Chapter 8: M.C. Esher meets Piranesi

Meanwhile, on the other side of town, Haru is attending to her plants in her office. First things first, pruning, you have to make sure the soil doesn't have any unwanted parasites sucking away the nutrients from the main plant. Second, you must purge all dying leaves from the plant to make sure those useless suckers don't challenge the plant into a losing battle to bring them back to life. “all weak parts of yourself should be purged in order for your strongest self to manifest” she would say. Catering to the plants every need was therapeutic for her, she’d rather not talk to people if she could help it. she didn't mind it as much when It came to her teammates that she spent every day with, but everyone else might as well already be dead.

But that doesn't mean she actually wanted them dead, Just dead to her. But when someone was in need, none of that mattered, she would do everything in her power to help in whatever way she could. She was an essential part of the team because while everyone had powerful abilities that helped them fight toe to toe with ghosts, she had the ability to see them coming via her clairvoyance; she could see and feel spiritual anomalies and know where they were going to happen. And that's exactly what happened today, she was watering her plants when all of a sudden a sharp piercing pain shot through her head and down her spine.

“uuufff damn, yup mmmhmmm that's a big one.” after she put down the water jug she realized the severity of the situation.

“Hey Aki, we have a situation.” She spoke into her walkie-talkie

“It's 1 in the morning? can I not get a single night's rest?” he responded after wrenching his face up from his pillow back at his apartment.

“Well you could, I mean I’m not your boss or anything, but I thought you might want to hear this.”

“well whatever it is, it can wait until morning”

“It's about your little boy wonder, Kaiji was it? He's in big trouble?”

Aki got up and sat up at the edge of his bed “how big are we talking here, big for us or big for him?”

“house of a thousand walls big”

“ah… WHAT? ARE YOU SERIOUS?! WHY THE HELL IS HE IN THERE???”

“HOW THE HELL SHOULD I KNOW!!!???” she shouted back at him and let out a big sigh “All I know is that the house is displacing a lot of spiritual energy and he seems to be in there with someone else. You might want to bring someone with you”

“but Natsu and Fuyu are off on a mission at Estria.”

“that only leaves one person”

“yeah I know, but you know I don't like involving her in stuff like this”

“Aki my boy, you don't have a choice.”

“Yeah, I know Haru, that's the worst part.”

Chapter 8

“AURORAAAAA! This was supposed to be an easy job to take care of the grunt work while the pros took care of the dangerous stuff!” he said as he ran up the stairs holding Kairi’s hand trying to get away from the rampaging monster he just pissed off.

“I KNOW! You think I don't know that? This S.O.B. flew right under the radar and made it look like it was a low-level threat”

“So on a scale of one to ten on the Richter scale for demons, where is this guy sitting at?”

“that guy chasing after you right now is sitting at a 6.5”

“Okay, so the strongest one I’ve faced so far no biggie, and to top it off I don't even have my grandpas sword, its best I just avoid him for now and try getting out of here”

“It's not just him you need to worry about Kaiji, it's the whole house! It's a sub-dimensional rift that traps anyone that sets foot in there, there’s no telling how many phantoms are in there. and you won’t be able to get out until you take out the core”

“What are you talking about? I won’t be able to get out?”

“if you leave now, you’ll both be signing over your souls to the house and your fate will be sealed to a slow fade from the collective consciousness”

“In other words, I’ll already be dead the moment I set foot outside this place.”

“exactly, in order to get out, you have to destroy the houses’ core. Once you do that, the house will disappear and the rift will be sealed with you outside it back in the real world”

“and where am I gonna find that core?”

“I don't know… there are so many spirits it’s causing interference and I can’t tell which is which. You’ll just have to look for it. You should find it at the center of the house's spiritual domain.”

“In that case, how strong is it? on the off chance that I do find it, what am I in store for?”

“…”

“Aurora…How strong is it?”

“past records have indicated it sits at an 8 on the scale, but there’s no telling how strong it actually is.”

“…fuck” said Kaiji.

“You said so yourself… you’re already dead. Everything you do now is to undo what has already been done.”

the beast that Kaiji had been avoiding suddenly landed in front of him. It took a stairwell that landed it ahead of them, catching them both off guard. Kaiji saw as the beast pulled back its massive arm preparing to take a swing at him. He quickly grabbed Kairi and dove off the staircase landing onto a lower-floor balcony.

“Let's go! we have to hide from that thing!” he whispered to Kairi

without noticing they went through an inconspicuous archway that was actually a gateway to another area. They came out the other side back in the house, but now they were on the second-floor hallway. They ran to the end of the hall and hid behind a corner and watched to see if they had finally lost the beast. After a moment of panting and catching their breath, Kaiji explained in a hushed tone “good, we lost it! now we just have to find that core and get out of here and hopefully not bump into any other spirits along the way.”

What Kaiji didn't know is that Kairi was preparing to punch him. When he turned to look at her all he saw was her fist about to make contact with his face “eh?” he said just before it did.

Kaiji spun in the air and fell to the ground, she caught him completely off guard.

“What… the hell Kaiji? what does she mean we’re already dead?”

“Kairi, calm down, right now is not the time.”

“You said so yourself! We lost them, so now is a better time than any!”

“wait, we’re too exposed here, we need to find someplace more secluded, anyone or anything could pass through and find us”

He looked around and saw that the hallway had several doors all through. He picked one haphazardly and went in. It was the library. Books from floor to ceiling as far as the eye could see.

“This seems clear. Okay, now…” He sat her down in the corner of the room and began to explain everything.

“Essentially, Kyokai is overrun with ghosts, and they’re taking the lives of all its residents, and no one notices because the way they do it is that they take your soul and you fade from people’s memories over time. A little over a month ago, I started seeing them and I met Aurora after I fell off a waterfall and died.”

“What!?” she said

“oh, don't worry, she brought me back because I impressed her with my athleticism. Anyway, I took my grandfather’s swords and fought this giant phantom lizard with this guy called Aki. He was really strong and my grandfather found out I was fighting demons and he told me to stop. so me and aurora, that's the goddess who brought me back to life, decided we would let the big guys like Aki and his team do the fighting while I exercised weaker demons that manifested themselves as rumors”

“rumors?” she asked

“The more people believe a rumor, the more real it becomes; this house is one of them. But we’re trapped unless we find the core of its phantom essence. It’s not enough to slice up the furniture and wreck the place because all of this is a manifestation of the demon's domain.”

“So let me get this straight, over a month ago, you died, a goddess brought you back to life, you started fighting demons, met another group of demon hunters, got grounded, and now we’re trapped in a monster house's ‘spiritual domain’ unless we find and destroy its spiritual core?”

“That's the long and short of it, yes.”

“oh, wait. I get it now, I’m dreaming! Yes! If I just close my eyes and focus real hard, I'll wake up next to Pusheen and Momo just in time to get ready for school.”

“Pusheen and Momo?” Kaiji asked

“My stuffed animals.”

“you have stuffed- wait no! Kairi! You’re not dreaming! This is real!”

“no it's not! Everything you just said, is COMPLETELY ABSURD!”

“Yeah, but that doesn't make it any less real!”

“look around you Kaiji! this room makes no sense! This house wasn't nearly this big but this library goes on seemingly forever! Everything even feels like a dream, the orchestra, the dancing, the monsters, the staircase, this CAN'T be real!”

She broke down crying, overwhelmed by all that had happened.

Kaiji pulled her to him and comforted her

“Kairi, I’m sorry, I know it's a lot. But you have to trust me on this. Worst case scenario I’m wrong and you wake up in your bed. Like you said”

but Kairi wouldn’t stop crying.

“I can’t already be dead Kaiji. I don't want to die.”

Kaiji's heart filled with determination. He pushed her away so he could tell her to her face what he wanted to say.

“Kairi, you’re not gonna die, I’m gonna get us out of this. I swear to you.”

Kairi wiped off the tears from her eyes “okay. One more thing though, how did you get out of that crab's hand...claw... thing?”

Kaiji was caught off guard yet again “I don't know, he threatened you and it just happened. It must have been the heat of the moment”

satisfied and caught up to speed, Kaiji and Kairi made their way through the mansion avoiding spirits at every turn. With not a weapon to defend himself and Kairi to look after, fighting demons was not an option. They went door to door looking for the house's core in places where it could possibly be. But the layout was absolutely ridiculous, they would go up the stairs and end up going down the floor. They went through doors that took them back the way they came. And after a myriad of endless hallways, it was time to rethink their strategy.

“This is impossible! We’ll never find it at this rate” said Kairi

“and there are so many damn spirits here, we can’t take one step without bumping into one.” said Kaiji

“at least not all of them want to fight, that grandma made some really nice cookies!”

“yeah! Too bad they were just projections of how good they would taste, I’m starting to get hungry!”

“you’re always hungry!”

“not true. While I eat, I don't get hungry”

“Yeah that's just about the only time you’re not hungry”

they laughed able to enjoy the short respite before they kept going

“c’mon, we can’t get out of here until we find that core”

“okay” replied Kairi

“What about this door? We haven’t tried this one.” asked Kairi

“Okay but be careful, there’s no telling what will be on the other side”

She opened the door and it led to a spiral staircase going down. They were hesitant to take the stairs worried it would be another endless loop, but after a while, they started hearing noises, the walls creaked in rhythm like they were breathing. The staircase eventually opened up to a balcony overlooking a great black abyss. The darkness engulfed all warmth from the ambient torches surrounding it. But it didn't look like any old hole dug up in the dirt beneath them. It looked like they were on an aircraft flying over a world of darkness and they were looking down through the bomb bay doors at the world below. They could even feel the wind rushing through them and into the abyss. It seemed to go on forever. Kaiji absolutely did not want to fall, but Kairi was paralyzed. The only way across was the rafters that you could just barely make out just above the darkness.

“c’mon, let’s go” he grabbed her hand

“no” she quickly pulled it away “I’m not going anywhere near that thing”

“it’s okay, none of it is real, it just looks like that to scare us”

“well you go first and ill follow your lead”

“Okay, no problem.”

He leaned over the balcony and whipped his feet over the edge placing one foot on the rafter. Then the other. It was just barely wide enough for his feet. He had to keep his arms up at his sides to keep his balance.

“see? This isn’t too hard right?”

“It looks pretty hard to me!” she shouted across the void

“It's just a matter of keeping your balance, as long as you focus, it’s just like in the schoolyard.”

Kaiji, like every other elementary schooler, liked to play tightrope on the rocks that bordered the playground.

“If you just pretend there’s no hole in the ground, it’s no big deal.”

But Kairi didn't respond.

“did you not do that when you were a kid?”

but Kairi again didn't respond

“Kairi?” he turned around to look, but Kairi was nowhere to be found. His heart sank, he turned around to go back and look for her but before he realized, he had lost focus. His foot… slipped. And as he saw the world turn on its side he realized, he messed up.