Hachimon Tonko

“I’m sorry, the what?”

“The sword! The sword Noe summoned! We were keeping it here, in this corner!”

The usually-calm Merry was almost as hysteric as Noe had been this whole past week now.

“…Why would you do that?” asked Sachiko.

“I—I was hoping we could have you take a look at it, since you’re the one who saw what it actually did, but…”

“I think…my first assumption would be some staff picked it up.”

Merry cradled her chin in her hand. “Maybe…but touching it directly seems to hurt anyone but Noe. Whatever, I’ll go check. Are you okay if I leave you here for a minute, Sachiko-chan?”

“…Sure.”

* * *

Rewinding time a bit…

“Really?! So music doesn’t get translated for you?”

“No. Which is why I like music. And why I agreed to karaoke in the first place. It’s the only time I can actually feel what foreign sounds like. Well, that, movies, and TV. Just about anything recorded, actually.”

Wednesday, 4:15 PM. Noe and Leonor had each had another turn on the karaoke machine, with Leonor once again choosing a very…demanding song.

“I think I’m done,” said Leonor, throwing herself back on the couch and placing her mic on the table.

“Aww!” exclaimed Noe. “But we’ve still got 15 minutes left on our rental! …Well, guess that means I’ll just have to take a few more turns!”

“Knock yourself out.”

Noe let out a faux-nefarious chuckle as she picked up the remote. “Hmm, let’s see, how about…”

Ka-chak!

“EEP!” yelped Noe, startled at the door suddenly swinging open. A girl, a little bit older than Noe and Leonor, popped her head in and took a look around, her dark-brown bob swishing to and fro.

“Ah, whoopsie!” she said with a smile. “I rented a solo room, but it looks like I got the number wrong. Is it just the two of you in this room, though?”

“Y—Yeah…” replied Noe.

“Well, don’t mind if I do, then! I do karaoke on my own a lot, but it’s always better with a whole group. Oh, I’m Karen, by the way.”

“Karen…” said Noe. “O—Oh, my name’s Noe. Are you…Japanese?”

“Mhm!” affirmed Karen enthusiastically. “I just started at Kagoshima University, actually. And by the looks of it, you two are high-schoolers?”

Noe nodded.

“‘Kay then, age before beauty, as they say!” Karen reached over and pulled the mic out of Noe’s hands. “Let me have a go first!”

The mysterious intruder closed her eyes, cleared her throat (which echoed through the speakers in the room), and planted her feet firm on the ground. Then she crossed her arms over her chest, three fingers on each hand extended, keeping the mic pinned against her shoulder. She began to hum (or rather, that was literally the sound she made), her vocalizations barely picked up by the mic at first.

Hum…

Hum…

Hum…

Her pitch held on one note, her tempo steady, the only factor which changed was her volume, which built and built, and echoed out of the speakers and through the walls. Noe was not quite sure what to make of this at first, and simply stared at her with a look of vapid, unclued surprise.

Leonor, on the other hand, seemed very clued in. Though her face changed little, she went up to Noe and tugged on her shirt sleeve.

“Noe,” she said with a sense of urgency, “I think we’re done here.”

“Hm?” replied Noe. “Why? Actually, this sounds kinda…familiar…?”

“Probably a reason for that. Now, come on.”

“Hang on, I’m trying to think… It’s… It’s my DREAMS!” Noe instinctively pointed at Karen. “My dreams all start with that—that chanting! It’s like, ‘ommmm’!”

Om…

“‘OM’!” exclaimed Noe.

Om Amiritei Hum Hatta…
Om Amiritei Hum Hatta…
Om Amiritei Hum Hatta…

“NOE!” shouted Leonor, now forcing her companion towards the door. “Come on, dammit!”

“But—but she’s an—”

Om Amiritei Hum Hatta—

HUM!

A flash of white light engulfed all three girls in the room. When Leonor recovered her sight, what she beheld was…the room exactly as it had been?

There was a good reason Leonor had learned to distrust her eyes in situations like this. She had seen Sachiko Godoh pull a similar trick several times before, and on each occasion, the flash heralded some change in reality. Often the “case” she was trying to exorcise simply collapsed to the ground; other times they would start convulsing, as whatever had possessed them before left them. And there were always signs of a struggle that had taken place: smashed furniture, scratched floors, burns, freezes, water or soil strewn all over the place.

Leonor, of course, was not an onmyoji, so she was as aware of what was going on as Justo, the brute force, was; but from what she had been told, the onmyoji had the power to alter reality when in an elevated state, or even to create their own pocket reality.

She scanned her surroundings carefully. Nothing had changed. Her mic was still resting on the table, and the menu on the TV was what Noe had left it on. In any case, even if it was a trap, going for the door was likely the safest option here.

“Come on, Noe,” she urged her friend. “Let’s just leave her.”

Karen chuckled and flashed a cheeky grin at Leonor.

“Wanna bet?”

Leonor scoffed, side-eyed her, and swung the door open.

Sand dunes in the middle of downtown Seikyo were likely towards the very bottom of the list of things she was expecting to see beyond the threshold. Still, Leonor was unfazed.

“Oh, I see,” she said. “What’s this? Teleportation? Illusions?” She took a step outside. The sand gave way under her feet, but looking down something about it seemed…off. The grains almost seemed to flow and swirl like rapids about her, one stream seamlessly merging with another.

“Or…maybe both?”

Noe, meanwhile, was still transfixed on the source of this current problem, unsure of how exactly to react. Was she a savior, or a devil in disguise?

Karen, who had up until now been watching the two of them like she was watching a family member unwrap a Christmas present, giggled again and closed in. Her aloofness, her bubbliness, the very way she moved almost seemed ethereal to Noe. Clearly she had mastery over this situation—no, perhaps she was the master.

“Cloooose!” she sing-sang. “The boss man told me you two are all buddy-buddy with the Bureau. Let’s see how much you really know! Are you familiar with the Gogyo?”

The sudden question snapped Noe back to reality, and her mind struggled to formulate an answer; but finding none, she simply repeated the question back.

“Gogyo…?”

Leonor, on the other hand, turned around, finally staring down Karen with an unmoving glare.

“The Five Phases?” she said. “Earth, water, fire, metal, and wood.”

“Ooh! Good!” exclaimed Karen, clapping her hands. “Then do you know how the Five Phases interact?”

Leonor squinted. “They’re…different states of matter? They change into one another, right?”

“BWAMP!” shouted Karen, crossing her arms as she did so. “Well, that might’ve just barely been surface-level, actually. There’s a few ways the elements all interact with each other; what you described most closely fits the generative cycle. And for the sake of brevity I’ll tell you about one more: the conquering cycle. Earth over water, water over fire, fire over metal, metal over wood, wood over earth. These are the ways in which bodies of all five attributes control one another.

“And it is best to think of them as attributes instead of elements. Like, modern science doesn’t classify electricity as an element, but we give it the attribute of fire. You see? Fire over metal. Electricity powers machines. Electrons control machines. That’s the orientation of my personal onmyo.”

Karen giggled. “Ahh, it’s a shame seeing the Bureau still stuck in their old ways. Like, using paper for talismans and summoning shikigami? In the Big ‘26? I don’t know where they got it in their heads that pulp and ink is the end-all, be-all. The right lines carved into rock, the right wedges carved into clay, the right arrangement of sticks, the right pattern of electrons, the right algorithm, the right directive—these are all effective in the calling and binding of spirits.

“And that brings me to my last question: are you two familiar with Hachimon Tonko?”

“Hachimon?” echoed Leonor. “Eight…gates?”

“Oh, don’t think too hard about the meaning,” said Karen. “It’s better to explain what it actually is. A long, long time ago, the first onmyoji used spells to create traps and labyrinths for evil spirits. They got more and more elaborate, until eventually…they became their own little pockets of reality.

“Now, do one more thing for me? Look down at your hands.”

Leonor and Noe both did as she said.

“WHA—?!” cried Noe, as she realized her right hand had six fingers. Leonor winced upon seeing her middle and ring fingers melting together.

“Truth is, what you’re experiencing right now is nothing but ones and zeros. My Hachimon Tonko is an algorithm—one which generates a pocket of reality around itself—and the one who feeds the algorithm…”

Karen took a few steps back and snapped her fingers. The door swung shut, shoving Leonor back inside. A heavy iron bar lock, which had certainly not been there before, slid over, turned, and made a loud CLUNK as it locked itself.

“…is me. I can generate whatever I want in this space. It tends to hallucinate sometimes, though, so sorry if you see any extra fingers or toes on yourself.” Karen chuckled again. “Fire has always been the mother of illusion. Combined with the other phases, the illusion is made complete.”

Leonor once again looked past Noe and stared Karen down.

“Why are you telling us all this?”

“Oh!” Karen giggled and pointed at Noe. “Silly me! I forgot to say I’m here to kill her.”

A chill coursed through Noe’s whole body. Her heart felt like a stone in her chest, and her tongue felt thick and heavy in her mouth. Leonor came to her side.

“Don’t you dare,” she commanded Karen, her voice forceful in spite of some very obvious tremors.

“Oh, don’t worry! It’s not like I can just make her drop dead; the algorithm only controls the environment, not our persons. But I need to get her and Chigadaira separated somehow—and, well, death happens to be the easiest way to end a haunting.

“It’ll be nice and easy, though. To the rest of the world, it’ll look like she just disappeared. And I’ll even let you live, as long as you promise not to tell.”

Leonor now stepped in between Noe and Karen, her head lowered but her gaze still locked on her. She saw Karen no longer as a party to reason with, but as an enemy to be dealt with.

“You’ll get to Noe over my dead body,” she growled. Then she sprung into action.

The space in the simulacrated room was already close, but Leonor made it even closer in a close interval; a couple of lunges was all it took her to reach Karen. Leading with her left leg, she drew her right back and let rip with a high kick, her shin on a collision course with Karen’s head.