An Old Dream, Part 2

THE FIGHTING WAS BRUTAL, with screams, gunshots and explosions echoing through the night. Ryuuji and his men fought bravely against the onslaught, their armors shining with protective glyphs staving off the corruption.

Yet the assault from the creatures was relentless. They were driven to the shelter like moths to a flame, and try as they may to resist, Ryuuji’s unit had only so much ammunition with them. Their guns went silent in a matter of minutes, and they had to carry on the fight with spell and blade.

“Man down!” yelled Maki, as one of her subordinates was run through by a yōkai’s claws. The creature was massive, easily impaling the soldier against the ground.

“Hyaaah!” cried Ryuuji, cutting the beast clean across the waist. The injured soldier convulsed, blood spurting from his chest as the yōkai’s corpse evaporated.

“Kuroda, get him out of here! Initiate teleport procedures!” Ryuuji ordered.

“The Leylines are a mess, I can’t do it safely!” she protested.

“He’s dead if we leave him here; we’ll have to risk it!” Ryuuji insisted. They weren’t at liberty of tending to the wounded, and had no hope for medical evacuation.

“Shit, alright! Cover me,” Kuroda relented. In turn, Ryuuji signaled for two more of his troops to join them, forming a perimeter around her while she cast a long-range teleportation spell.

A group of oni, freshly converted by the miasma, came running at Ryuuji and his men. They hurled a barrage of spiritual firebolts at the troops, which they parried with their blades before engaging in close quarters.

“Teleportation circle active; stay clear!” Kuroda yelled a few moments later. Ryuuji and the others stepped aside as the runic symbols shone with a blinding flash of light. Then, a loud and distorted noise cracked through the air, deafening everyone near.

Ryuuji didn’t have to look to know the spell had malfunctioned. In trying to save a life, there’d be little left to put inside the fallen soldier’s casket… and given the present circumstances, the rest of the squad could hardly hope for any better.

“Gah!” yelled another soldier, unable to block an attack from the flashbang effect of the botched teleportation. A group of lesser yōkai ganged up on him, bringing the man down with sheer numbers.

Ryuuji bit his lip in frustration.

“We’re not gonna make it,” he concluded. The miasma outbreak had been so widespread and sudden that only a fraction of the population made it to the shelters. Everyone else was hunkered down at home, or barricaded in a basement, but even that would only buy them a few hours before the corruption got to them.

Tokyo was home to tens of millions of souls. If the miasma wasn’t dealt with on time, those same people would turn into tens of millions of oni. Japan, as a nation, would cease to exist overnight.

“I’m sorry, Hotaru,” Ryuuji thought bitterly. “I couldn’t be there for you.”

If only he could’ve seen her one last time, to spend their final moments together, it wouldn’t have been such a bitter pill to swallow. At the very least, he would’ve been able to go down defending her.

As Ryuuji’s heart lost hope, a new band of monsters was pressing in. He knew, deep down, that he wouldn’t survive much longer. The fight he’d picked that day was well above his class, and he would pay the price for it soon.

He was dead certain of it, until the lullaby of a familiar voice reached his ears.

“Soothe, soothe, oh gentle souls… Give thy pains to me…

Soothe, soothe, oh gentle souls… I shall comfort thee...”

An insurmountable wave of power washed against him and everyone around, bringing a sense of peace and comfort with it. The yōkai and oni stopped on their tracks, as if time itself had frozen.

“Soothe, soothe, oh gentle souls… Give thy pains to me…

Soothe, soothe, oh gentle souls… I shall comfort thee...”

The verses echoed again over the city, encompassing all of Tokyo. Empowered with a shred of divinity, this was no mere song… it was Kotodama, the spirit of words; and Ryuuji knew all too well who the magic belonged to.

“Hotaru!” he yelled, turning westward to the Institute of Divine Phenomena.

Kotodama was a poorly understood yet powerful form of magic that allowed the caster to give instructions to reality itself. This made the spell predictable, and judging by the lyrics she was singing...

“Do not linger, do not weep… Lay it unto me...

I shall take what should be shed… And put it down to rest...”

The miasma in the area began to recede, driven by a warm wind to the west. Moreover, the afflicted oni and yōkai dropped to the ground, a dark smoke emanating from their mouths before mixing into the miasma.

To Ryuuji’s horror, the corruption was headed straight to Hotaru’s direction.

His lover, it seemed, was intent on taking it all upon herself.

“Shit! Shit!” Ryuuji cursed as he broke into a sprint, leaving his squadmates behind.

“Lieutenant! What are you doing!?” Maki called after him, but Ryuuji ignored her. Thanks to Hotaru’s intervention, the fight was already over, in exchange for putting her own life on the line.

Ryuuji knew, beyond a shred of doubt, she would die if left alone.

Even though her spell was just beginning, Ryuuji could see a massive vortex forming in the distance, centered around Hotaru’s workplace at the IDP. All the miasma in the city was being pulled towards it, cleansing the very hearts of the corrupted people and kami.

It was an impossible feat of magecraft, but when it came to Kotodama, Kisaragi Hotaru was exactly that: an impossible prodigy, with a degree of power beyond reason. If she was serious about it, she could pull it off… even if it cost her everything.

Ryuuji knew her better than anyone else. Thus, he knew that beneath her sweet and gentle persona, Hotaru had a strength of will unlike any other. If she had to choose between saving herself or saving the city everyone she loved called home, she would choose the latter without missing a beat.

She was a selfless girl like that, and so...

“Come, come, oh gentle souls… I’ll be guiding thee...

Toll, toll, oh holy bells… This is our farewell…”

The 108 Bells of New Year’s Eve, Joya no Kane.

At Hotaru’s behest, thousands of shrines and temples throughout the city began tolling their bells, each of them ringing in unison through the guidance of her spell.

The Joya no Kane was one of the most important purification rituals since ancient times, cleansing the sins and worldly desires of the Japanese people at the crux of a changing year.

With it, Hotaru had a feasible chance of banishing the miasma in its entirety.

But as to the survival of her body and spirit, that a different matter entirely.

The fear, anguish and suffering of 37 million people, with an untold number of kami and critters on top… to Ryuuji, it was unfathomable that Hotaru could endure that.

Thus, no matter the risk of suffering a miscast like his subordinate moments ago, Ryuuji ignored protocol and activated a teleportation circle. The bells were already ringing, and Ryuuji had less than a hundred tolls worth of time left. Without magic, he’d never make it to Hotaru’s side on time.

“Please, let me get there… Let me get there…” Ryuuji prayed on his knees.

Then, then magic runes around him shone an incandescent blue light, and Ryuuji’s figure vanished into thin air.