The Unlikelihood of Subversion

Two paramedics guided Raven to the back of a delivery truck. They opened the doors to reveal the entrance to a tunnel. Raven climbed onto it. The tube’s interior felt like a playground slide, except it was horizontal. A force still slid Raven through with no effort from her. She came out the other side with her pain eased.

“You aren’t completely healed. Because of Death-san, we can’t do a thorough scan with our magical tools. We also can’t give you any magical medications due to potential side effects. This is the best we can do,” one paramedic said.

“Can we go now?” I asked through Raven.

“Is this Midorikawa-san or Death-san speaking? We have to make sure we get the patient’s opinion.” War must have taught all his subordinates how to annoy me.

“I want to go home too,” Raven said.

The paramedics didn’t bother us further. Raven changed into the clothes they gave her and wiped the blood off her face with a wet towel. She left without saying anything else to the paramedics. Our way back home was shrouded in an uncanny tranquility. Raven looked straight ahead as she marched, only stopping to wait at red lights.

To free her from the growing boredom of our trek, I made small talk. “Raven, what do you think about Pestilence?”

It took a few seconds for Raven to reply. “Karen-san? I think she is nice and helpful.”

“She is actually a degenerate. An absolute masochist. You have no idea how many diseases she spread throughout human history. But, she follows whoever she deems reliable. So I can keep her on a leash and keep her from harming anyone.”

Raven shook her head. “Keeping a murderer on a leash. Does that make things better?”

“It stops people from dying.”

“Right.”

And the silence returned. It just felt wrong. I shouldn’t be thinking about anything else. Talking with Raven was my priority at the moment. As the saying goes, communication is key.

“So, do you think Pestilence would ever backstab you?”

“You asked something similar already.”

“It’s a completely different question. And you didn’t have enough information last time.”

“My answer is the same. And what are you asking me for? You know her better than I do. So, please. Just keep quiet. I have a headache right now.”

If she didn’t want to talk, forcing her would make me seem desperate. And I wasn’t. I already knew that Pestilence wouldn’t act against me. That was why I could ignore those foreign scads of doubt inhabiting the corner of my mind.

As I held back my thoughts, we had reached our destination. Raven took out her key from her jeans pocket and unlocked the door. I expected Pestilence to greet us like a dog. But that didn’t happen. There wasn’t any trace of her either around the living room.

Raven tossed the magical jacket onto the couch and pulled the sweat-drenched headband off, along with her blonde wig. Something on the dining table caught her eye. It was the Hama Yumi, used as a weight for an envelope.

“Go check what it is,” I said.

“I’m tired.” Raven slouched towards her bedroom. “Don’t you have that quasi… whatever?”

She slumped onto her mattress, limp as a doll. How hard was it to open a letter? I strained my mind, but the interference from the Hama Yumi just refused to clear. “Hey, if you want me to shut up, check what’s in the envelope. Hey. Hey.”

Raven finally responded to my command. She crawled sluggishly off the bed, taking as much time as possible, then dragged her feet to the dining table. She tore open the letter. Contained within was a long-winded ransom note, assembled from magazine cutouts. The message could be summarized as: ‘We have the girl. Don’t contact the police. We will give you further instructions on how to pay us at a later time.’

The enemy must have been powerful to overwhelm Pestilence. I couldn’t trace them with quasi-omniscience either. The clouds in my heart cleared to give way to the sun. This new goal gave me more energy than it should have. “We have to go to save her!” I clenched Raven’s fist.

Raven put her arm at ease right after. “Why? Do you know where she is?”

“I know how these kidnapping organizations operate; who they have to rely on.”

“What I asked was, do you know where she is?”

“I will figure it out. But we have to move, now.”

Raven tossed the letter aside. “No.” Dramatic much?

“Stop being a child.”

“We won’t find her. We won’t find Takafumi-san either. So, we should just stop. Everything we do just makes things worse.” Raven started towards her bed again.

Oh, that was the first time she had seen someone die in front of her. Why does she have to choose now to be so difficult…

“Is this because of Minoru or whatever his name was? It was so obviously Famine’s fault.”

Raven stopped in her tracks. “But I still killed him.”

“I killed him. You killed him. It doesn’t matter. I kill people all the time. I mean, I killed a kid just last week. So, can we just get on with finding Pestilence now?”

“What are you even saying? Oh my God.”

“Let’s go.” I moved Raven’s legs, getting us towards the front door. Raven threw in a contrary command, causing herself to tumble onto the floor with a thud. She didn’t seem to feel the twinge that followed.

“I’m not leaving this house.”

“What?”

“I should be in prison.”

I tried to force Raven to stand up, but she kept getting in the way. “Grow up. We have to kill a few people sometimes to get things done.”

“What did we get done through killing Minoru? What did we achieve?”

“I saved your life. Do you think I care if you live or die? If you die, I can just take full control of your body! That would’ve been less of a hassle.”

“Then you should have let me die!” Tears flowed out of her eyes. She clutched her head; her whimpering sounded to me like screeches on a blackboard. Annoying. Repulsive. Unproductive.

If we don’t find Pestilence soon, she might get killed.

***

That night, in the gloomy office at the back of a host club, an old man in a suit flipped through a pile of documents at his desk. And his bodyguards stood watch by the door.

“Hello, Ameku Shigeyoshi. Leader of the Dragon’s Pride. I’ll keep this brief so you can go back to the accounting work regarding the cocaine you’ve smuggled from the Port of Yokohama. Did you hear about any kidnappings in the Nerima area?” I said to the old man while hanging from the ceiling, above the bodyguards.

The papers slipped from Shigeyoshi’s grasp. The bodyguards drew their guns at me.

“Fuchi Takeji, how is your girlfriend, Miyago Masae, who works at the Aroma Net Cafe near Shibuya Station?” I winked at Takeji.

“Who are you?” Takeji barked.

Instead of replying, I turned to Noboru. “And Zukeyama Noboru, your bedridden father, Zukeyama Kandai, actually hates you for getting that flame tattoo on your back. Yes, he saw it.”

“What do you want?” Shigeyoshi asked. He had recomposed himself rather quickly.

“Kidnapping of a woman. Nerima area,” I repeated, but I didn’t expect him to answer. Instead, I was waiting for any mention of the kidnapping of Pestilence to flash in his mind. However, his thoughts were consistent with his memories. And they were mostly evaluations of who might have sent me.

Like the other criminal organizations I had visited, Shigeyoshi had no leads on Pestilence. My last hope had gone up in smoke.

“Stand down, you two. This chick is an illusion. A magical item must be involved.” Shigeyoshi’s voice pulled me out of my thoughts.

“But sir, she must still be a threat,” Noboru said.

“Threat? How can this powerless girl be a threat? Put away your guns. Those are the only threats in this room.”

His slander unleashed a blizzard in my chest. “Excuse me? Powerless? I can dismantle your organization within a day. You exist because of my mercy, because it’s too much of a hassle to destroy you.” I spat the words out while glaring at him.

He grinned in response to my threat. “Little girl, I’ve been in the business before you were born. Don’t think that you can faze me.” Then what was the fear I saw in his mind? And did this fossil seriously brag about his age? I was thousands of years older than him, and his brain was already showing early signs of dementia, not that I would tell him.

Further dialogue wouldn’t convince him of my power, so I left the three of them to revel in their false sense of superiority. This was why I hated appearing in spirit form. The smug look on people’s faces when they realized I couldn’t touch them. I preferred action to threats.

I spent the rest of the night revisiting the heads of the other criminal organizations in Tokyo, and I even went on a trip to the offices of the Organized Crime Control Bureau, so I could give out information on Dragon’s Pride and Ameku Shigeyoshi.

Satisfied with a job well done, I watched the first light tracing the contours of a distant mountain. If I could accomplish so much in a single night, imagine what a person could do in a whole day. A stinging realization arose within, right as the sun peeked out of the horizon.

Pestilence really betrayed me.