Richie, standing amidst the trees as the hour grew later into the night, strained and sweat, his shirt cast aside and his dragons silently twitching. He stared through the woods, trying his best to let his eyes and mind go lax, to see the forest through the trees. His pupils rapidly changed sizes back and forth, his face twisting in a frustrated, almost pained rictus. Chikita watched from a nearby stump, sitting and smoking, silently pitying the poor boy. Beside her, a pile of empty bottles and spent ashes marked how long they had been there, trying to unlock Richie’s yard on command. Chikita tried to take a draw, and found her pipe seemingly clogged. Shaking it and turning it about, trying to get a look inside, she eventually peered down the bowl to find Chinokiri, in her miniaturized mode, curled up in her own nine tails, passed out from exhaustion. Sighing, she put the embers out and let her familiar sleep. As if reminded of her own fatigue, she immediately thereafter yawned.
“Kid,” she started telling Richie.
He immediately bristled. “No! Not yet! Just give me a few more minutes!”
“It’s been hours. Holly finished that… what’s it called? A computer? - A while ago. Take a break, this corridor will still be bound to your home base in the morning. Like I said before, you can’t just force it to come by willpower alone. Sleep on it. They say people tend to have their biggest epiphanies when they stop thinking for a minute and just let their subconscious connect the dots in the background. There’s no shame in it.” she said.
“No, fuck that! I can do it!” he balled up his fists, on the verge of tears.
“You did do it a few times already. It will come back to you. Worry about finding a consistent way in first, and taming the yard second. I’ll keep my end of the bargain whether the sake gets used up first or not; it’s bad for business to accrue a reputation for half-assing your assignments.” she said.
Why my dear Chikita, are you trying to be encouraging?
“Fuck you, Yuki.” Chikita glared at her sword.
“Why do you keep talking to your katana?” Richie scratched his head.
“Why do you keep talking to your tats?” Chikita asked.
“They’re sentient.” Richie said.
“Same schtick.” Chikita tapped her katana. “I think, anyway.”
Yes, how clever. You must have great emotional security if you feel the need to disparage the intelligence of your sword, excellent fortitude.
“I… you… fuck you.” Chikita pouted. “Anyway, come on. You were really excited about that moving picture box sorcery, come inside and watch it, you need rest and levity.”
Richie punched a tree, leaving a bloody fist print in it. “Fuck.” he rest his head against the trunk the next moment.
Poor thing. He’s self conscious about falling behind the others. He still has something to prove. Chikita sighed.
Like someone else I know. Yuki said.
“You little - you know why I like ‘Kiri better?” Chikita poked her sword.
Severe addiction and dependence?
“N-No…” Chikita twitched. “She doesn’t sass me every two minutes!”
She isn’t sentient. Yukihana said.
The little smoke fox popped out of her vessel and wiggled her nose at Yukihana. “Y…Y…!” she squeaked.
Richie and Chikita both blinked a few times.
“Daww, look at that, the little rat cloud is trying to say her first words.” Richie finally cracked a grin.
Chinokiri started crying, the little gray tears immediately wafting off into the air. She plopped back down into her pipe.
“Huh?” Richie froze up.
Chikita tossed a little ice pebble at Richie’s forehead. “You hurt her feelings, ass.”
Your social skills still need work. his tattoos commented.
“What about yours?!” Richie pinched at his ink.
We don’t need social skills. We’re tattoos.
Chikita folded her arms, tapping her foot.
“What?” Richie asked.
“You aren’t gonna apologize?” she asked, leadingly.
“To the yokai?! Why is it so fragile in the first place?!” Richie dug in his heels.
“Don’t be mean to her just because I keep blowing smoke in your face, Chino is innocent.” Chikita glared.
“This is ridiculous.” Richie turned around, folding his arms as well.
The wampus cat was sitting there, looking at him. Somehow, Richie got the impression it was judging him.
“Don’t… look at me… like…” Richie stammered.
The wampus cat somehow emanated the same ‘disappointed in you’ vibes he remembered a handful of times from his mother pre-horrific murder, whenever he had snuck a cookie or tried going out after dark unattended.
“I…” Richie sighed and slumped.
I’m an abrasive asshole, right. Richie reminded himself. I’m just exhausted and worried about the future. That’s new to me - up until a while ago, I didn’t really think I had a future. Now that I do, it’s… terrifying… Alright, well… guess I should apologize. To the feudal assassin’s personified vice. Cause the mutant panther is guilt-tripping me. God my life is fucking weird.
Richie turned around and edged his way toward Chikita. Hesitantly, he tapped on the side of the bowl. “Uh, Chinokiri? You… you in there?”
Cold shoulder. his dragons quipped.
“Look, I’m sorry I made fun of you. You aren’t a rat cloud. You’re, uh… a valuable member of the team?”
Chikita lowered her ear to her pipe, then looked up. “She’s not convinced.”
“Ok, I’m sorry. Really, it was uncalled for. I’m just pissed I’m flunking the course so far, I shouldn’t have taken it out on you. You’re… you’re cool. Thank you for helping get our tutor to us and protecting her until now. Friends?”
The vessel was silent.
“Hello?” Richie leaned forward, trying to peek inside.
The fox popped out like a meerkat once more, wrapped its nine tails around Richie’s head, and latched onto his face, nuzzling him. Naturally, Richie immediately began choking, and dropped to the ground, fruitlessly grabbing at the intangible vulpine vapor, who cluelessly continued to asphyxiate him with cuddles.
“Aw, she likes you.” Chikita cood.
No personal space, and straight to invasive kisses. I see she takes after you. Yukihana said.
Chikita plunged her blade into some mud.
Hey! Yuki protested.
“You picked on her too, jerk.” Chikita narrowed her eyes.
-
Leon had a phone call to make to an old penpal, and arrangements to organize, post haste. Clearly the burden of master show business was dropped on his shoulders, so he would play his role as Atlas and hold up the heavens for the weak minded handlers and promoters of Station Bay. He'd give Carnival Top a show they'd never forget, and he knew just who to recruit toward this purpose.
-
Osaka, Japan
Obnoxious circus music began blasting from a little pink cell phone laying beside a bed roll. The barrage of pipe organs and trumpeting elephants echoed throughout the classical Japanese-style house, and seemed to make the sliding paper shoji doors buzz.
Bloodshot eyes popped wide open, set in a wide, round face that somehow still seemed stern, even in sleep. Five hundred pounds of rikishi beefcake sat up, grumbling, and took the phone in his massive hand - it looked like a cheap toy in his palm, which was the texture of hard leather and damn-near devoid of lines from a lifetime of slapping the shit out of broad trees, since as early as he could walk. An overgrown topknot, limp with the night's sweat, fell in his face, and the roused sumo wrestler tossed it back over the correct side of his head.
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"Goddammit." he grumbled. "Leon."
He opened the phone. "You do realize it's eight in the goddamn morning over here?" he said immediately.
"Oh shut your face, pish posh." Leon chirped happily. "They got you up way earlier than that, putting you through your paces as you worked your way up the ladder. A little early morning sunshine won't kill you."
The mountain of a man stood up on thighs whose muscles looked ready to burst out of their skin, and dressed himself in a thin floral-patterned robe as he lumbered his way to the sink to wash the lingering fatigue out of his face. "I didn't earn privileges outside of the stable, and a private house, so I could still be woken up at the crack of ass. Those hours were spent mopping floors and getting hazed, not exactly a time of the day I'm fond of in retrospect. What do you want?"
Leon balked on the other end of the line. "Someone woke up on the wrong side of the futon. Right, straight to business, old buddy. Come to the States, I've got an idea."
"An idea?" the sumo asked.
"Yeah, a brilliant one, if I do say so myself. You mentioned wanting to branch out a bit, right" Leon asked.
"My career has somewhat stagnated by default." the man sighed. - an unrivaled Yokozuna, he had no further peak to climb, and among those royal few, he was easily in a class of his own. Of the few who challenged him, not one lasted five seconds before not only getting shoved out of the ring, but a good dozen feet beyond on average. Those in attendance around the raised clay platform at the front, ring-side, were in the splash zone - 'splash' in this case meaning 'crushed under high-velocity obese guys'. As a result, both rival wrestlers and front-seat spectators had dried up. Even the Yakuza hadn't bothered trying to bribe or strong arm him into taking a fall - not since one of them was rebutted by being sat on.
"Exactly. Mine too." Leon said. "Hard to get enthusiastic opponents when you're guaranteed to use up a hospital's entire suture supply with every joe schmoe they toss on the stage with me - or in your case, when the opponent is guaranteed to get their face compressed."
"You're proposing a cross-sport matchup for a special event at this Carnival Top?" the man scratched his head.
"Nah, I'm demanding it." Leon chuckled.
"Excuse me?" the champ raised an eyebrow, thick like a fuzzy caterpillar had parked above his eye.
"You owe me one, remember? An elephant never forgets." Leon said.
"You… aren't an elephant…" the man said.
"No, but Gunta is, and she reminded me. So get your generous ass over here and we'll call it square." Leon said.
"As in, today?" he asked.
"Yeah. I'll cover a short notice first class air ride for you. Just make sure not to take any window seats so the airplane doesn't veer off course." Leon said.
"Perhaps while I'm being given a surprise vacation coming out of your checkbook isn't the best time to tell you to fuck off, just know that it's on my to-do list."
"Come on, ya love me." Leon said.
The sumo wrestler could hear in Leon's voice that he had an excited perfect-toothed grin on his face.
"A brotherly love, I admit." he said. "An abusive older brother, to be specific. I'll accept your offer - and lodgings," he qualified, "if only to compress your perfect face for waking me up at eight in the goddamn morning." he pinched the bridge of his nose. "Though, the opportunity to indulge in some open gambling is a nice bonus. Also, you'd better serve that Flaki dish your grandmother is so proud of."
"Only if you make your signature Chankonabe." Leon said.
"These terms are acceptable." the sumo allowed himself a small smile.
-
Perhaps the events lining up - and the players congregating on the final stage - were acts of divine providence. Of which mythology was anyone's best guess. As it stood, when Richie's incidental asphyxiation via sentient carcinogen allowed Chikita to carry him back into the apartment and definitively close out tonight's training session, it was the sound of TV on that made him come back to life. The assassin plopped him down on the couch - which had been moved to face the TV wall, much to its resident potato's chagrin - between Freyja and an exhausted Holly. Such was Richie's excitement over being able to catch up on over five years of missed content that he didn't even protest being sandwiched between unacceptably-gorgeous ladies. Cuppy, meanwhile, sat on the floor, crisscross applesauce, like a child, propping his face up by his hands, elbows resting on his thighs.
The TV, currently running an ad in between the teenage-oriented action cartoons, displayed a bright-eyed 30-something year-old Japanese woman holding a benign-looking dinner plate. "Introducing NevaWashi! With newly-patented no stick, no stain technology, you'll never have to do the dishes again!" She proclaimed, the ad shifting focus to a tired-looking college-age kid depressedly failing to scrape the concrete-like remains of some form of pasta dish off a plate, sighing with malaise. "Tired of spending long afternoons wishing you could do literally anything else but this?" The peppy Japanese lady narrates, cuing the college kid to nod sleepily. "Well NevaWashi's got you covered! With our full lineup of kitchenware from baking pans to pots, plates and tea accoutrements, messy dishes will be a thing of the past!"
It was hard to believe the ad could run for another 5 minutes as she rambled on and on about the features of NevaWashi, but that she did, and all the TV-deprived crewmates of the Richie gang watched with eager interest as tomato sauce, bacon grease, and other assorted food fluids were presented to slide effortlessly off the various cooking/eating implements, always leaving them spotlessly clean thanks to some space age chemical coating. "Damn, I'm starving all of a sudden." Freyja said, glancing towards the kitchen, where it happened that the trash can was full of greasy paper plates, and the sink was full of what few dishes the crew had to their name, stained and in need of washing.
Cuppy was thinking in a very different direction. Such a coating, whatever it was, seemed attractive for potential experimentation with his strings. He thought of all the ways he might use it to deflect upchucked projectiles like those of the Bunyip, or wade through the sewers without being covered in sewer juices, or not bleed all over his hoodie after getting shot. The possibilities were many, and Cuppy was engrossed.
"Ah shit, that's right. Dishes." Richie sighed. "Whose turn is it?"
Freyja pointed at Holly, Holly pointed at Chikita, and Chikita pointed at Freyja.
Richie looked at Cuppet, and his glance was returned with a dead-eyed, unblinking stare. He could almost feel the living prop daring him to ask it to do yet more manual labor and housekeeping.
"Never mind." Richie scratched the back of his head.
He walked into the kitchen and blinked in the threshold a few times as he saw the wampus cat, a scrubby in each of its four front legs and both tails, attending to the mess, looking disgruntled and somewhat appalled by the slovenly nature of its odd pride.
Noticing Richie staring, it choked at him, paused its work, padded over to him, picked him up by the head in its jaws, carried him back to the couch, and dropped him there. It grunted assertively, then trotted back to the kitchen, tails flitting about in noticeable irritation.
"I am so fucking confused right now." Richie said, monotone, his head still slick with oral puma secretions.
"Oh, you're back on time, movie's back on." Freyja pointed at the screen, plopping a handful of snackage in her mouth from a huge silver bowl.
"Hey, wait a minute." Cuppy tilted his head, perplexed. "This isn't my asbestos... this is popcorn..."
Freyja's eyes widened, and her chewing slowed.
Chikita stared at the film in motion - some sci-fi action flick whose climax saw a detective battling some futuristic armor-cloaked figure on a fire escape amidst a somber downpour - and watched, entranced. She edged closer to the TV, prodding it with her sheath.
"And you say this isn't magic?" she asked the sofa full of clients.
"Movie magic." Richie chirped, realized his mode of speech could be described as a chirp, and tried to save face by frowning.
Chikita looked at Holly, the apparent default IT girl for time travelers.
"Like, you wanna do this now?" Holly asked.
Chikita nodded.
Holly explained in depth. Chikita stared at her blankly.
"So it's a mystery."
Holly chucked popcorn at her.
"Enjoying the novelty?" Freyja asked as the film neared its final lap.
"I want to fight him." Chikita's eyes, feral-looking, tracked the sci-fi warrior. She looked like a cat staring at a goldfish bowl.
-
Past the parking garage, up the four towers, the cobalt-cloaked apotheosis of evil stood amidst a howling wind, pale arms folded, supreme arrogance radiating from the black void of his empty hood.
"So many empty little lives, scurrying about like worker ants to and fro, sinking into themselves at their desks, becoming weekend warriors to waste away a few hours trying to claw back some deeper essence and meaning. Your advancements and powers of creation sprawl all around you, eclipsing you, crushing your species under the weight of your own posturing grandeur. And for all your cleverness, your planet is a divided, war-torn world. The spark of identity is wasted on you, cast aside in favor of mindless tribalism and irrational, self-deprecating delusions of divine sadomasochistic importance. But don't worry, pitiful little humans. Your suffering ends very soon. You, who were destined to become part of my flock, will be released from the vicious cycle. All you have to do… is let go."
His vision transposed itself upon the hospital where Chelsea's comatose body writhed in torment.
"Don't fight the Void, dear child. Surrender. A soul is too heavy a weight for a feeble human to carry. Return to the impenetrable peace of oblivion."
Rain fell from a cloudless sky across from the Faceless Man, the lukewarm, rippling drops coalescing into an ephemeral mist that caught the city lights. Within the wavering reflections, a soft, female face seemed to flicker in and out of being.
"Has it been so long that you can no longer remember the critical importance of hope?" a calm voice tried to reason with the wraith.
"Hope is but the fleeting illusion, the bait on a hook that strings these little puppets along through their lonely lives. Nothing more than an aberrant sense of self trying to numb the open sore of the human heart." the wraith said.
"People don't live forever, Crocus. Those fleeting moments are all they have at the end of their lives. It isn't the net worth of one's life that determines value. Every conscious being put on this earth is responsible for deciding their purpose. Who are you to take that freedom away from them?" the rain asked.
"I am the true nature of the human heart. Nothing but cruelty can save the world." the wraith looked up at the star-filled sky. "The stars once held beauty, little flickers of vast, wonderful splendor and mystery. Now, they represent only the cold, endless expanse of infinity. To gaze beyond the sky is to punish oneself. So everything will be returned to nothing."
"You truly mean to destroy everything then?"
"Not destroy. To reset, back to the beginning. The Void is an egg. From it, a new world will hatch. Paradise."
Something seemed to tug on the Faceless Man's sleeve. For the first time in an eternity, he saw those baleful, emerald-green eyes.
Don't decide that on your own. a boy's voice echoed through the Faceless Man. It was accompanied by a wind that smelled of the river, welling up from the greenhouse below.
"Remarkable. No matter how long the soul digests, its disembodied defiance remains." Crocus conceded.
"You can't destroy the will to be free." the rain spirit told Crocus. "All you can do is change its form. The rain will fall. Life goes on. Even if heat death returns all to nothing, a big bang happened once before, and it will happen again. You think you're eternal, but you won't weather a war of attrition against time beyond eternity."
Crocus sighed, black tendrils unfurling from beneath the hem of his robe. "Enough beating around the bush. What is it you wish to say, relic of Riverview?"
"It's simple. You will fail. You will fail, life will return, and the hopes and dreams of children of the world will never die out. That is all."
The rain faded.
Crocus inclined his head, tentacles retracting into his robe. "That remains to be seen."
Deep below, in the sea of black rain, the reborn jester emerged, standing upon the fetid surface.