“Osamu…” Yoko wept. “What have you done?”

At long last, Osamu realized the first step of his plan; the extermination of mankind. He had lied, manipulated, and murdered his way to this point. The girls always believed that although his methods were awful, Osamu was fighting for them. They truly believed he fought to protect his friends and family, as well as his own life.

In that moment, all they saw was a man who fought so hard for his chance to destroy the world. They saw a man who had lost all hope in humanity. Yoko thought back to the shy, long-haired boy she knew in middle school who cared so much for people. She thought back to the young man that was willing to erase Aika’s memories of him just so she could have a fresh start.

Osamu was always sacrificing something for someone else, but in that moment, Yoko saw the most selfish man she had ever met. Tears streamed from her eyes as she thought of all the people all around the world that were about to die. Billions of men, women, and children would have their lives stolen. They’d die screaming, in agony, and in utter confusion. No one one understand why this was happening to them.

“Aika and Rei!” Amatsuki screamed. “Are they going to be okay?”

“And Isabella’s mother, too!” Tsukiakari cried. “Osamu, you have to stop this! They’ll all get caught up in the destruction!”

Osamu met eyes with Tsukiakari, but it was like no one was there. The darkness clouding his eyes had only grown infinitely more vacuous. Tsukiakari’s heart nearly stopped right then and there when she realized Osamu wouldn’t stop this genocide even if it meant his friends would die in it.

“Hima!” Osamu shouted. “Take me with you! I’m going to kill as many people as I can!”

“Hima, you can’t possibly be okay with this!” Yoko cried. “I know that humans have brutalized your people, but this is going too far! There’ll be hardly anyone left in the world by the time this is over!”

“Good.” Hima said, a satisfied smile blooming on her face. “You reap what you sow. Why would I try to stop this?”

Tsukiakari turned, her face red with rage. “Hima!”

“My race endured centuries of persecution and genocide at their hands!” Hima yelled. “Your grandmother even had a hand in it! Don’t you dare massacre my people and then tell me to stop when we finally have the chance to return the favor!”

Hima clasped her hands, enwreathing herself in the blue aura of her moonlight dragon. Its head extended past the girls like a lunging serpent, prompting them all to duck and roll out of the way. Osamu was snatched up by the dragon’s head, sinking into its aura and standing alongside Hima.

“My king!” Hima sang, taking Osamu’s hand into her own. “Let’s kill them! All of them!”

The girls watched in horror as Osamu and Hima flew away in their moonlight dragon, its wings creating hurricane-like gusts of wind in their wake. Tsukiakari gnashed her teeth in rage as she reached for the handle of her sword, only for Izanami to grab her by the wrist and stop her.

“No, don’t!” Izanami screamed. “We can’t risk killing either of them!”

All they could do was watch as Osamu and Hima, the rulers of Minavere, carried out the single worst act of mass murder in the history of mankind. Realizing Osamu had manipulated his family yet again, Tsukiakari let out a throat-tearing scream of rage and fell to her knees.

“As awful as it is, I can understand a war.” Amatsuki said, looking around in terror. “But this? Osamu’s going way too far! Is he really planning to destroy the whole world? Why?”

Having ventured with him through his mind, Taeko understood Osamu more than anyone. She closed her eyes to fight back the tears that threatened to roll down her cheeks. “Because he doesn’t see any other way out of this.”

“I thought you two had a plan!” You sobbed.

“We did, but it wasn’t good enough for him. My plan would shift the power balance between nations by putting Minavere in the fold, but realistically, it would only secure peace for one lifetime. Osamu’s thinking about what happens after that. He’s thinking about what happens to his kids and their children. He doesn’t want us to inherit a world plagued by war. So, this whole time, he’s been setting up his own plan to force permanent peace upon the world.”

“It can’t be…” Tsukiakari gasped. “He forced us all to weave kuji-in signs. He can use Bloodcraft?”

Taeko nodded. “He pretended he couldn’t. I imagine that if anyone knew that beforehand, the vampires wouldn’t have been able to trust him. The only ones who knew were the Shoku Twins. They’ve been helping him with this plan the whole time. Now that I think about it, it all makes sense. The twins are both victims of war. Not only did they lose their lives, they lost everyone they loved, and it was all because of one of the Shinto gods. Osamu must’ve revealed his plan to them because he knew they’d share his intense hatred for war.”

“We have to stop him.” Tsukiakari said. “This is overkill! We never asked for this!”

“No one can stop him now, Gekko.” Taeko sighed. “He’s awakened Inari’s Bloodcraft. He’s the king of Minavere, and thus protected by the vampires. His Bloodcraft can even override Izanami’s lordship over the Underworld. He commands the demons, he has Hima at his side, and the Shoku Twins will risk everything to protect him. He’s completely unstoppable.”

“Osamu…” Kagutsuchi cried, clutching her chest. “Wait, where’s Aika? And Rei!”

“Last we heard from Aika, she said she had just moved to a new house in Aichi prefecture…” Yoko said.

“Mom, can you take us there? We need to get her out before all of this reaches Aichi!” Kagutsuchi pleaded.

Izanami shook her head and covered her quivering lips with her hand. She couldn’t even say a word. All she could do was cry, her heart shattering into pieces.

“Mom?” Kagutsuchi murmured, looking to the others for answers.

“She only just recently moved there with her family. Which means…” Tsukiakari began. “She can’t teleport us there. We’ve never been there before.”

“Can we call her?” Amatsuki asked, whipping out her phone. To her dismay, the chaos Osamu unleashed knocked out the cell towers in the area. No one could use their phones to warn their loved ones they were about to die.

“This can’t be happening…” Kagutsuchi said, shivering in fear. “Is Aika going to…”

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

Osamu had a bird’s eye view of the destruction he had just unleashed upon the world. The demons were scattering in all directions, seeking out cities and nations near and far. The massive eclipse in the sky hung above it all, plunging the world into a deep darkness. First, he would personally see to the evisceration of the people of Fukuoka.

He clasped his hands and closed his eyes, taking command of the Underworld’s Eye that loomed over Japan alongside the solar eclipse.

(I’ll kill them. I’ll wipe this world clean. Maybe then, we can start over. Maybe then we’ll be free from our burdens. Don’t leave any of them alive. Keep killing…until I say it’s over. Burn them. Crush them. Bury them! Destroy it all!)

The Underworld’s Eye’s pupil shrank, its blood vessels reddening and bulging through the eye’s sclera like crimson branches. Under Osamu’s command, the eye opened a vortex right in the middle of Fukuoka prefecture. It started out as small as a gopher’s hole, but then quickly grew in size as more land fall into the massive, swirling sinkhole. It was as though the entire island of Kyushu was being swallowed by an earthen maelstrom.

As the hole continued to widen, horrified civilians screamed and ran for their lives. Just an hour ago, all of those people were going about their normal lives. They were working their desk jobs. Chattering students were walking to school with their friends, talking about their next hangout and what video games they would play once they got home. Young adults were getting pictures taken for their driver’s licenses. Nervous job-seekers were looking in their mirrors and fixing their ties in preparation for their interviews.

Young couples slept in together, closing their blinds to the rising sun. Overworked, yet tireless mothers loaded their cars full of groceries, thinking that the war against Osamu Ashikaga was much farther away than they ever could’ve known.

Now, their lives were about to end. Osamu saw the helpless, pale terror in their faces as they saw the sinkhole getting larger and larger, threatening to bury them in a swirling sea of dirt, rock, rubble, and human bodies.

Each of them feared what being in such a maelstrom would do to their own bodies. They didn’t want to be buried alive or crushed under tons of debris. They didn’t want to swallow earth until it filled their stomachs and lungs, killing them. They didn’t want to die. Not like this.

And so the men, women, and children of Fukuoka fled in vain. The very streets they ran on sank into the maelstrom and threatened to catch up with them. Osamu saw the office workers through the windows of their building scrambling towards the staircases, only for the entire building to fall into the sinkhole. He saw the students hug each other in a final embrace before they fell into a sea of twisted metal, broken concrete, and earth.

He saw the young adults scream for help as they disappeared into the maelstrom. Uniformed employees and prospective hires, people who thought today would be one of the best of their lives, cried in agony as their bodies were ripped apart by swirling, twisted metal before being buried beneath an ocean of mangled corpses.

The crushing horror he saw on their faces in their final moments, along with their pained and terrified screams, both haunted and amazed Osamu. Even Hima, who watched the massacre with a gleeful smile on her face, couldn’t quite gauge Osamu’s emotions when she looked for his reaction. His eyes were wide with wonder, his mouth agape in awe.

Was he dazzled by the spectacle of genocide? Or was it that his horror was so deep it left him petrified? Was it the realization that he had unleashed something so terrible it couldn’t be conveyed with words? Or was it his inner child viewing the end of the world as something else, something far more beautiful than the hellish nightmare his adult self was witnessing?

“Osamu!” Hima shouted, alerting him to the exorcists gathering on the skyscraper rooftops to their left.

Dozens of exorcists clasped their hands and focused their powers in unison, the wind pulling at their white cloaks and veils. Their legs shook as Hima’s moonlight dragon turned towards them.

The shrine maiden leading the exorcists locked eyes with Hima, then with Osamu. “If we can’t defeat these two here, then I fear that no one can. We have to fight with all of our might! We’re saving this world from Osamu and his wretched allies!”

The shrine maiden pulled her sword from its white sheathe, aiming the blade right at Hima’s moonlight dragon. Knowing it was either her or Osamu, she let out a furious scream. “Fire!”

The raven sky was ulcerated by radiant spots of golden light, drawing Hima’s eyes to the heavens. “Damn it! Brace yourself, Osamu!”

Colossal swords made of sunlight came crashing down from the sky like bolts of lightning, exploding against Hima’s moonlight dragon with a deafening boom. Golden flames spewed forth from the black smoke left behind by the explosion, illuminating the city like a rising sun.

The wind whisked away the odorous smoke shrouding the moonlight dragon. It still stood, but Osamu and Hima were both bloodied and battered within its blue aura. Golden cracks shined like a network of veins throughout the dragon’s moonlight body.

“They’re still standing after all of that?!” the shrine maiden gasped.

Hima laughed as blood ran down the left side of her face, trickling down her right arm and thighs. “It was a nice attempt, but you failed.”

Hima’s dragon spit forth a wall of blue flames, scorching the exorcists gathered on the rooftops. Panicked and burning alive, many of them tumbled off of the rooftop and fell more than forty stories to their deaths. The others were too injured to move. The flames ate through their flesh, turning their fat into bubbling oil and their muscles into char.

“Seems their solar abilities have weakened.” Hima observed. “It must be an effect of the eclipse. Still, we need to be careful.”

Osamu clasped his bloodied hands together. “The demons can slaughter everyone on the ground. We just need to keep forging ahead!”

“Where to?” Hima asked.

“All the way up to Kyoto. We’ll kill everyone in our path. That’ll buy Minavere some time, then the real invasion begins after that.”

“Haha! I was hoping you’d say that! I’ve waited so long for this! I hope you watching, Father! This is your vengeance!”

Yoko and the girls saw the explosions light up the sky from the beach. They noticed Hima’s moonlight dragon slithering its way in the direction of Kyoto. By now, the girls knew to assume the worst. They knew Hima and Osamu would most likely carve a path of blood and destruction from Fukuoka to Kyoto, a preamble to Minavere’s invasion of Japan. All the world’s armies and naval forces would find themselves preoccupied with a horde of demons, leaving Japan and the Exorcist Program to fend for itself.

As much as they all loved and empathized for Osamu, none of them could accept his unprecedented genocide as a legitimate solution. They couldn’t watch him destroy the world they were born into, nor the nation in which they were raised.

As the sinkhole swallowing up Fukuoka widened, the deafening roar of the swirling earth and debris within its apex grew louder and louder. It was intertwined with dying screams and cries from what must’ve been hundreds of thousands of people. The girls were nowhere near the closest city, and even they could hear it.

“That madman is going to sink the entire island and everyone who lives here…” Tsukiakari gasped. “Enough is enough! We have to do something! Izanami, take everyone to Kyoto, get somewhere where you can call Aika, and warn her!”

“What about you?” Izanami asked.

Tsukiakari gripped the hilt of her sword and looked toward the hellish destruction in the distance. “I don’t know, but I have to try something.”

“By yourself?” Yoko asked with a worried expression.

“I’m the best suited to take on Osamu and Hima.” Tsukiakari said. “I know that attacking them directly puts us at odds with Minavere. I’ll figure out some other way to stop them. Now hurry before this whole island sinks!”

“I’ll come back for you as soon as we warn Aika!” Izanami said. “Everyone, gather around!”

“Don’t you dare die out here, Gekko!” Yoko shouted.

“Good luck!” Amatsuki said.

Tsukiakari smiled and gave everyone a reassuring thumbs-up. “I’ve got this! Don’t worry about me!”

Izanami and the others vanished in the blink of an eye, leaving Tsukiakari to figure out how to deal with Osamu and Hima.

“I guess that’s why he made sure not to bring Izanami to Yakutsk with him.” Tsukiakari sighed. “Osamu set everything up so that we couldn’t teleport to Yakutsk and stop the Shoku Twins. Is this really what you want, Osamu? You really wished for omnicide?”

Tsukiakari pulled her sword from its sheathe and pointed it skyward. She hadn’t had to do it in a while, but if she had any hope of catching up with Hima’s moonlight dragon, she needed to summon her lightning dragon. The sky split apart as a massive pillar of lightning struck the sand, instantly taking the form of a flying, serpentine dragon.

Bolts of lightning whipped wildly from the dragon’s electric body, popping as it struck the raging ocean and glassy sand. Tsukiakari leaped into its head, taking command of the dragon from within its cage of lightning.

“No matter how much we may love you…we won’t stand for this, Osamu!” Tsukiakari raged as tears fell from her eyes. “I’ll stop you, even if I have to use force!”