[Inari Standoff: Bloodletting

With their hard-fought battle over, Osamu carried Cecile's body out of the psychedelic hall, and back out into the grand hall. Inari walked along side him in silence, her tails slowly swaying to the left and right like palm fronds blown by gentle winds. The dark orange light of the setting sun crept in through the windows, casting elongated shadows on Osamu, Inari, and all of the scattered chairs and baggage in the hall.

Inari had used the blood staining her mouth from her savage assault on Cecile to give Osamu his own arm back, meaning the cross was now unusable.

(She's so light...though, that's probably because Inari tore her limbs off. I feel so bad about it...but maybe it was necessary to prevent the fight from prolonging any further. At least now, we can give her a proper burial. The poor girl didn't even want to be here.)

"Osamu, let's head back to the diner. I'm exhausted after today." Inari said, stretching her arms.

"What about Cecile?" Osamu turned and asked.

"What about her? Did you have some other plans for her?"

"Other plans...Wait, what plans did you have in the first place?"

Inari scoffed. "Isn't it obvious? I'm going to eat her corpse."

Those words alone made Osamu recoil away from Inari. His grip around Cecile's body tightened. "Inari...what did you just say?"

Inari, on the other hand, appeared just as confused as Osamu. "Did you...did you plan on burying her?"

"Of course I-"

"Why?"

Osamu's eyes turned to Cecile's lifeless face. "Cecile deserves a proper burial, Inari. None of this was of her choosing! Of all the exorcists we've encountered so far, she was the most genuine human being of them all!"

"I don't see what any of that has to do with how we handle her body."

"I'm saying we should respect her remains, Inari!"

Inari's lips twisted in anger. She was just as disgusted with Osamu as he was with her. Her feet stomped upon the floor like boots of lead as she stormed up to him. "What the hell do you think you're doing? That girl's family is dead. Her friends are dead. Even if we buried her, not a single person will even visit her grave."

"And that makes it okay to scavenge their corpses like spoils of war?"

"Of course. We did it to White Saint, didn't we?"

Osamu temper boiled over. "That wasn't the same! We had to do that because we were both wounded! Look, Inari! I'm fine! You're fine! We came out of this fine because you played it smart! There's no need to devour her corpse!"

"Eating her corpse is still necessary! The exorcists will only heighten their efforts to kill us both, Osamu! Stop being such a fucking pathetic little boy scout about this and hand over her body! Or would you rather waste perfectly good flesh?"

"What is wrong with you?!" Osamu shouted. "When we met, you told me that you only did it because it helped you heal!"

"It's not just healing, Osamu! Blood, flesh, and hearts makes me stronger. For some reason, the more I eat, the more I drink, the stronger I become! Sweetheart, I'm only doing this because I want to be as strong as possible to protect us both! I almost lost you today. I don't want that to ever happen again."

(Inari...what is becoming of you?)

Inari held out her hand like a dog begging for a treat. Her crimson eyes begged for blood and flesh, for the corpse of Cecile to be surrendered and offered up like a war trophy. It only made Osamu take more steps away from her.

"What? You're...backing away?" Inari murmured in disbelief.

"Inari...you've already lost yourself. Listen to me, we can survive here without resorting to outright cruelty. We don't have to resort to eating a young girl's body and chopping up the rest to put in a fridge for later! Doesn't that just sound insane to you?"

"Osamu...give me her corpse."

"...No."

"Give me the body, Osamu!"

"No! Either we bury her or cremate her! We're not going to butcher her!"

"You think survival is all rainbows and sunshine, as if there's some sort of ethical way to go about it, don't you? Survival is more than just an instinct, it's a logic! Logic dictates we take every measure possible to ensure that the next day isn't such a hard struggle just to live!"

"Really?! Is it logic telling you to butcher a young girl's body? Was it logic that told you to start a blood moon?"

"That..." Inari said, stopping herself and averting her gaze. "That was different."

"Were you really the one who did that, Inari? That blood moon wasn't supposed to happen. It's why we ended up having to kill Rousoku ourselves. So, why? Why did you do it?"

"...I didn't make the connection until Cecile brought it up." Inari admitted. "But it sounds like that blood moon is what doomed your friend. I'm sorry, Osamu. I didn't know."

"...Just tell me why."

Inari sighed as she rubbed the back of her neck. "You know that I was being hunted by the exorcists. Around the time I made my way back to Kyoto, there was one particular group I came across in Arashiyama. I killed all but one of them. The one I left alive begged me to stop and listen to her. She said she was actually on my side in all of this.

"She was very aware that I wasn't going to last much longer before I got cornered. If I was caught and killed, the Shinto pantheon would take my powers and Amaterasu would use it for herself. The state would have literal control over the free will of everyone within and around it. That was her concern. Then, she went on and on about this Lucrezia girl, about her beliefs and ideology."

"Lucrezia?" Osamu gasped.

"To boil it down for you, the woman I spared was completely devoted to this Lucrezia girl. It was odd, though. She mentioned that Lucrezia shared the same ideology as the Senkumo clan. It made me wonder if she had studied them or had some sort of obsession. At any rate, we agreed that I didn't want my power to end up in the pantheon's hands, and neither did she.

“We figured I wouldn't last long, but there was still something I could do to prevent my powers from falling into Heaven's hands. She told me where the Shoku Twins were and instructed me to get them to initiate a blood moon. It had to be on that night. There wasn't any time to spare."

"Why? Why did it have to be then?"

"Because that blood moon wasn't for me, Osamu. I benefitted from it, sure. Blood moons heighten my strength, after all. The real intent behind that blood moon was to save someone else's life. It was someone the exorcists had gone after before, and she wasn't in very good shape. That blood moon was the only thing that could give her even a chance at surviving and getting out of the country.

"She told me that this person had the best chance of stopping Heaven from grabbing my power. Apparently, getting this person involved was her plan from the start, but when the exorcists found her, they had nearly killed her. She'd need time to heal and lie low, and that blood moon would help her do it."

"...And who told you all of this? Why would an exorcist go out of their way to undermine the pantheon?"

"Manami Akiyama. That was who told me."

Osamu's heart nearly stopped. "Manami? That...that's Yoko's mother! Why would she..."

(It all adds up. Inari said that this person mentioned that 'Lucrezia' thought the same way as the Senkumo clan. The only other person who knows about Taeko is Manami. But then the question becomes...why would Manami try and defy Heaven?)

"Inari, who's this person Manami wanted you to help? Manami sure made her sound important. There's no way you would've trusted the word of an exorcist unless you knew who that person was too. Going after the Shoku Twins is extremely risky. You had to have believed in this person's strength."

"You're right. That's exactly why I can't tell you."

"Inari! I deserve to know why I had to kill Rousoku! Whose life did we trade Rousoku's for?! What was any of it for?"

Inari's eyes glistened with tears as she clutched her right arm, her head hung low. "I can't tell you. I'm really sorry, Osamu."

Denied any justification for the horror he endured, Osamu fell to his knees, his face soaked in tears. He cradled Cecile's body as his sobs echoed through the empty airport.

"Damn it! Damn it!" Osamu screamed, slamming his forehead onto the tile until he bled from his forehead.

"Osamu, stop!" Inari shouted, rushing in to stop him.

Inari threw her arms around Osamu, letting him cry into her shoulder. She rubbed the back of his head, stroking his hair as tears fell from her puffy eyes.

"Nothing's changed..." Osamu wept, his voice broken and weak. "I still don't know what to say when I see Rousoku again."

"You won't have to say anything. It wasn't your fault. It was mine. I'm sorry I put you through that, Osamu. I'm so sorry."

Later that evening, Osamu and Inari returned to the broken lobby window, watching as Cecile's body burned in the airside garden. In the end, Inari decided to cremate her instead of eating her. A small plume of black smoke lifted into the air, reaching towards the starry, twilight sky.

Inari sat with her legs dangling off the edge of the window frame as Osamu stood next to her, leaned against it. His wavy, thick lion's mane swayed over his eyes. The sun made his peace sign necklace gleam against his scarred chest as he stuck his thumbs underneath the waist of his white jeans and bullet belt.

"It'll only get harder from here." Inari said.

"Yeah. But that's all right. We have each other." Osamu said.

"...I'm really sorry, Osamu. I don't blame you if you hate me."

"I don't hate you, Inari. You couldn't have known what was going to happen. The only person I really hate anymore is myself."

"...I never met Rousoku, so maybe I have no right to tell you this. But I don't think she hates you. She couldn't pass on because she hadn't settled her feelings for you, right? In the end, it was your love that brought her peace and allowed her to pass."

"I guess you're right."

With Cecile reduced to bones and ash, Inari let out an exhausted sigh. "Well then, it's getting dark. We should get ready for bed."

Osamu stood up, savoring one last glance as flickering flames coating Cecile's corpse. "Yeah..."

While the day came to a close for Inari and Osamu, it was only just getting started for Kagutsuchi. Just as Taeko instructed, Kagutsuchi took flight made her way over to the airport. The job sounded easy enough at first, but Kagutsuchi soon realized that her flying abilities were still very rusty.

She had to stop on the rooftops of skyscrapers and rest every so often. Not only that, but the hostage situation at the Red Circle meant that some exorcists took positions on the rooftops of the surrounding areas. Kagutsuchi knew she couldn't risk being seen, so she had to take it slowly.

Kagutsuchi zipped up her pink, short-sleeved hoodie as she rested on a hotel rooftop. Suddenly, she heard the scream of car tires, followed by a loud crash. She peeked over the edge of the rooftop and scanned the streets, seeing a black SUV flipped upside down. Three black sedans stopped and surrounded the SUV.

The driver and passenger doors of all the sedans flung open, and out came exorcists armed with rifles.

"What's going on down there?" Kagutsuchi murmured.

She turned her gaze to the SUV, seeing someone crawl out of the broken passenger window. Looking closely, she realized she recognized the man.

"Cyanide!" Kagutsuchi exclaimed.

"You've got nowhere to run, Cyanide!" one of the exorcists shouted, all of them firing upon the SUV as Cyanide hid himself behind the vehicle.

Wasting no time, Kagutsuchi leaped off of the hotel rooftop, landing between the exorcists' fire and Cyanide. Bewildered, the exorcists stopped shooting.

"Who the hell is that?!" one of the exorcists shouted.

Kagutsuchi clasped her hands together and then slammed them down upon the concrete. Channeling the power of fire through her hands, Kagutsuchi detonated a small patch of the road in front of her, clouding the street in odorous, black smoke. Using it as cover, she rushed behind the SUV and grabbed hold of Cyanide.

"Take my hand!" Kagutsuchi urged.

Cyanide immediately did as he was told. The exorcists advanced through the smoke and rushed the SUV, only to find that Cyanide and Kagutsuchi were both gone.

"Shit! Pack up! We need to leave before we're seen!" ordered one of the exorcists. "Bastard got away!"

Cyanide panted as he rolled onto his back, his arms and legs outstretched as he lied on the rooftop of the thirty-story hotel. His suit was coated in dirt and congealed blood around the color. He reached for a cigarette from the pack in his breast pocket, sticking it between his lips.

"You have no idea how glad I am to see you, Kagu." Cyanide said.