hung his head, eyes closed.
"I just needed to tell you," Mizuki went on, voice much quieter now. "I just needed you to know that I - I love you. And I hate myself for it. I always will. But don't change anything now that you know. Don't pity me, and don't pretend you love me. It won't change anything."
Taichi nodded slightly. "You must believe me, though. I truly am sorry."
"Your heart isn't your control. I've always hated that about being human, you know."
"What haven't you hated?"
"Look inside yourself. You're everything I've never hated about being human. Hope, and knowledge, and freedom."
"Everything you never had."
Mizuki was silent, because it was too true for her liking.
And, cloak slightly billowing behind him, the wizard left her there as she'd asked.
What he didn't know was that her tears returned after him and that she didn't leave that spot until dawn the next morning.