Hands-free

Before Naoya opened his eyes, he could hear people talking agitatedly around him. He was laying on something plush, and there… was a hand in his hair? He tried opening his eyes, but they were once again bound close.

“Hey, don’t move yet,” Aki said softly and stroked Naoya’s head. “Give it a second so you don’t collapse again. Bai Rong isn’t here right now.”

“What happened?”

“Whatever you did in Kusatsu closed the rift immediately. It also… removed your hand.”

“What??” Naoya yelled.

He reached up to pull away the fabric around his eyes, but when he tried to grab it… nothing happened. With his left hand, he managed to pull it away. His eyes burned and his vision was swimming, but he could see his hands… or hand. His right hand was gone, everything was gone up until his elbow.

Naoya screamed.

The voices around the room grew quiet. Aki took Naoya’s face between her hands and made him look at her.

“Naoya… Naoya. Just look at me. Please.”

Pure panic ran through his veins. It wasn’t even painful, something in his head just… freaked.

“Naoya. Look at me.”

And he did. Aki stared right at him, and something in his eyes distracted Naoya so much, he let his arms fall, his body gone limp. He didn’t know what Aki was doing, but his body fell into a strange warmth, sinking into himself. Aki smiled at him, putting Naoya’s head down gently on a pillow. When he leaned down to kiss him, Naoya’s eyes closed unbidden.

“I’m sorry, I could’ve said that better. This energy isn’t meant to be touching the body of a living person when it’s used. That’s why everyone is so surprised your eye is still in one piece. But it’s temporary. Your hand will reform after some time.”

“Lead with that,” Naoya said.

“Sorry again.”

Naoya opened his eyes, looking up at the ceiling. He recognised the glass dome of the large room at HQ. The voices around them grew once more, the room occupied with many people.

“What happened?”

Aki brushed Naoya’s hair from his forehead, letting his hand remain. “Your dumb idea closed the Kusatsu rift almost immediately. Everyone was redeployed to other sites, and I… I brought you back here. Bai Rong is occupied below. There are too many possession victims, and she’s working to stabilise them. That’s why we’re up here.”

“The sun is up.”

“Yeah, it’s mid-day. You were out for about 8 hours.”

Naoya took Aki’s hand in his left and brought it to his lips, giving it a lingering kiss. “And you stayed with me?”

“Of course.”

“We could’ve used him out there.”

Naoya turned his head to see Ruri next to them, standing with crossed arms. He tried to look apologetic.

“We don’t need unnecessary heroes, Sekiguchi Naoya. I appreciate your actions, but you’ve endangered yourself and put one of our best out of action.”

“I’m sorry.”

Ruri sighed. “I know you are, that’s why I’m not pushing it.” A pause. “You know, you’d fit in great as an agent. If you ever get stuck in the Deadrealm, I’ll try to recruit you.”

“I’m not planning on dying young.”

“Well, neither were any of us here. There’s no age limit rules in recruiting, in any case.”

“Huh.”

Naoya looked at Aki, who was so young and vibrant, as did most of the agents around here. He had forgotten that their age meant their time of death. He didn’t want to remember it. He sat up, leaning against the man, head leaning on his shoulder.

Just then, a group of agents emerged from somewhere. Naoya observed them piling paper on a large, long table that had been set up in the room. Around them, many groups sat in apparent meditation, sunlight playing on them like they were underwater.

“Supplies are sufficient for the Tokyo teams. Everyone assigned in the prefecture, resupply and move out.”

The whole room sprang into action. Talismans were distributed and the people vanished into various golden lights.

“Teleport restrictions are temporarily lifted in HQ,” Aki explained. “There’s no way we could explain so many people going in and out of Kinkakuji in the middle of the day. Are you feeling better?”

“Yes. I mean, my hand is still gone, but…”

“I’ll be your hands.”

“Ugh, please,” Kazu said as he flopped down on the improvised bedding next to them, but his expression was fond rather than annoyed. “Let me have my break in peace.”

“What’s the status?” Aki asked.

“Just ignoring me, huh? Alright. Everybody and their dog is out and about today. Not only domestic travel—we haven’t had so many tourists since… well. I don’t know. But they’re taking photos everywhere. With the current supply they should be able to close the rifts around Tokyo, at least. The defenders need a break.”

“What about outside of Tokyo?” Naoya asked.

Kazu sighed. “There are rifts all over the country. We don’t have enough people to cover them all. There will be victims. Well, we need new people anyway if this keeps up.”

“I don’t see it stopping. We’ve had so many tourists for years now and all the major places are running thin. I expected them to get worse, but this quickly, all at once? Fuck…”

Naoya wasn’t used to Aki cursing. Well, he wasn’t used to anything, to be fair. He only knew that the love he felt was likely fake, but he clung to it, and to Aki, who held him tight.

“What can we do?” Naoya asked.

“You could use your eye a bit more,” Kazu said. “Be less stupid about it.”

“Hey,” Aki said.

“He’s right, Aki. I was stupid. A few seconds to ask and do it right, and my hand would still be there,” Naoya countered.

“He gets it. Well, learning the hard way leads to better results. As for what you can do right now… I suppose you’ll be assigned to another—”

A person burst through one of the doors. They ran to the middle of the room and threw something on the ground. The air above it sparkled as red coloured particles swarmed like insects until they moved into the form of… Japan. A map. Naoya watched as more and more locations on the map lit up.

“Tokyo is slowly under control, but… More than 20 further rifts have opened all across the country within the last minutes. We… what should we do?”

Everyone in the room looked towards Ruri.

“Contain them, as we always do,” she said.

“There are too many of them. We can’t…”

The floor of the open space under the dome began to shine and ripple. They watched in awe as the three Judges emerged from it like from a large lake, floating underneath the glass, the sunlight making them seem even more ethereal.

“We need to tell them,” the Judges said all at once. “This is no longer something the organisation can do on their own. The people need to know. They need to help.”

“The people?” Naoya asked under his breath.