Threshold

“Anything yet?” Rosary asks, standing tall as she hopelessly peers into the fog.

“No spawns,” Mist reports, feeling the dead stillness as she crouches in the fog. “At this rate, we’ll be heading home empty-handed.”

The streetlamps flicker in disrepair as the pair camp out near the shrine where they last met with the metropolitan. They came here because of its high traffic flow. People come at nearly any hour of the night, all but guaranteeing an encounter if they just wait long enough.

“Sorry,” Mist says, lowering her head a bit. “It’s because of me that we can only come out when it’s foggy. If only I could generate my own fog, we’d be able to come whenever we wanted.”

“Oh, don’t beat yourself up,” Rosary says, placing a hand on Mist’s shoulder. “If anything, I think it’s a blessing in disguise. You have to rely on God to provide you with the tools, meaning you know He’s blessed any encounters we get.”

Mist leans her head onto Rosary’s forearm.

Just as planned, she thinks. Despite her solemn look, she is absolutely giddy inside. “Now for phase two,” she thinks, rubbing her cheek against Rosary’s hand and forearm, thinning her foggy visor just enough to let her eyes shine through it as she looks up at Rosary.

“Heh, what are you, a cat?” Rosary asks, playing into it and scratching Mist’s chin a tad.

“Meow,” Mist replies, leaning her whole body against Rosary, nearly toppling her over.

“Come on, stop acting weird,” Rosary says, planting a hand to maintain her balance. “We’re on a mission.”

“I could make you my mission,” Mist says, wrapping an arm around Rosary’s leg. “If I did then—” Her thoughts stop halfway as she feels something enter the fog.

“No threat,” Mist concludes after certifying its size, shape, speed, and direction. She looks back at Rosary to continue the play, only to be met with serious eyes that are a scolding unto themselves.

“Ah, I noticed that pause,” Rosary says, kicking her leg with just enough force to break Mist’s relenting grasp. “What do we have?”

“Huh, it’s always something,” Mist sighs under her breath in a voice that doesn’t even reach her lips. She knows it’s pointless to try and play now, so she leans forward and twirls her fingers in the fog, making herself look as engaged as possible. “One person walking toward the shrine from the south side. Judging by the height and body shape, it appears to be a school-aged girl.”

“Is she entering the shrine?” Rosary asks, still hopelessly peering into the fog.

“Not yet, though she’s flipping her gaze from her phone screen to the fog as if looking for something. Probably trying to use her map app to—”

Her voice cuts off when she feels a new sensation in the mist. A powerful gust of wind blasts from the shrine’s torii gates and disperses the fog all around the entrance.

“Ah!” Mist yips as the sudden sensory deprivation makes every muscle tense. It’s as if she were in a dark hall and her flashlight suddenly gave out, leaving her blind and afraid.

“Are you all right?” Rosary asks, raising her bow over her head in preparation for a physical assault to follow the mental one.

“I’m fine,” Mist reassures her. “They just blew my fog away and shocked me a bit, is all.”

“Did you lose visual on the girl?”

“Not yet, but she’ll be walking out of the fog any— And there she goes,” Mist says, feeling the girl step from the fog and into the clearing around the torii gates.

“Open a peephole for me,” Rosary orders, leaping up into a tree.

Mist obeys and begins opening a coin-sized peephole as usual, but quickly realizes she’ll need to make it larger—and shaped like a funnel—to give Rosary a proper visual.

“Is that large enough?” Mist asks.

“Yeah, I see them,” Rosary confirms, her pose the spitting image of a pirate peering through a telescope. “She’s meeting the soothsayer at the gate and… Oh no.”

“What?”

“The girl. It’s ***.”

Mist shudders at the utterance of Queen Bee’s name.

“Why her?” Mist thinks. “What is she doing here? Why is she here? What could she—”

“Hey!” she calls as Rosary leaps from the tree branch toward the torii gate.

The fog has begun closing in again, allowing Mist to see the girl’s feet standing just before the gate. Even though she can’t feel the fog beyond the gate, she can feel a hand beckoning Queen Bee closer, long fingernails scratching at the air like a fisherman drawing in a catch. Mist feels one foot, then the other, leaves the fog, and steps through the torii gate just as Rosary reaches the edge.

“Can you see her?” Rosary asks as Mist closes the distance between them.

“No, but maybe—” Her words stop as a light shines through the thick fog. It pours from a door and illuminates Queen Bee just enough for them to watch her walk into the shrine.

“Dammit!” Rosary yells, stomping on the tiles just outside the torii gate.

“Who’s got a language problem now?” Mist thinks, looking down at the smashed tile.

“Can you see inside there?” Rosary asks, turning to Mist, panic in her eyes. “There’s bound to be fog inside the building, right?”

“Well… maybe,” Mist reasons, knowing there’s bound to be ample humidity in the room. “But I can’t reach inside because of the lair boundary.”

“But… She… We have to… UGH!” Rosary relents, throwing her arms in the air and flailing them for just a moment.

The frustration washes away as quickly as it came, like a retreating wave on a beach. With determined eyes, she stares directly at the doorway Queen Bee walked through and grips her bow tight.

“I’m going in,” Rosary declares, making Mist think her ears are playing tricks on her.

“You’re what?” Mist asks, but Rosary is already swapping from her bow to her kusarigama.

“Don’t follow me,” Rosary orders, staring straight through Mist’s visor and into her eyes.

“I won’t follow you because you’re not going,” Mist declares, stepping in her way.

“You can’t stop me,” Rosary argues, raising her chain sickle into a battle pose.

“I have to try,” Mist declares, timidly raising her fists as if she stands a chance hand-to-hand. “That’s a lair made by a greater demon, you know what that means.”

“Yes, yes, an arch-devil.”

“At the very least,” Mist says, voice nearly a scream. “It could be a duke, a prince, or even…” She hesitates to say the words.

“I have to agree with Ozaki-chan on this one,” says Rosary’s samurai guardian, manifesting a form Rosary can see and standing next to Mist. “Sure, you hunt just outside here without issue, but that’s with my constant guidance and aid. Once you cross that threshold, you’re on your own.”

Rosary looks at her guardian. He has chosen not to manifest a helmet; instead, he looks at Rosary with his old, caring eyes, as a grandfather might look at a grandchild, trying to persuade her not to make a horrible decision.

“You got quiet. Is your guardian speaking to you? He must be. Is he agreeing with me? You know how little he agrees with me, so if he is, then—”

“I know!” Rosary yells, cutting off Mist and shocking even her guardian. “He never agrees with you, so if he is, then you must be right, I know.”

She grips the chain tighter in her fists, exerting enough force to bend the links of a normal chain, eyes remaining fixed on the door—until she feels a new sensation on her hands. It’s delicate and soft; she instantly recognizes it as Mist’s fingertips caressing her clenched fists.

Rosary relents, finally tearing her eyes away from the door and looking down at Mist. Mist has dissolved her visor, allowing her bright yellow eyes to shine in the dark in the hopes of piercing through to Rosary’s core.

“We might not have a chance even if we mobilized the entire Parish, gathered every Maiden in the country, and spent all of Lent strategizing,” Mist says. Her eyes are filled with sincerity; she knows Rosary’s bravery firsthand. She holds no doubts that if ordered, Rosary would march straight into hell with a garden hose, fully believing she could douse every blaze. “You can’t do this on your own,” Mist says in a final effort to stop her, knowing if she can’t stop Rosary, nobody can.

Rosary remains stone-faced as she stares deeply into Mist’s eyes. The bright yellow hue reminds her of the scared, isolated girl who walked into her class less than a year prior.

“We’re never alone,” Rosary declares, gripping her chain. “If God is with us, then who can be against us?”

With those words, she shoves Mist to the side and stares at her guardian.

“I wish I could do more,” he says, powerless to stop her. “Even once you leave the lair’s boundary, I can’t help you escape.”

“Then I’ll just have to take a page from Mist’s book and rely on God to provide me an opportunity.” In a shocking display, she steps right through her guardian's spiritual form and sets foot on the shrine’s grounds.