(From that day forward, we began living in Satori's mansion. We were assigned a room and told that we'd start tomorrow. Or rather, I would start tomorrow. If anything, the girls were like an insurance policy. If he harmed them, I wouldn't comply with the deal. If they harmed him, the shikome he controlled would go berserk. It was a dirty, but crafty kind of policy that assured that if one of us strikes the other, we all lose. M.A.D. policy indeed.)

The guest room provided by Satori easily beat the suites of the most expensive hotels. The massive bed was fitted with the softest sheets and pillows. The bathroom alone was more spacious than the living rooms at either of Osamu's houses.

The smooth, black carpet beneath their feet was almost as soft as the bed. Their bedside window gave them a view of the front garden and all of the flowers therein. The red walls and gold trim almost made it feel like they were renting a room in China's Forbidden Palace.

Despite the luxury and comforts available to them, Osamu and the girls hardly slept a wink. How could they, with the image of Isabella's skeleton still so fresh in their minds? It was nearly sunrise when Izanami and Tsukiakari finally fell asleep, while Osamu and Yoko remained awake. At first, the two just sat with their heads hung low as their shadows were cast against the wall by the rising sun.

"Osamu...do you really intend on helping this guy?" Yoko asked. "Nothing about him is trustworthy. And what he did to Izzy can't be forgiven."

"I know." Osamu answered. "If nothing else, we have to try for Izanami and Gekko. We have to see if this girl he has is one of their friends. Plus, we can't just let this curse he spoke of go unchecked. If anything happens to him, I can only imagine what the shikome will do."

"Osamu, you know I love you, and I trust you too."

Osamu nodded. "Yeah."

"But this is stupidly dangerous."

"Yeah."

"Promise me that I won't end up a widow. Promise me we'll get out of this. Say it right now."

"Come on. I don't plan on dying on you, or them. I'll make it out of this. I promise."

"Kiss me then."

Osamu kissed Yoko, just as he was told.

"Again." Yoko whispered.

Osamu planted another gentle kiss on Yoko's scarlet lips.

"God that made me so horny." Yoko said.

"I can't believe you're still such a pervert at this age! Especially after the day we had yesterday!" Osamu scorned.

"I wasn't kissing you for my sake. It was for you. Do whatever you need to do to get to the bottom of this, Osamu. We'll help in any way we can. We're your wives, after all."

(In the end, she's still always there for me...)

"Thanks, Yoko. I'll be counting on you."

The two were startled by a sudden barrage of knocks upon their door. Satori's voice called out from the other side.

"Osamu! Come with me, my man! There are some things I need to show you."

"I've got to go. Take care of them." Osamu said.

Yoko nodded. "Okay. Good luck."

Osamu walked out and joined Satori in the hallway, his tired eyes initially blinded by the glare of the morning sun piercing through the multicolored, stained glass windows lining the entire length of the hall. Even the floors reflected their colorful glare with extreme vibrancy. Satori wore a golden yukata, keeping his wrapped arm slung over the opening in the chest area of the yukata. The wrappings around his arm were something Osamu hadn't noticed before, since he wore a tuxedo the previous day.

"Our timing actually couldn't have been better." Satori said. "Follow me, please."

And so, Osamu and Satori sauntered down the hall, beginning their journey through the decadent and strange architecture of the mansion. The hall of stained glass washed them both with vibrant shades of red and purple.

"Care to explain your situation to me in-depth?" Osamu asked.

"Ah, yes. There's a reason for this arm, Osamu." Satori began. "It's also affecting one of my legs. In fact, it's rapidly eating away at my very body. It's not really a disease, per se, but a curse. A curse that can only be put on humans by deities."

"Right, that's why there's shikome everywhere."

"It seems to necrotize the limbs until it works it way to the heart, or to the brain. My first arm and first leg fell victim to this curse. One day, the two just plopped off."

"Wait, what?!" Osamu recoiled. Then what about the arm and legs you have now? Are those prosthetics?"

"I suppose you can think of it that way. In fact, for now, it's better that you do."

(Necrotization...the death of cells that lead to the degradation of tissue. No wonder the shikome reek of rotting flesh.)

"You see, several years ago, a strange girl appeared in my garden, the same girl I want you to speak to." Satori said. "I took her in and tried to help her out. I told her she could stay here, rest her head, fill her belly, and put some clothes on her back. I didn't mind at all. I'm rich anyway. However...after a while, the girl tried to kill herself in this very mansion."

(Attempted suicide?)

"She stabbed herself in the neck with one of the kitchen knives repeatedly. No matter how much she bled or how deep she cut, she could not die. Her wounds kept regenerating, and her blood kept replacing itself. I got her to stop and I had the maids clean up the blood-soaked floors. I tried talking to her, but the girl refused to speak. All she could do was cry."

The two came out of the stained glass hallway. They ended up in a hallway almost completely made of glass, save for the floor. The x-shaped metal framing over the glass gave the sunlight shining on the white floor the shape of diamonds. Their footsteps echoed through the wide hall as they proceeded their walk. It was almost difficult to pay attention to Satori when the scenery of the mansion kept changing so drastically.

"When I looked at her body, there wasn't a stab wound anywhere. How could she bleed so much and not have any wounds? I knew right then and there, she wasn't human. In fact, she was extraordinary." Satori explained. "From there, I knew she must've been some sort of goddess, or deity of some sort. When I talked to her back then, she uttered her first word to me. Just one word. 'Lonely.'"

"Lonely?"

"That's when she began doing absolutely horrible things. She began killing the maids in the mansion, and bringing them back as shikome, the foul women of the underworld. I tried to stop her, but even as she was taking their lives, I found it hard to do any harm to her. So...I hugged her and begged her to stop. She sobbed her heart out and hugged me back, and then she uttered her second word to me. 'Painful.'"

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

(Hmm...)

They came across the circular, open area dividing the residential halls from the other side of the mansion. Osamu and Satori were greeted by a cacophony of cawing crows, all of them scattering upwards and out of the open skylight in the ceiling. A single, large pond stood in the center of the room, filled with bloom, white lotuses. In the very center of the pond stood a large, dead maple tree, its branching twisting and bending in all manner of directions.

"A foolish me took pity on the girl, a girl whose name I did not know, and whose past I still know nothing about." Satori continued. "In return for my forgiveness, she kept murdering the maids and turning them into shikome. It seemed her violent urges could not be quelled. This time, it wasn't just one or two or three at a time. It was a full-blown massacre. She used the shikome she had already made to aid her, and in one night, the entire house was converted into those things."

"So that's where they came from..." Osamu sighed.

"That's when it really started to become a problem. The shikome started attacking me at first, which put my life in danger. I ran to the girl's room and begged her to get rid of the shikome, but her only response was laughter. After that...she kissed me. And that's when the curse was inflicted. She uttered her third word. 'Love.'"

(A curse transmitted through a kiss? How odd...it's like Izanami, who can revive someone with a kiss. Or even Yoko...her kiss has always been special too.)

"She loved me. I truly believe that. But in doing so, she cursed me. That's when my body was afflicted and began to fall apart. I sought help from any god I could find and lift the curse. The first god that replied was Bishamonten."

"You met Bishamonten?!" Osamu shouted.

"Yeah. Small world, huh?" Satori tittered. "Bishamon is the one who provided me with new limbs, severed from those he had recently killed and affixed to my body."

"The eye too?" Osamu asked, referring to his blue eye.

"Yes, even the eye. Bishamon educated me on the shikome, how to control them, and a few other things. He taught me about the affairs of the gods, and that some of them still roam this earth. Though he died before he could confirm the identity of the girl, he thought that she may have been a goddess for sure. With him dead and his shrines in ruin, some of his tools were left to me. I learned how to perform the kuji-in that removes the shikome's desire to kill me or anyone else indiscriminately. So, in a sense, they remained the loyal maids they are, just badly deformed and made foul. Some of them however..."

Osamu realized they were in a room where one wall was nothing but blue, stained glass. The sunlight helped drown the room in a deep blue shade. as though they were submerged deep within the ocean. The room had no other light source. It was spacious and dark, bigger than an empty movie theater. Silhouetted against the ocean-blue stained glass was a row of crucified shikome, all of them wailing and struggling on their crosses.

"Behold." Satori sang. "These are the shikome I couldn't quite tame. It may have been because these were some of the first, and they were too far gone to save. At the same time, I didn't know how to kill them, so I had them crucified."

"I've never...seen anything like this at all..." Osamu muttered, his mouth agape.

Satori ran his cane across the knees of the Shikome, agitating them as he walked by. "Hah! Not so tough now, are you? I'll send you back to the underworld soon enough!"

(I suppose...it's not inhumane if they're no longer human in the first place. If they were loose, it'd be him or them. I would've done the same thing...)

"Osamu?" Satori called out.

"Ah, yes! Coming..."

Osamu caught up with Satori, the two of them now standing on the ground floor of massive, white tower. The tiled floor and spiraling walkway snaking upwards along the sides were all white and polished to perfection. The stained glass windows coiled upwards alongside the walkway, drawing the otherwise white tower in a rainbow of color.

"Shikome! Bring me the girl!" Satori ordered, his voice echoing through the empty center of the ground floor. Both Osamu and Satori waited anxiously for the girl's arrival. Osamu especially held his hand over his thumping heart, trying to take deep breaths to relax himself.

"You see, after that kiss, she kept trying to show affection towards me." Satori said. "But because it only did harm to me in the end, I forbade her from loving me or anyone else. That's when she went back to her suicidal tendencies, the poor girl."

"Do you hate her? She made you suffer quite a lot." Osamu said.

"Honestly? I don't know. Hmph, but I know she's driven me to such desperate acts, like robbing that poor girl's grave. It's maddening! And every day, my time grows shorter and shorter...all because of that girl."

Osamu was just about to respond, but a quick shadow passed over his eyes and caught his attention. He turned his gaze upwards as everything seemed to flow in slow motion. He saw a black figure falling from the top balcony, god knows how many stories high.

(What...what is that?!)

The figure was tumbling and flipping in the air, clearly having no control over the fall. Drops of black liquid flew around as the body tumbled in the air until it finally crashed right in the middle of the ground floor, cracking smashing the tiling into tiny pieces. The thunderous sound of rubble falling back down to the ground flooded Osamu's ears.

"Why is she..." Satori muttered, covering his head.

(Who is that?! Are they okay?!)

Osamu ran over to the person, realizing it was a young woman. "Hey! Hey! Are you..."

(This smell...she's drenched in this thick black liquid...is it...crude oil!?)

The girl was absolutely drenched in crude oil, from her head to her toe. There was so much that it began to pool around her as if it were her blood. The girl opened her eyes and reached her arm up to Osamu, trying to grab onto his peace sign necklace.

As she tried to grab onto him, she realized she could feel no movement in her upper arm or hands, as if they simply wouldn't obey her will. As the smoke cleared, both Osamu and the girl saw that her forearm was hanging off the rest of her arm by a few strands of skin and blood-soaked flesh. Her legs were grotesquely mangled and twisted, with broken bones protruding out of her skin.

The back of her head was completely busted open, exposing bits of cracked skull as thick, mushed pieces of her brain dripped from the cracks. She formed a black spot in the middle of that massive, white room, staining the floors around her with oil. She began to scream in heart-pounding agony, flailing her limbs around as she cried. Osamu jumped back in frightful awe and watched with Satori, who didn't seem very surprised at all.

"So this is how you tried to end it, huh? You're becoming much too pitiful, young girl." Satori mumbled.

Before Osamu's very eyes, the girl's broken, split, and mangled limbs were slowly regenerating, fixing the bones and any other damage. As she flailed and screamed, the oil she was drenched in continue to splash around on the floor. She managed to flip over on her tummy, violently vomiting the crude oil out of her stomach.

(She's...healing?!)

Satori walked up to her, taking out a lighter and match. "Stabbed, crushed, drowned..."

Metal shutters began swirling down the lengths of all the windows, enclosing the room in darkness.

"And even burned..." Satori said.

Satori threw the lit match on the girl, covering her and all the oil in flames that emitted bright, orange light around the ground floor of the tower. Her wild screams pierced their ears as the fire ate through her flesh. But then, right before their very eyes, the flames were suddenly extinguished, surrounding the girl's body in odorous smoke.

"What? Now that's new..." Satori said.

"What did she just do?! There's no way flames that hot can just douse themselves when there's oil around..." Osamu stammered.

Satori's expression quickly shifted from one of shock to amusement. His smile gave way to a hearty round of laughter that echoed through the tower.

"What can you be laughing about at a time like this?" Osamu questioned, sweat dripping down his neck.

"I think I just figured out who this girl might be. Still, I'll need you to confirm it for me, all right? Just make her talk."

Satori hit the floor with his cane twice, turning on a neon red sign on the wall ahead of the girl. The sign read 'Satori', written in kanji. The girl slowly stood herself up, her bubbling skin regenerating and the pain coming to an end.

"It's up to you to get any and all information you can out of her." Satori said. "As I've said before, you have all the tools. You just don't realize it yet. Talk to her, and I'm certain everything will go well from there. I feel confident knowing my life is in the hands of the most charming man in Kyoto."

The smoke left over from the doused flames were tinted red by the neon sign, casting streaks of shadows on the floor. The light elongated her shadow across the ground floor as she slowly waddled her way towards Osamu.

"Hey, are you okay?" Osamu shouted.

The girl collapsed into Osamu's arms, covering him in oil.

"How did she end up like this?" Osamu asked.

"Well then. I'll leave the rest to you, Osamu." Satori snickered.

"How am I honestly supposed to figure this out!? I may have saved a few girls, and I may have stormed heaven and defeated Bishamon too! But...that was different! I was lucky each time! I'm not some messiah who knows the answers to everything!"

"Try." Satori ordered. "You have a choice in the matter, so try. You always have a choice, Osamu."

With that, Satori smiled and walked away, leaving the immortal goddess in Osamu's arms.

"Seriously..." sighed.

Osamu gazed at the red, neon sign as it continued to beam its hot light upon him

(So that's what his name means...Enlightenment...)

He then turned his gaze to the unconscious girl, realizing she was already peacefully asleep in his arms.

"I don't know how, but for the women I love, I need to get everything I can out of you..."

(Every man has to be able to figure a tough situation out. I thought I'd be able to do that. But this...I wonder if this is too much. No matter what though, I still have to try...)

A strange man in a strange home with an even stranger girl. It was up to Osamu to find the answer to everything.