Purgatory of the Blue Flame: A Piece of Anarchy

The sky above Vallcera was completely clear.

Tatsuchi looked up at it for a moment as she walked, squinting slightly against the sunlight. There wasn't a single cloud overhead. The blue stretched endlessly above the city, almost too clean compared to everything she'd seen over the past several months. Vallcera was alive beneath it. People crowded the streets, moving between shops and festival stalls. Colorful decorations had been hung between buildings, and music from somewhere deeper within the city drifted through the streets. The canals that ran through Vallcera reflected the sunlight, their surfaces constantly disturbed by passing boats and the occasional breeze. It was almost peaceful.

Tatsuchi reached into her pocket and pulled out a small piece of paper. She unfolded it carefully. There was only one word written on it.

Requiem.

Tatsuchi stared at it. She'd already spent a ridiculous amount of time thinking about this. Ouya and Rui had given it to her as a hint toward the next step of power. They'd made it sound like the answer should mean something to her. But what?

Tatsuchi turned the paper over.

Nothing.

She held it up toward the sunlight. Still nothing. Her eyebrows lowered. "Requiem…" The word didn't give her anything. A name? A technique? A location? Maybe it was supposed to be obvious, but Tatsuchi couldn't connect it to anything she knew. She folded the paper again and slipped it back into her pocket. She'd figure it out eventually. Tatsuchi continued walking through Vallcera, her hands falling into her pockets as her thoughts wandered back through everything that had happened. It was strange, all of this had started because she wanted to find out who had placed the bounty on her. That was it.

A bounty.

Something she'd expected to solve quickly had somehow turned into months of traveling, fighting, recovering, investigating, and finding things that had opened even more questions.

The first major turn had been Itaka Tomidoru. Her childhood friend. Her fellow Gate Captain. They'd met again under circumstances neither of them could've expected, and from there, Tatsuchi and the others had traveled north toward Condoran. Hades Vault had been their next major lead. If they wanted answers, they needed information, and Hades Vault had information. They'd gone there expecting to find something useful. Instead, they ran into Brass Hymlinn. A Revolutionary Army Commander. Tatsuchi's eyes narrowed. She still remembered that fight. There hadn't been any question about the outcome.

They stood no chance.

Their mission had been halted for six months because of what happened. Six months before they were finally able to continue in the middle of November. When they eventually got the answer they'd been looking for, it wasn't what Tatsuchi had expected.

Kyosuke Mori.

That was the name of the man who'd placed the bounty on her. Tatsuchi had only known the Mori name because of Zhenyu, which only raised another question: What did Zhenyu's family have to do with this? Even then, the information they'd gotten from Hades Vault had a problem. It was outdated. The records claimed Kyosuke Mori was imprisoned somewhere within Makagiri, the Land of the Demons. Tatsuchi had spent a long time thinking about that. If Kyosuke was locked inside a prison, how had he placed the bounty? He couldn't have done it from a prison cell. At least, not directly. So something about the information was wrong. And if Kyosuke wasn't where the records claimed he was, then where was he?

That's when Harpyra became their next destination. Someone as high-profile as Kyosuke needed somewhere difficult to find. Harpyra made sense. The region was dangerous, the desert was massive, and there were plenty of isolated areas where criminals could disappear without drawing attention. The surrounding stretches of open desert made it easy for someone to stay hidden. Or so they'd thought. When they finally reached the Capital of Harpyra, there was nobody there. At least, that's what it looked like. Then they found Graham. Tatsuchi remembered the enormous indestructible barrier around the city. The entire capital had been trapped beneath it. Even after she defeated Graham, the people inside refused to leave their hiding places. They'd been too afraid, too suspicious, or perhaps simply too used to whatever had been happening there. Even the government had told Tatsuchi and the others to leave. The entire city had been rotten from the inside. Corruption everywhere.

Tatsuchi's eyes drifted toward the people walking around her. Vallcera didn't look like that. She kept walking. They'd left Harpyra's capital and started toward the next city, but they hadn't made it very far. Most of their supplies had been stolen, so they stopped in Kokohama. And before they'd even managed to properly settle in, the innkeeper had warned them about a serial killer. That turned out to be the least strange thing about the town. The entire place was filled with Skinwalkers, and the person killing them knew exactly what was happening.

Ryuzuki Mochimaru.

A man in his early twenties. He was missing an arm. He was someone who'd been manipulated by the Revolutionary Army since he was a child. He'd eventually told them that he was the leader of the group of mercenaries who'd been placing bounties on nobles back in the beginning. Another connection and another piece of the puzzle. The Skinwalkers had to be wiped out before they spread to the other towns. Ryuzuki told them the best time to kill them would be during the triple blood moons. He said that the next one would be in about two weeks. That's how long they were supposed to have. Instead, the triple blood moons started twenty minutes later.

Tatsuchi could still remember walking along the outskirts of Kokohama when she encountered Kaguya Katsuguro. Yet another Revolutionary Army Commander. Another fight. And another reminder that the deeper they got into this investigation, the more the Revolutionary Army seemed to be waiting for them. The fight hadn't gone well. Then she'd fallen through a black portal. One moment she'd been standing on the ground, the next, she was falling through the sky above Kokohama. She'd landed directly on a Skinwalker corpse.
Tatsuchi grimaced at the memory. They'd eventually found each other and coordinated their attack against Kaguya. 

They jumped him. They landed some good hits. None of it mattered. Kaguya eventually caught Tatsuchi by the hair and lifted her from the ground. She'd had no choice. So she cut it off. Tatsuchi's hand rose toward her hair. She let it fall again. That was when she remembered what Ryuzuki had told her.

The cave of Prometheus. The truth of what was really inside Kokohama.
Tatsuchi had left the others behind and forced herself toward it. She didn't know exactly what she'd find.bBut when she finally returned, she wasn't the same. Zhenyu had just cut off Kaguya's arm. Kaguya himself was already running extremely low on Zyn energy.
When Tatsuchi came back to the sand dunes, she used Asumi's Reijutsu talisman for teleportation. She used it to blitz Kaguya and he went flying. He was unconscious, missing an arm, slowly bleeding out.
Tatsuchi remembered the silence that followed. Then they'd gone to see where he'd landed. Two men were standing over his body. She remembered looking at them. Then everything went black.

When Tatsuchi woke up again, she was paralyzed. The others were there too. They were on a distant hill overlooking the remains of Kokohama. One of the men revealed himself as the leader of the Revolutionary Army. His name was Lucifer. Tatsuchi still wasn't sure what to make of that. The other man held a massive bow, his arrow was engulfed in flames.

Then he fired.

Twelve minutes later, Kokohama was gone. Nothing remained except a crater and the rotting stench of Skinwalker corpses.

Tatsuchi had fainted again. She woke up in a hospital. Two weeks of recovery followed. Ryuzuki disappeared in the middle of the night. And then Tatsuchi's cousin gave her information about who they needed to speak with if they wanted to get closer to the Revolutionary Army.

Kairos Feuerhai. 

An ex-member of the organization. Someone who might know things about the Revolutionary Army. That was why they were heading toward Vallcera. Not because the investigation had ended, but because it had changed. They'd started by looking for Kyosuke, now they were looking for the Revolutionary Army itself. And if Kyosuke really was part of the organization, then finding them could lead Tatsuchi to him. And if Ichirou was involved with the revolutionaries too, then perhaps she could finally find him. “One investigation had become something much larger.” Tatsuchi sighed. “And even after all of that, we still ended up dealing with Victor Combs' basement.” Her expression darkened. She didn't want to think about it. She'd seen enough. For now, she just wanted to relax, put everything together, maybe breathe for a few minutes.

But she still had a job. 

Kairos was somewhere within the Pleiades Desert. They knew that much. The problem was finding him.
The Pleiades Desert was enormous. Western Harpyra in general was enormous. Knowing where someone was supposed to be and actually finding them were two completely different things. Tatsuchi stopped walking. She looked across Vallcera. The city was enormous. Buildings stretched across the horizon. Canals cut through the streets, disappearing beneath bridges before reappearing several blocks away. Festival decorations covered entire sections of the city, and people continued moving as if the world had never given them a reason to be afraid.

Somewhere beyond Vallcera was the Pleiades. Somewhere out there was Kairos. But where? They didn't have the name of a hideout. They didn't have a precise location. They didn't even know if Kairos would even talk to them. For once, Tatsuchi didn't want to fight her way through a problem. Maybe the answer wasn't going to come from another fight. Maybe it was somewhere in Vallcera.

Then she started asking around. It was simple. Ask questions, gather information, figure out where to go. If Vallcera was this close to the Pleiades Desert, there had to be people who knew the area better than she did. Merchants, travelers, locals, anyone. The first few conversations didn't help. Most people didn't know anything about Kairos. Some had heard the name before but couldn't tell Tatsuchi where he was. Others immediately changed the subject when she mentioned the Pleiades. Tatsuchi noticed. At first, she assumed they were just avoiding the question. Then she started noticing something else. Nearly every person who knew anything about traveling through western Harpyra eventually mentioned the waterways beneath Vallcera. The city had been built around them. Some were still being used by merchants and locals.
Others had been sealed off for decades.

There were stories about people using the underground routes to move goods through the city without having to travel through the main streets. That interested Tatsuchi. If someone wanted to disappear from Vallcera and head toward the Pleiades without being noticed, the old waterways could've been useful. Maybe Kairos had used them. Maybe someone still did. More importantly, the waterways were old.

Very old.

There could be information down there that didn't exist on modern maps. Tatsuchi started looking into Vallcera's history. That's when she learned that the city was much older than official records claimed. Some of its oldest waterways stretched beneath the streets, deeper than the modern systems surrounding them. Some had been abandoned completely. Others led into tunnels that looked like they belonged to another civilization. Eventually, Tatsuchi found an old access point near one of the markets.

She looked down the staircase, then stepped inside. The festival disappeared almost immediately. The music faded behind her. The sound of footsteps vanished. All that remained was the sound of running water. As Tatsuchi descended, the air grew colder. The walls were damp and covered in layers of mineral deposits. Old stone supports disappeared into the darkness above her. She kept one hand near her sword as she walked. Eventually, the stairs opened into a narrow waterway.

The current wasn't strong but it was deep. Tatsuchi couldn't see the bottom. Old walkways ran alongside the water. Some were cracked. Others had partially collapsed into the channel. There were no lights. Only thin strips of sunlight came through small openings in the ceiling. Tatsuchi stopped beneath one. When she looked up, she saw that the opening had been carved directly through the stone. A metal grate covered it. “Ventilation?” She looked farther down the tunnel. Another opening. Then another. They weren't evenly spaced. Some were above the water. Others were directly above the walking paths. Tatsuchi frowned, “Why would an old waterway need this much ventilation?” 

She crouched beside the wall, her fingers brushing against the damp stone. The air coming through the opening was colder than the air around her, and it wasn't just there to let sunlight inside. These tunnels had been designed to breathe. Tatsuchi stood back up slowly, thinking that if the waterways had only been meant to carry water, there wouldn't have been much reason to build such a deliberate system of air shafts throughout them. Someone had expected people to spend time down here. The farther she went, the less the tunnels looked like the waterways above, as the stonework became older and the paths became wider.
Then Tatsuchi passed beneath an enormous archway half-submerged in the water and stopped because something was carved into it. Tatsuchi stepped closer; the design was difficult to make out, but part of it was unmistakable, the same strange symbols. Her eyes narrowed as she connected Victor Combs' basement, Kaguya Katsuguro's bo staff, and now this. Tatsuchi stared at the markings, whispering, “What are you?” She stepped closer as the symbols continued along the wall, disappearing beneath the water before appearing again several feet away. Whatever this place had originally been used for, someone had taken the time to cover it in the same symbols she'd been seeing since they arrived in Vallcera, and Tatsuchi followed them.

Eventually, the tunnel split into three paths. She looked down each one until a faint current of air came from the passage on the left. Another ventilation shaft. Tatsuchi followed it as the passage gradually sloped upward and the sound of running water grew quieter behind her. Eventually, she found a stone staircase leading toward the surface. Tatsuchi climbed until she reached a rusted metal door, pushed it open, and sunlight immediately hit her face. She stepped outside. Vallcera was still moving: people crowded the streets, merchants shouted from their stalls, and music drifted between buildings. Nobody seemed to care about the ancient tunnels beneath them.

Tatsuchi looked back at the doorway, realizing that if these waterways had been designed for people to travel through, there had to be dozens of entrances and exits scattered throughout the city. The underground routes weren't just remnants; they were a network. And if people had once used them to move around without being seen, there was a chance someone still used them. Tatsuchi looked toward the older part of the city, knowing she needed to find the other entrances, and started walking. Then someone spoke behind her: “Maybe you should go take a look.” Tatsuchi froze, her purple eyes widened, and she knew that voice, or at least, she thought she did. It was the same voice she'd heard yesterday while trying to navigate the hallway of Victor Combs' basement, the voice she'd thought belonged to Ichirou. But that couldn't have been Ichirou; it had been an illusion, at least, that's what she thought. So why was she hearing it again? Tatsuchi slowly turned, though she never saw the person, and something shoved her forward. Her eyes widened as her foot slipped over the edge. She reached for the stone, but her fingers missed, and Tatsuchi fell straight into the water. The cold hit her instantly, and the last thing she saw before the darkness swallowed her was the reflection of someone standing above the waterway. Then everything went black.

                             …

Tatsuchi woke up to what seemed to be hours later coughing, the taste of stagnant water filling her mouth and her head pounding. Her clothes were soaked, cold fabric sticking against her skin as she slowly pushed herself upright and looked around. Stone, water, darkness. She was lying against a stone walkway beside one of the underground waterways. Tatsuchi immediately reached for her sword; her hand closed around the familiar handle, still there. She exhaled, then looked around again. Nobody. The passage behind her disappeared into darkness, and the water beside her moved quietly. Tatsuchi looked toward the place she'd fallen, realizing she had no idea where she was, until she noticed something in the dirt: a footprint.

Tatsuchi crouched beside it. It was old, with mineral deposits having already begun forming around the edges, but it was unmistakably human. She looked farther down the tunnel and saw another footprint, then another. Tatsuchi stood and followed them. The farther she went, the more evidence she found: rusted hooks driven into the walls, broken wooden supports leaning against the stone, pieces of old crates rotted away across the ground, discarded tools lying beneath layers of dirt, and rusted lanterns hanging from old brackets. Then she found the rooms. Small rooms had been built directly into the sides of the tunnel, and Tatsuchi stepped inside one to find the remains of an old sleeping area, a broken frame, and old fabric, nothing recent.

The next room contained fragments of cooking equipment, with containers scattered across the floor, though everything was covered in dust and looked completely desolate. Tatsuchi estimated that nobody had lived here for decades, maybe longer. She stood in the doorway and looked down the tunnel, realizing people had lived beneath Vallcera, not simply hidden, but lived. They'd slept down here, cooked down here, and moved through the city from beneath its streets. Tatsuchi didn't know who they were, why they'd lived beneath the city, or whether they were connected to the strange symbols, but one thing was obvious: these waterways had been much more than drainage systems. They'd been a place to live, a place to move, a place to disappear.

Tatsuchi continued until she eventually reached another intersection where three tunnels branched away from the main waterway. The center passage still carried water, but the tunnel on the right was completely dry, and Tatsuchi stepped inside. The difference was immediate: no current, no dripping, almost no sound. Her footsteps echoed through the passage as she kept walking. The tunnel stretched farther than she'd expected, reaching far beneath Vallcera as the stonework began changing again, older, more primitive. Tatsuchi stopped. This tunnel seemed to lead much deeper underground than the modern city should've allowed. She stared into the darkness, part of her wanting to keep going because there were answers down here, maybe. But she'd already been chasing too many mysteries without understanding what she was getting herself into.

She didn't know what was waiting farther underground, she didn't know who built this place, she didn't know if the people who'd once lived here had anything to do with Victor Combs, or Kaguya, or the symbols, or Kairos, or the Revolutionary Army. For once, Tatsuchi decided she didn't need to know everything immediately. She turned around, murmured, “Not yet,” and retraced her steps until she eventually found another staircase. Tatsuchi climbed the stairs, which seemed to go on forever, and when she finally reached the top, she found another rusted metal door. She pushed it open, and sunlight flooded into her eyes as Tatsuchi stepped onto the streets.

Vallcera continued as if nothing had happened: the festival was still going, merchants were still shouting, and people walked through the streets completely unaware of what existed beneath them. Tatsuchi looked back at the door, knowing there were probably dozens of entrances and exits scattered throughout the city and that the waterways could've once been an entire underground network. But she didn't know enough to do anything with that information, so she left it alone, closed the door, and started walking. Night settled over Vallcera, the festival lights reflecting across the canals and turning the dark water into broken ribbons of gold. Tatsuchi slowed beside one of the waterways and looked down. The tunnels were beneath her, the footprints, the rooms, the symbols. All of it was still down there, though the surface was too dark for her to see anything below as the water continued moving quietly through the city.

Tatsuchi followed the canal, one hand remaining near her sword as she watched the shadows beneath bridges and along the banks. Nothing moved. No one called out. She kept walking until she eventually turned away from the water and continued toward the hotel. She'd only taken a few steps when someone laughed, and a voice called out: “Tatsuchi.” She stopped, her hand immediately moving toward her sword as the voice echoed across the canal. Tatsuchi turned around, but the street behind her was empty. She waited. Nothing. Then the laughter came again, softer this time, and it came from beneath the water.

Tatsuchi stared into the dark canal, her eyes searching the surface for anything, but finding only faint ripples spreading beneath the bridge as the laughter suddenly stopped. Tatsuchi remained still. She didn't know who was down there, and she didn't know if anyone was watching her; she only knew that the sound had come from beneath the city, and that was enough.

                           ...

Asumi stood over Tatsuchi's sleeping body in the dark room, with moonlight slipping through the curtains and spreading across the floor while Tatsuchi lay completely still beneath the blankets. Asumi didn't move, her eyes remaining fixed on her as her thoughts returned to Kokohama, to Kaguya, and to the moment Tatsuchi had fallen from the portal in the sky. What was that? Asumi had always thought she'd known Tatsuchi, maybe not everything, but enough. She'd seen her fight, seen her lose, seen her get back up, and watched her make decisions that were sometimes stupid and sometimes brilliant. 

But that portal wasn't something she'd expected. Asumi slowly reached forward, her hand touching Tatsuchi's back. Tatsuchi tensed beneath her hand. Asumi watched, a few seconds passed, and then Tatsuchi relaxed again. The shadows around Asumi's hand began to move, warping across the room as the edges of the walls distorted and the darkness stretched, until everything disappeared. “Geistesgebiet.” In an instant, Asumi was standing inside a dark room, or something that looked like one, with no visible walls, no ceiling, no floor, only darkness, an endless void. Asumi looked around, reached toward her side, but her sword wasn't there. Her expression changed as she said, “What?” and turned to face something approaching that she could sense, even though she couldn't see anyone.The darkness shifted somewhere in front of her, and then a voice spoke: “I'm not Tatsuchi.” Asumi froze, her eyes narrowed, and she demanded, “Who are you?” A figure stepped out of the shadows with tanned skin, dark red hair, white eyes, and a stitch-pattern scar stretched across his eyes, yet he didn't seem blind. Asumi stared as fear began to creep into her chest and her breathing became uneven, because there was no way, there was no way he could still be alive. “There's no way you're still alive.” The man looked at her, noticing the fear, but his expression barely changed as he said, “You've got the wrong person.” Asumi remained frozen, and the man continued, “Four hundred years is too long. Even for a devil,” looking almost bored as he added, “I was just unlucky enough to be reborn with his face.”Asumi's eyes remained fixed on him. “What are you doing in Tatsuchi's mind?” 

The man stared at her for a moment before answering, “This isn't her mind.” Asumi's expression changed, and the man looked around the endless darkness, adding, “You're inside her soul.” Asumi's eyes widened as she remembered the portal, the black opening in the sky, and Tatsuchi falling through it. “Were you responsible for the portal?” The man didn't answer immediately, so Asumi took a step toward him and asked, “The portal I saw during the fight against Kaguya. Was that you?” The man finally looked directly at her. “I'll do anything to protect myself and my host.”

Asumi's face hardened. “Parasite.” The man didn't seem offended; if anything, he looked like he agreed. Asumi opened her mouth, having more questions, so many more, but the man interrupted before she could ask them: “I don't have the patience to answer your questions right now.” Asumi stared at him, but he told her, “It doesn't matter.” The man looked at her for a moment where neither of them moved, and then he spoke: “Wake up.”

                            …

The three suns were starting to make their way up into the skies. Asumi was slumped against the side of Tatsuchi's bed, fast asleep on the floor. Tatsuchi and Zhenyu stood over her. Zhenyu looked down at Asumi, glanced at Tatsuchi, and scratched the side of his head, muttering, “Guess she didn't get to bed.” Tatsuchi stared at him, then smacked him on the back of the head. “Ow!” Zhenyu rubbed the back of his head and said, “What?” while Tatsuchi ignored him. She crouched beside Asumi and grabbed her; Asumi’s body remained completely limp as Tatsuchi carefully lifted her and placed her onto the bed.