The Means Necessary

“Just a little longer,” Kasumi thinks as she remains hidden in the fog and bushes. Her knees have sunk into the soft dirt from kneeling too long, and she sucks dew from her clothes, desperate to stave off thirst. She’s been staking out the shrine, waiting for the Diviner to leave.

“She’ll come out and then…” Kasumi whispers, holding the kitchen knife in her hands. “No mercy just—”

*CRUNCH*

The sound of shifting gravel snaps her senses into focus. Kasumi reaches out through the fog, getting a picture of the world around her. Her senses drop right at the border of the shrine walls, but even still, she can feel the outline of someone standing at the boundary. A head pops up, turning to look left and right. Finally, they walk from the shrine and out into the street, moving swiftly yet silently.

“Now or never,” Kasumi whispers, joints popping as she rises to her feet. She shuffles toward the Diviner, keeping the fog as thick as she can to conceal her movements. Kasumi feels blood trickle from her nose and down her chin, but ignores it, giving her full attention to the deed she’s about to commit.

“Just get it over with; just stab her and—” The Diviner stops, catching Kasumi’s breath. Kasumi freezes for a moment, but forces herself to press on despite the pit opening in her stomach. She continues shuffling even as the old woman turns to face Kasumi directly. “She can’t see me,” Kasumi repeats like a prayer. “If I can’t see my hands in front of me, then she can’t possibly see—” Her thought stops when the Diviner lifts a long, bony finger to point at Kasumi. Kasumi’s so close that a single step further and the woman would be poking her eyes out. Despite this, all Kasumi can see with her normal vision is the fog before her.

“A child your age shouldn’t be out this late,” the Diviner says, words smooth like scissors cutting through silk. Kasumi’s whole body shakes as her resolve is replaced with panic in an instant. Despite her fog, despite her planning, despite everything, she can’t hide from this woman. Her hands can hardly hold the knife as they tremble from fear and lack of food, every sense in her body telling her to run.

*CLANG*

The knife and Kasumi’s knees hit the pavement in the same instant. Her body slacked, completely drained of any strength. She only remains upright due to two needles stabbing into her forehead just above her eyes. The ends of the Diviner’s extended nails pierce Kasumi’s skin like a needle, drawing blood that trickles into her eyes. The old woman takes slow, careful steps, simultaneously retracting her nails to keep Kasumi’s head in the same position. The fog disappears as Kasumi loses focus on it, and she feels it slip from her grasp like sand through her fingers. Kasumi looks up. From her lower vantage point, she can see under the Diviner’s hood. The old woman’s wrinkled face is contorted in a look of disgust. “You really think this kind of display will work?” she demands, her yellow teeth displayed in a sneer.

“Huh?” is all Kasumi can respond with, her mind as foggy as the street around them.

“Don’t act coy,” the Diviner demands. “I know you’ve been staking out my shrine for three days now. I know what you were planning to do with that knife. Honestly, it’s disgraceful. Hiding in the bushes, waiting to ambush an old lady as soon as she leaves her shrine.” Subdued by exhaustion, hunger, and thirst, Kasumi can only sit inert, letting the Diviner’s words crash over her like waves on the shore. “Is that behavior befitting a follower of your faith? What is it you want? Why are you even in this fight?” The final words pierce Kasumi more than the nail on her head. Her heart sinks, and her breath catches as a tearless sob wells up from the bottom of her soul.

“I WANT MOMO!”

Her wail carries down the dark street, blood flowing down her cheeks to replace the tears dehydration has long since taken. Her cries tear at her dry throat, rubbing like sandpaper till there is nothing left. When Kasumi finally regains enough control to open her eyes, everything is tinted orange. The blood in her eyes makes it difficult to see, but one thing catches her eye. The Diviner’s face is no longer filled with malice; it displays a mix of pity and fear, as if she’s looking into a confused mirror.

Kasumi almost falls as the Diviner fully retracts her claws, scraping on the coarse black pavement. “Come with me,” the Diviner instructs, already walking back toward the shrine. Kasumi looks back, her legs moving before she fully processes what she’s heard. Despite the stiffness she felt moments earlier, she moves without effort, as if a great weight has been lifted from her shoulders. She continues to the entrance of the shrine until a faint image stops her.

There, under the torii gate, is a single faint cloud, one she’s almost forgotten. Her guardian angel, Shachakiel, whom she hasn’t seen or heard from since Valentine’s Day. Kasumi stops at his appearance, wondering why he has been gone for so long and why he looks like that. His form, though hazy and faceless, has the unmistakable look of distress, like someone lifting more than they can handle.

“Stop!” his presence invokes that single thought in Kasumi’s mind, making her more hesitant than she was before confessing to Momo.

“Are you coming or not?” snaps the Diviner, rousing Kasumi from her trance somewhat. For a moment, she looks between Shachakiel and the Diviner, as if balancing on a tightrope. “If you don’t come, then I promise you’ll never get this ‘Momo’ you desire.” That is all it takes. Kasumi steps through Shachakiel and enters the shrine, conviction echoing with her footsteps.

“I see. So that’s what’s brought you here today,” the Diviner says once Kasumi finishes telling her story. “And so you came here to take my life in hopes of gaining a higher position and preventing your separation?”

“Yes,” Kasumi admits, retracting in her seat, and sipping tea that’s lukewarm despite steaming.

“Don’t be ashamed, child,” the Diviner says in a steady voice. “Why should you feel shame for wanting to protect your most valued bond?” Her voice shifts to almost melancholy, as if she’s remembering days long past. “I, too, felt as you do now once. Only now can I see that if I had acted when my feelings were at their strongest, I not only could’ve maintained my bond with her, but also—” The Diviner stops, as if she’s shared more than she wanted in the heat of the moment, steadying herself by clearing her throat. “Ahem. Well, it was a long time ago, too long for me to do anything about it now… But maybe a chance for you.”

“Really?” Kasumi asks, springing to attention, her heart feeling light for the first time in a week.

“Perhaps,” the Diviner says, rising to her feet and stepping to a bookshelf. She fingers the thick bindings, caressing them with a long, bony finger until she pulls one out. The thick red cover thumps onto the table, and the Diviner begins flipping through pages. “Ahh, here it is,” she says, finally setting it open. The paper is old and worn, but the Diviner smiles as she points to a triangle. “There is a spell, one capable of transferring the feelings from one person to another. Is there anyone that this ‘Momo’ hates?”

Kasumi rushes through her mind, thinking of every person she’s watched Momo interact with. “Queen Bee,” Kasumi thinks. “She’s been bullying Momo for who knows how long. She hides it well, but she has to hate her.” The more Kasumi thinks about the idea, the more it makes sense. The Diviner then launches into an explanation of the geometry and dynamics of love and hate. Kasumi struggles to follow, but gets the gist. “All I need to do is bring Momo and Queen Bee here, and after the ritual, Momo will love me as much as she now hates Queen Bee.”

“Simple,” Kasumi whispers, with a smile.

“Don’t think it’s an easy feat,” the Diviner says, dashing Kasumi’s smile. “I’ll need you to retrieve something of mine, and the moon must be in the right phase. The next time will be… “ she says, looking at a lunar calendar on the wall. “The night of Friday, April 3rd.” She turns to Kasumi, eyes grim. “Can you retrieve my pearl before then?”

“Pearl?” Kasumi asks, confused.

“My demonic pearl,” she says, voice tense. “The one used to anchor the arch-devil. The one stolen—”

*Bam!*

She strikes the table, anger overtaking her composure. “By the firefighter when you were here last! That pearl!” Kasumi retracted into her seat, making herself small. The Diveiner takes a breath, calming herself, before she speaks. “Can you retrieve it?”

“Yes,” Kasumi answered, giving no thought to the task.

“Do you know where she is?” the Diviner asks, dropping Kasumi’s exited smile. “Then take this,” the Diviner huffs, reaching into her sleeves. She pulls out a bag, a bottle of red liquid, and something looking like a compass. “This compass is tipped with the blood of that firefighter girl who took my arch-devil’s pearl. I doubt she’d let such a powerful item slip from her grasp, so she must be keeping it somewhere nearby. This compass will lead you to her location.”

“What about the bag and bottle?” Kasumi asks, taking the compass.

“Thirty silver coins,” the Diviner says, jingling the bag. “The signal from the compass is weak. I’d say she’s at least 100 km away. Given how you were sitting outside the shrine, you didn’t bring any money with you when you left.” Kasumi’s stomach growls at the thought. Logistics are the furthest thing from her mind when she tears down her barricade. She couldn’t buy a juice box, let alone a room at an internet cafe. “And this…” the Diviner says, voice trailing off as if she’s hesitant to speak. “It’s a potion. I’ve noticed your powers are taking an extraordinary strain on your body. This should help with that.”

“Will your potions work with my powers?” Kasumi asked, examining the bottle for a label

“Magic is merely a vehicle for will,” the Diviner says. “And all vehicles run on some form of oil.” The Diviner’s smile pushes the bottle and bag toward Kasumi. Her smile seems almost oppressive, as if it could shove Kasumi out the door and onto her quest immediately. For the first time since stepping into the shrine, Kasumi feels hesitant. She hasn’t absorbed much from Momo or Shinpu-sama’s lessons, but she knows a villain-trying-to-tempt-the-hero scene from the games she’s played. She knows, more than anything, that this woman is the enemy, that she consorts with demons and tries to bring others low, but something about the woman’s smile seems too genuine. Suddenly, a faint voice from behind her stops her from teetering on the edge.

“It’s either this or kill an old woman in cold blood.”

Kasumi snaps her head around so fast her neck pops. Looking back, there is only a dark corner, no one for the voice to come from. She slowly turns back to the candlelit table, where the compass, bottle, and bag sit before her.

“Deliver the pearl to me once you’ve returned,” the Diviner says as Kasumi prepares to leave the shrine. “I’ll be in contact with this ‘Queen Bee’ as you insist on calling her, and make the other necessary preparations.”

“All right,” Kasumi says, still hesitant to step from the shrine. A single thought worms in her mind, festering into a field of doubt. “You’re sure this’ll make Momo love me?” she asks, eyes fixed on the Diviner. Though her robes hide her face, the Diviner smiles, placing an open hand on her heart and her other in the air.

“I swear on the love that I once lost, she will be yours.” Her words are smooth as soap, cleansing Kasumi’s mind of all doubt as she steps down the foggy street, leaving the Diviner smiling at the entrance.

“Good job with the final push,” the Diviner says, stepping into the shrine.

“Thank you, Mistress,” says an imp, landing on her shoulder. “But was that story about the shared love true?”

“Of course not,” the Diviner hisses, snarling at the imp that now pecks her shoulder. “And why are you still here? Didn’t I instruct you to follow her?” The imp leaps from her shoulder, burying its face and wings into the dirt.

“A thousand apologies, Mistress,” the imp grovels. “But despite our effort, the girl’s guardian remains.”

“What?” the Diviner demands, teeth clenched in a snarl. “Even after all that, he continues to watch over her? Impossible!” In a frenzy, the Diviner pulls a blood-soaked cloth from her robe pocket, the same one Kasumi discarded when last at the shrine. “I could smell the sin on her blood from the moment she set foot in the lair. That girl’s spirit is beyond toxic. How could he possibly stand to remain by her side?”

“My endless apologies, Mistress,” the imp says, face still mushed in the dirt. “But I will be unable to tail her as ordered alone. And if we’d like to assure her success in retrieving the pearl, we may need to send her with… insurance.” The Diviner clenches her jaw, nearly warping her dentures in rage.

“And after I gave her my last bottle of blood,” she thinks, looking down at the bead bracelets on her wrists. With a scoff, she places her right thumbnail at her left wrist under the beads’ cord. The Diviner slashes the bracelet and her wrist in a single motion. The beads fall to the ground, rolling toward the blood pooling in the soil. The Diviner shudders as more and more of her blood flows from the wound, only stopping once the ritual is complete. The imp hands her some gauze, which she uses to stop the bleeding as the beads begin to glow and grow. Demonic bodies form around the beads, revealing themselves as pearls that form the core of the demons’ spiritual bodies. Their monstrous appearances grow claws and spikes, beaks and fangs, tentacles and tails, until they’re completely formed.

“Follow the girl,” the Diviner says, voice firm like an unforgiving commander. “Retrieve the pearl, and bring her back here. Kill any who get in your way.” The crowd of demons howl and scratch, springing from the shrine like a barbarian horde approaching the city gates, ready to pillage and destroy all in their wake.