The last time he had been there, the yokai territory had reminded him of a mining colony. Large patches of dense population, segregated by large spaces of sparsely populated acreage. Now it was a vast underground complex, spanning over several dozen acres, for all he knew. On watching closely, he could see signs of the war. They were subtle, but if one paid attention, they were everywhere. Extravagant outgrowths of shapes and sizes that made no senses. Broken sigil lines caused by erection of new walls to replace the old. Fractures along the older architecture, and so on.
There had been a rouse among the inhabitants about the return of the fabled Outsider, but everyone gave him a wide berth. Only Mizo and Maude could get up close, and even they maintained a professional distance.
Blob was the likely culprit.
The aqāru slime had transformed in ways more than one. During all the time he had known it, Blob had been content to stay in whatever form he wanted it to be. When left alone, it’d turn into a large droplet with an enormous tongue rolling out of it, licking whatever came within its vicinity. It didn’t react to anything unless Lukas did, and constantly attuned to his thoughts.
Now? It hung on his shoulder, transformed into fang-worms. Multiples of them. Yes, the yokai territory wasn’t the only thing that triggered old memories. He still remembered those days — going to sleep with his back against the wall and waking up to see himself covered with acid-secreting slime.
It was against one such fang-worm that he had used lifeforce for the first time.
Blob was imitating them, its body, now a formless ghol, draping all over Lukas’s back while several protrusions — fang worms peered around and made weird, clicking noises. Occasionally, they’d snap at his guards who’d jump several feet away in sheer reflex.
Not the best setting for a conversation. Not that it stopped Maude.
“I’ve been wondering. What are your impressions of Zuken and the others?”
Correction. Maude was the one asking relevant questions, and expertly batting away questions about herself, as if there was absolutely nothing worth talking about herself. She was good. Very good. But Lukas hadn’t gotten to where he had in life by playing fair.
“You tell me,” he said, “you’ve known them longer than I’ve.”
“I just wanted to know your thoughts,” she shrugged, as if utterly apathetic to the subject.
The corners of his eyes crinkled.
Lukas would’ve called her out over faking it, but he knew better. It didn’t matter what they talked about. There was always this thin lining of indifference in her tone, as if the conversation was little more than a distraction. She actually sounded genuinely interested whenever she approached a topic, only for it to fade into laconic indifference the moment she had asked it. It was like he was talking to two different people in the same body, with them constantly switching at random.
“Zuken’s… not your standard Asukan. He is driven. By what, I don’t know, but there are few things he’d not violate to get it. Not very fond of violence, but not shy of it either. He’s the sort I can respect.”
“And does he?” she asked. “Have your respect?”
Her eyes narrowed, albeit slightly. Perhaps they had gotten into a topic that interested both sides?
“We know what the other is angling for. Live and let live and all that.”
“Those fractals you wear,” Maude pointed out. “They cost a bloody fortune. Zuken must have genuine faith in your skills to get you those.”
“He and I understand each other to a degree, yes. He helps me in my research, I help him in his.”
“Research,” repeated Maude, as if tasting the word.
“Research,” Lukas confirmed. “Not everyone is interested in possessing others and destroying anomalies.”
The moment he said that, he realized the stupidity of his accusations. Like Solana, Zuken had hired Tanya to destroy the anomaly core. From Maude’s smirk, he knew she had arrived at a similar conclusion.
‘And what are you interested in?”
‘Oh, you know, a bit of this. A bit of that.”
“Is that why you were holding Kvasir’s treatise, Outsider?” she asked. “You were studying the history of the world and the old religions.” Maude asked, proving once again that beyond her affable persona lay a sharp mind. “Perhaps you might find the Leader more useful for your research? She is a creature older than any Asukan alive.”
Lukas noted the fact. He knew Asukans had a lifespan similar to humans, with only a few of them crossing their hundred and fiftieth birthday. The problem with lifeforce was that while it enabled the body to go beyond the ordinary into the surreal, it also sped up their growth. It was why Tanya, despite being merely twenty-two had the body of a woman in her early thirties, and why the Shogun of the Llaisy Kingdom, a man that had just celebrated his hundred and seventy-sixth birthday, looked as fit as a fiddle.
Even Lukas himself had changed significantly over the last several months he had spent in this world, dousing himself in increasing quantities of lifeforce. If not for Prophylaxis and his nature as an anomaly, he was pretty sure he’d not last his first century.
“Just… how ancient is she?”
“To my knowledge, she’s been around for the last six hundred years.”
He whistled. Six hundred years and she still insisted on appearing to be a smoking hot young woman. Vanity, thy name is Solana.
‘What can I say? Solana’s more interested in threatening me into working for her. She always wants something. That’s why I’m walking with you, and am not already exhumed in pieces.”
“I cannot speak for Leader,” Maude said. “But tell me, has Olfric gotten himself a new kami yet?”
Maude, or Malon as Mizo kept calling her, was Tanya’s teammate. A vanir by heritage, she had actively worked for the Empire, and used her powers at healing (naturopathy, to be precise) to heal many a noble during her years of service to the Empire. After her possession, she had changed sides to work for Solana, and here she was, asking about Zuken and the crew with the same air of old schoolmates meeting at a bar after a decade, inquiring about their old school gang.
“He… hasn’t,” Lukas said. “You could always ask Tanya about them. I’m sure she’d be glad to trade stories with her friend-turned enemy.”
Maude threw her head back and laughed. “Me and Tanya? Friends? You tell me. Is she friends with Zuken? With Elena? Olfric perhaps?”
Lukas paused at that. Tanya had always reminded him of a wild animal trapped in a cage, paraded around in a zoo. A predator that was forced to act benign while its prey watched and hooted from outside. He doubted if Zuken had the slightest idea just how volatile a person he was dealing with. If Tanya lost it, Zuken and his bloody mansion would turn to dust before he even had the chance to say ‘Sorry’.
His face must have revealed his thoughts, for Maude just smirked and said, “I thought as much.. And yet… you care for her deeply.”
“And what of it?”
“Nothing… It’s interesting. That’s all.”
The three turned past one corridor and slipped into a wall,only to get out in a different corridor. Before he could even register what had happened, he had already lost the path behind.
“Tell me something,” he said. “Yokai are ethereal creatures. Unlike kami, you don’t need to possess others to grow. But then… Why do you do it? All these buildings, it’s like you’ve built an underground town here. Why possess bremetans and live like them instead of…”
“Getting to go out Mizo can as Mizo,” said the reiki.
Lukas blinked.
“Spirits cannot enter the lands of Eternal Light,” Maude translated. “Not without completely weakening ourselves. But while possessing someone, we can. The effect is much less.”
Which meant that the yokai traveled into Asukan territories a lot more than the Asukans believed. And if they had been doing that for hundreds of years, just how much influence did they have over the Empire without them knowing? Was that how they knew where he had been staying all this time? Had Solana been keeping track of him from the very beginning?
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“Can I ask you something for a change?” Lukas asked. “It’s personal.”
“Of course.”
“I didn’t use that as a rhetorical question. I mean, I’d like you to answer, but if you’d keep it to yourself, that’s okay, too.”
Maude paused and looked back. “Why wouldn’t I want to answer your questions?”
“ Because you’re very good at talking about things that don’t matter. Every single time I’ve asked about Tanya, or about Oni, you’ve deflected it.”
Maude just walked, making no effort to answer.
“I might not know these people for long, but they aren’t the typical Asukan that Solana told me about.” Maude slipped him a curious glance as he continued. “Okay. maybe Olfric is, but even that guy doesn’t have his heart in an awful place. When you grow up with certain prejudices, you see the world with a tinted lens. You’re a Vanir. Tanya’s… a vagrant. Elena’s a changeling. Olfric’s family has denounced him. These people… they’re flawed, but they aren’t evil. So why…?”
“Why what?”
Lukas smiled. “Why?”
By not phrasing a question, he was leaving her unable to jump off hoops. She’d have to determine what he wanted to know, and that alone would reveal a lot about this woman.
The Oni went still for a moment, and then she exhaled. Out loud.
“I could tell you it’s because I’m an Oni, but I’d be lying. Eternal Light doesn’t affect me the way it does the yokai. Living in Haviskali, of course, beats living in this cavern, but at least, I have something that’s been denied me all my life.”
“Which is?”
“Freedom.”
There was a moment of stillness.
“I am—was a vanir. A devotee of the god Eir. In His Name, I healed countless Asukan lives. But look around. Do you see Eir anywhere? Temples? Pillars? Perhaps an inscription? The Empire torments everyone and forces them to follow their truth. Accept their history. Worship their gods. Surely you understand what that feels like? To have to follow a god, not your own?”
What Maude was describing was not very different from the events on Earth. One of the most efficient ways for an invading army to destroy and pilferage a nation was to destroy its culture and traditions. Demean their gods. Destroy their books. Transmogrify their rich past underneath layers of blood and fallen bodies, and construct grand architectural monuments, glorifying themselves. The Roman Church Crusades, the Viking Invasions, Cortez’s invasion of the Aztecs, and the Turkish-Mongolian invasions to the Indian subcontinent — all of them were the same. Tear a rich civilization apart and then rebuild it in their image. The Asukan Empire had done no differently. The Nordic civilization, of which Kvasir was a part, had shared the same fate. Especially after the fall of the Aesir during Ragnarok.
“Understand this,” Maude whispered, “the yokai are not on my side. I choose to be on theirs.”
“Is that why Solana sent you to me?” Lukas asked quietly. “To see if I had anything against her or the yokai? Did Zuken Banksi put you up to something similar in Tanya’s case?”
The pleasant mask faded from her face, replaced by a wary neutrality. She switched her hands, moving the bottom one to the top, carefully, as if she worried about wrinkling her dress.
Tanya had been quite vocal about her experiences on the Crypt mission, and how she worked for Banksi. She had always maintained that there was something fake about Maude. The Vanir had used her past as a vagrant to try bonding with her, and was now openly flirting with him to get him into an illusion of comfortability. Which was, of course, why Solana had chosen her to tempt him.
Maude was a lure.
One used by Banksi to bait Tanya.
And now by Solana against him.
“Alright,” he said, “uncomfortable silences are uncomfortable. Here’s something easier. What do you think of Solana?”
“Is that a serious question?”
Lukas gave her a polite nod. “I told you. It’s up to you to choose to answer it or not. But if you do, I’d hope for an honest one.”
He gave her a faint smile.
“The yokai want to regain what they’ve lost,” she said, “but not all of them want the same thing. A thousand-year old grudge doesn’t stay clean. There are those that would be content with more freedom. To not have to suffer the Eternal Light. They confined relics of the Yokai gods in Asukan treasuries. They’d like to have them back. Have the right to worship the deities they draw power from. The Asukans preach about their own holiness, about how we, the yokai, are the dark and the profane. These people… they’d like to exist beyond being demonic caricatures. They need to possess bremetans just to walk out of these caves. Not because they want to, but because they have to. They would just be happy to be accepted as a race, just as the bremetan are. They do not wish to become on par with the Asukans, but even a small region, just a small territory, away from the Eternal light, would go a long way to keep them content.”
“And everyone wants that?”
Maude bit her lip. “Not everyone, but a significant number. And then you have the extremist factions. Those that carry the grudge and will not be content without seeing Amaterasu choke on her own blood. The ones that want to wreck carnage and devastation and make the streets of the Land of Eternal Light run red with Asukan blood. The ones that… live and breathe for The Night of the Hundred Demons to arrive.”
“Omega-tacky.”
“Oumagatoki.”
“Yes, that.” Lukas said, “And Solana?”
Her eyelids sagged. “Solana represents a balance. A very delicate one that hinges slightly on the extremist's side. She’s one of the oldest yokai in this territory and knows far more than she lets on. If she gets what she wants, she will not hesitate to lie and cheat and kill you. She’s perhaps one of the wickedest beings I’ve ever seen. A terrifying, stone-cold bitch.”
“But?” Lukas asked.
“But…” Maude sighed. “But she’s ours. Without her, the yokai would have burned themselves out. She holds the factions together with an iron grip, and ensures that the extremists do not go out of the line, often in unique ways.”
His brows knitted. “Like?”
“I’m told that you fought off a kasha during your stay earlier.”
“Quonnan.” The name left his lips faster than he had finished thinking about it.
“She was an extremist. One that was causing unrest. I’m told you made her incinerate her own body and consumed her.” She regarded him intensely. “Makes me wonder if you consumed Olfric’s kami in the anomaly, too.”
Huh. Were his skills an open secret among the yokai?
“I did.”
There was no point in hiding it.
“Huh. You aren’t even trying to hide it.”
“Would it have helped?”
Maude snorted. “Your reaction gave it away.”
He jerked his head to one side. “There you have it.”
Maude gave him a thorough once-over. “Something is different about you. Malon’s memories paint a survivor. Like a feral cat. Trying to survive amidst a dangerous world. But you… you are something else. We expected you to put up a fight, but here you are, stalking around. You… you honestly don’t believe you’re in any danger, do you?”
For the first time, Lukas truly smiled. Maude was right. Defeating the anomaly had set him on a path to power, and Inanna’s tutelage had sped up his growth by several magnitudes. But it was his time spent at the lava ridge that had been truly enlightening. He had faced beasts he could outfight blindfolded; beasts that matched him in single combat, and beasts that had made him feel hopelessly outgunned. And then there was that King.
Compared to that, everything else felt… pedestrian.
But he wasn’t facing the King, was he? Even without kinetomancy, he could match any combatant of Level-3 or higher, and give them a hell of a fight. Blob alone was an overpowered weapon, without considering its newer possibilities, and if he added Shatterpoint Intuition to it, he could very well butcher his way through this crowd. Add in the dranzithl’s unlimited regeneration, the svartalfar techniques of terramancy, and terraportation.
And that was without bringing his other skills, and whatever havoc he could cause with his elevated, if unstable, kinetomancy. Hell, just his Alpha Condition and Soul Siphon were a major deterrent against the yokai.
So yes, he was stalking. Gone was the survivor, and in his place was a goddamned hunter. The sort of person who, once focussed on a target, would learn and use every minute fact there was to bend the odds in his favor and execute his prey with the least amount of effort possible. The kind that was armed with probably one of the largest repositories of skills at the ready.
Did humanity not crawl its way to the top of the food chain with those exact methods? By wielding information and tools to overcome their adversities, be it beast or nature? Before the scientists, armies, and even farmers… wasn't the first role that exemplified these innovative traits the hunter?
Solana and her ilk were soon going to find that out firsthand.
“No.”
“No?”
“No.”
Maude inclined her head. “Why?”
“Because I am not what I once was.”
If Solana thought that holding Tanya captive and giving him the yokai five-star treatment was enough for him to play ball, she had another thing coming. Lifting his chin, Lukas let his hands dangle disarmingly.
“The way I see it. I’ve accomplished my task by killing the anomaly, but Solana has yet to keep her word. She promised me a kami, of my choice. Tanya and her team took me away, so Solana gets the benefit of the doubt. For now. But I’m no longer the stumbling Outsider. I know things. There might be blood on the floor, but I think some of it is on her hands. Whatever she wishes to talk to me about, I’ll listen. But if she tries to force anything, she’ll have to accept the consequences.”
Maude stared at him for several seconds. “You’ve got a really high opinion of yourself. You realize where you’re standing, aren’t you?”
“Yeah,” Lukas said. “Ground Zero.”
More silence stretched, and she blinked again. “Ground zero?”
“I was going to say ‘two feet from where they’ll find your body’, but yokai are ethereal. So, Ground zero.”
“You realize she can hear you, right?”
“Obviously.”
“Any reason for this… aggression?”
Lukas smiled. Solana was at her scariest when she was being civil.
“Guess you’ll find out.”