Interlude: The Winds of Dread

AKIKO LEANED OVER THE TABLE IN HER SECRET BASEMENT, studying the samples Ryuuji and the girls had collected for her over the past few days. Candles, lanterns, incense sticks… they were ordinary items typically used to celebrate the Obon Festival, but these particular pieces were laced with a tiny amount of cursed energy.

At a glance, the concentration was so low that it would pass as routine exposure. But upon closer inspection, one would find that the cursed energy had been planted there deliberately, written into microscopic magic circles.

It was the kind of scheme one wouldn’t spot unless they were actively looking for it, and the items in question weren’t meant to function on their own. Rather, they were tiny nodes of a larger network, where millions of cursed items could activate at once.

“They’ll try to cause a cascade with these. The mana injectors were a bluff,” was Akiko’s conclusion. The Red Thread had produced a plethora of items that, even though their misuse was deniable, were still an obvious red flag. Thus, they drew plenty of attention to themselves and away from the actual danger.

“The ACU won’t be able to stop this on time. We’ll have to launch the raid,” she murmured. It was already the 13th of July, marking the first day of the Obon Festival.

By nightfall, most of the cursed items would be in use by the civilian population, and the spirits of the dead would come into contact with them. Ryuuji and his group only had a few hours to take action before it was too late.

Understanding this, Akiko dropped the sample she was holding and walked over to the trunk by the end of the room. There, she took out a pair of modified speakers, heavily enhanced with magic.

It was a piece of prototype tech that would counter the Red Thread’s resonance dampeners. Hotaru would still face serious danger from the enemy’s security forces, but at the very least, her power would be unfettered.

“I guess this is it. The Director will immediately know who it was that developed this, so there’s no going back. I might as well join Hotaru and the others, once I’m done calibrating these.”

Akiko wasn’t much of a fighter, yet she had no option but to go rogue. She’d have to join Hotaru in her life on the run and hope the Gods would have mercy on her.

However, as Akiko was about to reach for her tools, the door to her basement burst open. This was immediately followed by a blinding flash of light and a deafening blast. Then, before she could snap to her senses, everything in the workshop was blown away by a gale of wind.

Utterly disoriented, Akiko tried to shout a barrier into existence using her Kotodama… but to her shock and horror, no sound came at all from her throat.

She tried to breathe so she could scream louder, but the room had no air to offer her. As it turned out, the wind from earlier had been no gale at all. It was a vacuum.

Still deaf and blind from the flashbang, terror gripped Akiko’s heart. She crawled on the floor, trying to grope her way to safety, but to no avail. Before she realized it, someone had already grabbed her hair and pulled on it to make her face them.

“Hello, hello, Coordinator. That’s a lovely workshop you have here.”

The voice of a man resonated in her head, coming from a telepathic link she was unable to stop. He wore a set of dark tactical armor, and had a helmet plugged to an oxygen tank strapped to his back.

“Who… are you…?” she asked, forcing her mind to speak as she suffocated.

“My name is Hakurō. You don’t know me, but I’m the leader of the Hands. Ever heard of us?”

“The Red Thread. Of course… it was you…”

“Someone has done her homework. How splendid.”

“Do your worst, scum…” she tried to resist, but her consciousness was fading.

“Oh, don’t worry. I will. And as it so happens… you’ll be helping me.”

“What? No... No! Stop!!”

Akiko begged for mercy, her limbs going numb as she tried to escape. But no matter how hard she tried to run, she couldn’t avoid the piercing gaze of her captor, his eyes shining bright with the purple light of compulsion.