My alter ego appeared within the impossible space behind the closet door, paused, and closed the door behind her.
“Where on earth is this place?” I asked him.
Kauākṣara explained, “This is nowhere on earth. This domain belongs to a metahuman. He instinctively replicated a spell from an old animated film, sans the monsters and their fear-mongering corporation. It bridges the space between doors presented here and on the human world. Open any of these doors, and you can cross through a corresponding doorframe somewhere on Earth.”
I observed a door beside mine and opened it to test his statement, and found a bathroom with a woman showering. She spoke in French, with a tone expecting a lover, and I closed the door. I noticed I could hear and smell what was behind the closed doors.
I asked him, “How did you find me so fast in this maze?”
Tapping his clawed index finger to his beak, he explained, “Each door transmits the sounds and smells behind them. I sought a door with your scent or voice. I found nothing with your voice, but I detected the faint trace of your current scent.”
This disturbed me and made me very glad that I had trained a nonlocal application of my summoning and banishment.
I asked him, “You said this place belongs to a metahuman. Who are they?”
Kauākṣara explained, with tremendous sobriety, “I cannot tell you that, just as I cannot tell anyone else of your true identity, of which I will not ask…”
He turned to walk and, using a gesture of his right hand, invited me to keep pace with him as he guided me through this labyrinthine array of hallways.
He continued, “To my dismay, this territory will not be open to us for much longer. For you see, our gentleman benefactor has terminal cancer and only six months to live by medical prediction. I suspect he will not make it to his third month. Despite my offer to help extend his life and take care of him, he adamantly believed that as an old soul, I shouldn’t waste my time with a young cripple. I told him he was talking nonsense, but he remained unmoved.”
With unshed tears in his eyes, he explained, “He told me to focus on witnessing history’s great cycles and the great men who shape them. I told him how the small stories, the ones nobody else will remember, hold equal significance. They shape the story of humanity, even if we can’t see how.”
I gave him my condolences, but he assured me, “Everyone dies eventually. Even I will die one day. It’s truly tragic for a young man to face death so vainly. I’d rather see him off with humility, for his soul’s sake.”
I assumed, by vanity, he was referring to the refusal of care by someone perceived as greater than oneself.
I asked him, “How old is he?”
He told me, “Counting from his conception, he would be exactly ten thousand days old in two hundred and seventeen days.”
I assured the creature, in their stoic self-control, “I’m sorry that you’re going through that, but I’ll pray for him, and if you believe in God, pray as well.”
He sighed, “I do, but prayer isn’t magic, and God does not answer all prayers…”
A mournful pause punctuated the moment.
He stated, “When he dies, we will lose access to this domain unless someone is on this side of the doorways. I’m going to miss his witticism, but enough of my troubles. On to the reason I invited you here…”
He asked me, “Why do you think I’ve brought you to this place?”
I noted, “You mean to tell me that this domain exists, and that we only have a limited window of opportunity to use it against the Yōma?”
He told me, “Not quite. I will do my best to ensure this domain remains open, as a memento to him, and for any heroic soul who needs it. Although I’m not sure this domain will be useful against the Yōma threat.”
We reached our destination several floors below, through a damaged door which led to an abandoned building that had been standing unmaintained for decades. He walked into this unknown territory, and I followed him, using my penetrating vision to discover that this was an abandoned metropolitan area in Australia. That’s when I realized Kauākṣara was leading me towards another, what I presumed was a nouiform, still a mile down the road, towards the center of the city.
It looked like a corgi-sized mouse with pangolin-like armor, powerful digging claws, rabbit-like ears, and a single spine at the end of its tail. It was cute a chimera. The creature clearly heard us coming, as shown by its ears tracking our movements, but it seemed unbothered.
My penetration vision showed me the entity’s hypercarnivorous teeth and skull, as well as unfamiliar organs with yet-to-be-determined functions without analogue in any known animal.
Kauākṣara noticed me visually lock onto the creature and deduced, “Ah, so you can see through walls and at great distance as well. You’ve probably deduced why we are here then.”
I guessed, “You wish to show me something regarding your kind?”
Kauākṣara, with a clear sense of vicarious pride, admitted, “Yes and no. I’d like to show you what a friendly bout between nouiformes looks like.”
I asked him, “How does this help us with the task at hand?”
Kauākṣara informed me, “Don’t you realize that your kindness to our sleeping friend has earned you an ally? He will fight for, and even die for, you. Also, while I abstain from bloodsports and mortal combat, I too will do what I can to help you defend the race of men that I love.”
As we approached our target, Kauākṣara warned me, “Princess … We nouiformes are incomplete beings. We need to seek other beings, unlike ourselves, and bond with them. When a nouiform finds a partner with a high enough compatibility, it results in a psychic bond: our partners can see through our eyes and they through ours. But this comes with a cost, as our companions will feel our pain and our rage, and we will feel theirs in return. To kill a nouiform with such a psychic tether is to kill their companion. The psychic trauma will destroy their nervous system long before the nouiform dies, but the reverse does not hold. Killing a nouiform’s companion will not kill it, but it will make them berserk.”
I asked him, “Killing human beings is out of the question for me. I am a peacekeeper, not a soldier or executioner.”
Kauākṣara informed me, “The companions of a nouiform are not always human. They can be any self-aware entity, including elephants, great apes, corvids, cetaceans, etc. The GSSDO has, on one occasion, discovered a nouiform bonded to a domestic cat, but upon testing, it showed self-recognize in a live video feed.”
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I asked him, “You’ve worked with the GSSDO?”
He confessed, “Sort of. I developed a bond with the child of one of its members back during the Global War on Terror when they made the discovery in question. I was not their first encounter with my kind, but they treated me well and I taught them many things.”
Akhbar noticed that we were approaching another nouiform, raising its head and perking up its ears. Kauākṣara calmed the creature with a head pat. Akhbar stayed on their perch, sniffing the air for information, and remained alert until we entered the backyard of the abandoned house. The novel creature opened its eyes, looking towards us.
Kauākṣara appeared to initiate and moderate the contact between the bestial nouiformes. They negotiated the situation inhumanly, agreed to a mere test of mettle, and Akhbar jumped to the ground. Two creatures’ eyes locked, Kauākṣara warned me to step back. A click from his closed beak signaled the fight’s start.
Akhbar, in a fraction of a second, accelerated to Mach 2 and tackled the creature. Brutally dragging it through the fences and walls of five houses, two of which collapsed because of their primary supports being turned into shrapnel. The new creature broke from Akhbar’s control and threw them a distance of 300 meters. This creature slammed its left paw down, exploded the ground beneath it and caused an earthquake that shattered the immediate surroundings and shook a tremendous distance. Moving our foundation and compromising my footing, so I leaped 500 m into the air.
I saw this earthshaking violently uproot the foundations of and collapse all the houses and skyscrapers in this ghost town. Judging by the sound, feeling, and damage to buildings, as well as how it destabilized my footing, I estimated it to be an 8.5 on the Richter scale.
Akhbar, fighting to regain stability, unleashed a particle beam of Čerenkov radiation that effortlessly sliced through the ground, buildings, and abandoned vehicles as though they were air. A crack-like thunder accompanied the flash of light and blinding brightness of ionized air.
The other creature, experienced with earthquakes, used the unstable footing to its advantage, racing around Akhbar in a giant half-oval before attempting to ambush them. It vomited out a gallon of a napalm-like compound burning at a heat of 9 gigajoules, causing a massive self-oxidizing conflagration, which missed Akhbar.
Unknown to me, Akhbar could levitate and fly. The sound barrier breaking shockwave stunned the novel creature, but not before it could dodge Akhbar’s beam attack and throw a brick at escape velocity as a counterattack. I found it difficult to determine whether the creature was dodging the Čerenkov radiation itself or was aim dodging with startling proficiency.
Once grounded, I told Kauākṣara, “This is insane! We have to stop them!”
Kauākṣara advised me, “They’re competitive, but they won’t kill each other. Chyūn Sāan Gaap, has been my friend for over fifty years, and it seems these two already knew each other as well. Though, if you’re concerned about human casualties, no one’s here. I checked before we started this fight.”
At some point, the new creature burrowed underground, to avoid Akhbar tracking it. Hidden by the earth, the creature unleashed a VEI-3-like eruption, hurling molten debris towards Akhbar. In response, Akhbar instinctively curled up and formed an invisible sphere as a protective shield.
Kauākṣara altered the weather, turning the cloudless and sunny day into a rainy day. This interference immediately ended the match. Akhbar descended to the ground unharmed and returned to us with the demeanor of an annoyed cat, climbed up on me and took a nap upon my shoulders. Chyūn Sāan Gaap, on the other hand, exited from their hole and returned to Kauākṣara with the disposition of an annoyed golden retriever.
The degree of casual power displayed, even by Kauākṣara himself, horrified me. Moreso from Akhbar, who only weighed 6 kg (13.2 lbs), and Chyūn Sāan Gaap, who looked like they weighed 12 kg (26.5 lbs).
We conversed briefly in an abandoned house. He allowed the heavy rain, which was falling at a rate of 10 mm per hour, to persist for 10 minutes. Then, he dispersed the rain clouds, bringing back the sunny day. Akhbar sleeping on my shoulders like a pet monkey, and Chyūn Sāan Gaap sleeping at my feet like a dog. During the downpour, I asked him why they stopped so suddenly, and Kauākṣara revealed that his interference disrupted the point of the fight. To see who was more powerful.
Kauākṣara confessed, “My friend has shown me your adventures in Japan and your activities in America. You’ve witnessed the danger even limited metahuman powers can pose, as well as the danger presented by the kaijū. I believe it’s important for you to know the threat we also pose as well.”
Kauākṣara explained, “Nouiformes are more dangerous than most metahumans are. Our capacities for regeneration and matter manipulation are frightful indeed… And we can continue to fight with injuries that would quickly kill any animal…”
I asked him, “Like what?”
Kauākṣara confessed, “I have seen disemboweled nouiformes, with a broken spine, and shattered skull, go on to raze whole forests. We get more dangerous the closer to death we are, and the closer to death we survive, the stronger we get.”
I asked him, “Then how do we kill nouiformes?”
He explained, “Complete evisceration is the only surefire way to kill us. Given our durability and regeneration abilities, this is no simple task. Nothing short of getting sucked into the most powerful turbines could hope to accomplish this to even the weakest of us.”
I asked him, “I’ve seen metahumans do great things with their powers, both villainous and heroic. How can we reach out to noble nouiformes and the nouiform-bonded to serve and protect as well?”
Kauākṣara told me, “Some already have. Did you not hear of the pygmy-descended fellow with the giant bird in the GSSDO? He was a nouiform tamer, and the bird was his nouiform. Yet, there’s an undisclosed aspect of our nature that you must know.”
I asked him, “Continue?”
That’s when Kauākṣara revealed the horrifying truth: “We nouiformes are cannibalistic and anthropophagic. Without a bond to one of noble disposition or a personal transformation, we consume each other and the humans bonded to our prey. To us, cannibalism and anthropophagy are a means of becoming stronger. It is likely that under the previous attachment, your newfound friend here ate people, even if only the partners to rival nouiformes. Although now that he has attached himself to you, there is already a change in his apparent disposition. For transparency, the last time I ate a human being was around fifteen hundred years ago. I ceased this practice after forming a bond with a sage of the Dvaita and Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika-darśana.”
This admission shocked me. He analogized his revelation to the biblical command to confess our sins to each other.
“Think of this as my confession,” he explained, “so you can better understand what I am and why I won’t fight as our friends here…”
I experienced an awkward pause where I couldn’t think of anything to say. So, Kauākṣara redirected me to another important topic, “You know, our friend here needs a new name.”
He motioned to Akhbar and explained, “A new name to mark a transformation in mission and ends, don’t you think?”
I agreed, “I suppose so?”
He advised me, “Well, daughter of Adam, since they chose you, I think it should be you who chooses their new name. Consider what you want for your new friend.”
Kauākṣara gently patted Akhbar, who remained asleep.
To avoid disrupting Kauākṣara’s series of revelations, I refrained from mentioning something that had been bothering me. Although I suspect he noticed, he chose not to inquire further, likely out of courtesy. The entire time I was here, despite my penetrating vision seeing no signs of human life, I could nevertheless hear what sounded to be human whispers. Whispers whose content was indecipherable, but whose melancholic disposition was obvious.
At the end of our conversation, I noted that our way home was gone. Kauākṣara apologized but believed I could find my way back with my speed and navigation prowess.
Just before I attempted to call myself back to me, Kauākṣara reported, “One more thing before you depart, Princess. Those girls were not sufficiently skilled to pose any kind of threat to me, and they’re not prepared to fight any kind of eldritch threat.”
I asked him, “You met those girls who contacted me?”
He told me, “Yes. They failed an ambush against me yesterday. I am not sure how they could track me down, but I doubt they will be willing to co-operate with me. So, uncovering what is afoot on their end is on you. I’d suggest, if possible, contacting the girls and feigning submission to their request. I will investigate the Eldritch threat on my side as well. I have some ideas but need to research further to narrow possibilities.”
I smiled at this gentle soul and told him, extending my hand for a fist bump, which was reciprocated, “Godspeed with your investigation, Kauākŝara.”
At that moment, I was still unaware of my mispronunciation of his name.
He didn’t mind and said, “I’ll keep you in the loop and in my prayers.” Let’s keep your home safe.”
New Providence, New Hampshire, wasn’t quite my home yet, but it had grown on me for the past year. Even so, I was determined to protect it as if it were my home.
I attempted to call myself back to me, and to my surprise, all the way from an Australian ghost town, it worked.