The Psyche Diver Trilogy: Demon Hunters (51 page)

One, two…
Fuminari began to scan the black trunks, as though tallying their number.
Ugh…

He swallowed a breath. One of the trees stopped at two meters, forming that unforgettable outline. He got to his feet, still carrying Renobo, the crossbow in his right hand. A wave of murderous intent billowed out from the black form, growing in strength as it came towards him like an attacking mist. When it reached him it transformed into a howling, black tornado—it slammed audibly into him. His hair blew upwards like a flame stoked in a breeze.

Hanko.

But not alone…there was another. Just as Fuminari had Renobo before him, so was there someone in front of Hanko. A woman. Dressed in perfect black with her face concealed under a veil. It was Jakou’in.

What the hell are they doing here?

Had Biku been caught? Given away his location? If so, why had only Hanko and Jakou’in been sent out?

“Hanko, huh?”

Fuminari heard the words come from his lips, surprisingly calm. Hanko replied with a deep, rumbling growl. Fuminari took a couple of steps forward. Hanko stayed unmoving. Fuminari could make out the creature’s shape, the inky gleam of its eyes. He knew Hanko would be watching back, seeing the same light in his own eyes.

The woman before Hanko was whispering something. She appeared to be trying to stop the beast from fighting. Hanko’s thick left arm swung out to brush her aside.

“No!” Jakou’in screamed, her voice gusty and abrasive. It sounded more for Fuminari than Hanko.

“Hee, hee!” Renobo laughed her broken laugh, a whisper in Fuminari’s arms. “Do you know
why
she doesn’t want you to fight Hanko?”

“Huh?”

“I know the reason.”

Fuminari felt a foreboding chill run down his spine. Renobo sounded amused.

“When was it now? Back in Tanzawa, a man and a woman…watching us act out the Heruka Rite. Hanko pursued them—chewed a couple of the man’s fingers. The man escaped by throwing himself into a valley river. The girl, though—she lived to become our captive.”

The shock hit Fuminari like a hammer through the brain.

“The man was you, Fuminari.”

So that was it,
Fuminari thought.
Why hadn’t I noticed?
He had spoken with her, exchanged words in the dark. She had freed him, allowing him to escape from Miwa Ishibashi’s residence in Hachioji. Renobo put words to the realization.

“The woman became Jakou’in, the woman that stands before you now.” She barked each sentence.

“Kumiko!” The name tore from Fuminari’s lips, cutting through the darkness. His hold on Renobo relaxed. The woman ducked free, grabbing one of the knives from his waist as she ran across the grass. It came up, grazing Fuminari’s cheek. “Fuck!”

He charged after her. The huge black form sped towards him like the wind itself. A wave of hellish pressure rushed in, causing the hair on Fuminari’s neck to stiffen like needles. He tensed; crossbow still in hand he brought his elbows inwards, plunging his head behind them as he powered up every muscle in his body. The blow came in the next instant, the force a gigantic bludgeon slamming into his defense. The blow would have shattered the arms of any normal person, folded or not. Fuminari was knocked backwards, he tumbled through the grass.

The crossbow had split clean in two. Hanko’s leg came in, going for his head with enough power to tear it clean off. Fuminari had no idea which of the beast’s legs it was, it was all he could do to block the attack. He had forgotten about Hanko in the brief moment he had given chase to Renobo. Hanko had seized the chance with flawless execution. The beast’s boulder-like frame came crashing down as Fuminari landed, his back to the grass. Fuminari knew his ribs would be crushed if that weight—greater than even his own—connected. But there was no time to dodge. He kicked his right leg up towards Hanko’s groin. It met only air. Hanko’s fall had stalled in mid-flight.

Impossible
.

A branch from one of the birch trees above groaned loudly. Hanko had grabbed it in mid-air, using it to break its descent. Fuminari hurled part of the crossbow still in his right hand at Hanko’s head, his insides burning in horror. It felt like daggers of ice slashing at his back. Without thinking, he dived through the undergrowth. Hanko’s heel slammed into the ground where he had just been, cutting deep. Fuminari pushed a knee down to force himself up, his face covered in scratches from the undergrowth. The next attack would connect before he was even on his feet.

A sharp wail cut through the night. The two of them stopped dead.

The sound had come from Jakou’in—Kumiko. A knife stuck out of her left breast, the handle protruding at a grotesque angle. It was the knife Renobo had taken from Fuminari’s waist.

“Heeeee, he he he!” Renobo was laughing, shaking her head wildly. “I’ve killed the disloyal whore! Now, Hanko, kill him!” she ordered.

Hanko did not respond. Fuminari kept still. Both had their eyes on Kumiko. She was groping through the darkness, swaying with her right hand on the knife in her chest. Her pale wrists were visible in the dark, dancing like phantoms. Only her eyes were visible under the black cloth that still covered her features. They were trained on Hanko and Fuminari.

Hanko bellowed, a soul-crushing roar that convulsed through the darkness. The beast’s incredible frame began to grow, swelling beyond its original size. Its eyes focused on Renobo, taking on a twisted light. Renobo had stopped moving, taken aback by the incredible surge of power.

“Hanko, what are you doing?” she snapped.

Hanko howled in pain. Then the creature burst into motion, heading right for her. There was rustling from above. Just as it seemed that Hanko would tear Renobo to shreds a diminutive figure swooped down to stand between them.

“Enough, Hanko!”

A small, elderly man in a robe got to his feet between them—it was Enoh. Hanko stopped short.

“We noticed you two had gone missing. I came looking.”

Enoh was Hanko’s creator—the beast’s master. Hanko contorted inwards, issuing another pained cry. Fuminari had never heard mourning so powerful.

“What were you about to do, Hanko?” Renobo screeched.

Jakou’in stopped swaying and crumpled to the ground, face up. Hanko was back in motion the moment Enoh’s eyes flicked away. Renobo went pale. Enoh flashed into motion, scything past Hanko’s face. Hanko’s cheek split open as though cut with a knife, revealing the beast’s pink flesh underneath. Thick blood rushed into the wound.

“Stop,
now
!”

Hanko ignored the command. It had been the same in Tateyama when Yajima’s knife had missed its target and instead pierced Jakou’in’s shoulder. The beast had ignored her pleas and snapped the man’s neck. Then Hanko had killed a man after he had knocked Jakou’in aside, during the attack on Fuminari and Biku at Yamanakako. Hanko showed no signs of slowing down. Enoh readied himself to attack again. This time Hanko’s right leg came up, heading for Enoh himself.

Renobo had already turned her back and bolted into the dark, exhibiting a speed and agility normally impossible for an old woman. Her shrieking laughter continued to ring out, ghost-like. Enoh leapt backwards, using the back of his feet to parry Hanko’s blow. The force of impact accelerated him with incredible backwards velocity—he flew directly towards one of the trees nearby. He flipped in mid-air to land with his feet on the trunk, killing his speed. He came off to land softly on the ground. Hanko was already pursuing Renobo.

“Foolish creature. Falling in love like that.”

Enoh briefly glanced at Fuminari, then sped after Hanko.

7

The wind was a wild cacophony soaring around the forest, whistling through leaves billowing towards the sky.

The sound fell on deaf ears.

“Kumiko…”

He was standing next to her, she was still lying face-up. He crouched at her side.

“You were alive…”

He was trembling. She looked up at him, breathing with obvious pain. He took her upper-body in his hands and made to remove the veil from her face. She shook her head, forbidding it, but she was weak. He took off the veil. She squeezed her eyes shut.

“Oh jesus…” he said.

The flesh was gone from her left cheek, revealing her teeth. The sickening gash ran from the side of her mouth, almost reaching her ear. The memory came back. That night in Tanzawa two years ago. She had tried to protect him, standing against that bastard Hanko. The beast had swiped at her, hitting her cheek. The single attack had been enough to knock her to the floor, tear the flesh from her face and send it through the air—it had splattered wetly against a nearby tree.

“Fuminari,” Kumiko said. Fresh blood escaped from her lips. “I didn’t die.” Air, spit and blood leaked from the gap where her cheek had been.

The voice was unrecognizable. The memory of the voice, of the woman that had helped him at Miwa Ishibashi’s residence came painfully back.

“It was you—
you
helped me.”

She nodded.

Again—the time he had been stuck with his back against a tree blocking the road in the Tanzawa mountains. Hanko could have killed him then, but the beast had failed to do so. Jakou’in—Kumiko—she had been there then, too.

“I didn’t die. They wanted information on you, so they took me with them. When I came around my memory was gone. They had planned to sacrifice me at the following year’s ritual, but Hanko saved me.”

“Why?”

“You probably won’t believe this, but…
he fell in love with me.
A couple of jolly freaks,” she sighed. She might even have smiled. “It wasn’t until June this year that I got my memory back. In Tateyama.”

She had been in Tateyama for Hosuke, accompanying Iba and Hanko. Yajima had thrown a knife that landed in her shoulder. The resultant shock had caused Jakou’in to regain Kumiko’s memories.

Blood flowed from her mouth the whole time she talked.

“Don’t speak,” Fuminari said.

If he pulled the knife from her chest, he would just worsen the flow of blood. The tip was in her lungs. She had already begun to choke. The realization came to him—there was nothing that could save her now. She knew it too.

“Tonight we were finally going to get free of Panshigaru. To think our paths would cross again like this, on this night…”

“Kumiko…”

“Fuminari, I’m pregnant. It’s Hanko’s child. That’s why…”

“
What the…
”

…
fuck!? What is
she talking about?
Fuminari could not understand the words. The shock was too great.

“Get away from this place, Fuminari! All I can do for you now is warn you.”

“I’m not going anywhere. I’m here to kill Hanko—it’s the only reason I’m still alive!”

It was why he had travelled to Taiwan. Why he had pushed himself through torturous training. The only thing that got him through each day. Why he ate, why he defecated. The sole reason he had left Ryoko behind.

“Hanko is stronger than you,” Kumiko said.

“Don’t…”

“It’s true.”

“Hanko will die by my hands! It will happen!” Fuminari roared. Kumiko might have chuckled.

“Fuminari, you always liked to consider yourself a cold man. But it was never true, you’re exactly the opposite. You could have escaped that night, if you’d just killed me. But you didn’t, and I survived. Although like this…”

“Kumiko, you can’t die,” Fuminari pleaded. “Please…” He was crying.
What could he do now? How could he save her?
“I will kill Hanko. And you have to live, come back to me.” He was wailing, no longer in control of what he was saying.

Kumiko smiled faintly, like she was watching over a stubborn child. “You know my type, right? I like strong guys.”

It was the same line she had once given Muto. Her answer when he had asked why she had betrayed Iwakura, the leader of the
Kokushigun
.

“Hanko’s dead…I’ll kill the fucker. I’ve got money, enough for us to live the high-life together,” he cried, letting his tears fall on Kumiko’s cheeks.

“And who was it that said it was
just
a hundred million yen, I forget?” Kumiko laughed. Then her words trailed off as her head went limp, collapsing to one side, eyes frozen.

Fuminari felt a sudden, unbearable horror. “Kumiko! You can’t die, not now!” He screamed the words as he shook her in his arms. Her body rocked loosely. Fuminari bellowed and pulled her towards him.

“You can’t die now! You can’t leave me alone, Kumiko. I’ll get revenge on Hanko. I’ll get Hanko back!”

He was an overgrown child. Reduced to an infant by the outpouring of long suppressed emotions, locked deep inside. He knew there was nothing else for him now. Just this one woman.

“You can’t leave me alone!”

He let out a heartbroken scream. He felt incomparable solitude descend around him. He held Kumiko closer, unwilling to let her warmth seep away.

He howled at the sky, crying bloody, bitter tears.

Twenty-six

Nirvana and the Demon

1

The wind created a deafening howl in the branches of the larch trees, tearing through the countless leaves populating the darkness.

The black had become absolute, blinding. Fuminari felt it weave around him, thicker even than when he closed his eyes. The forest mourned as a single entity. Trees twisted and wept, striving for a lightless sky. Fuminari couldn’t tell if the raging sounds were real. He supposed he might be listening to his own, internal tempest.

A powerful gust whipped against his huge frame; he was still crouched in the grass. His throat exploded, splintering into a blood-curdling roar. But Fuminari had no awareness of crying. He was spewing darkness—swarms of creatures creeping up from his insides, becoming soundwaves bursting from his throat. As he howled, so the forest howled with him. As he convulsed, the trees shuddered.

Bloody tears ran down his cheeks. His face was scrunched tight like a child’s, skin matted with red lines that crossed as the blood tangled. Each time he cried out he saw apparitions, bundled gobs of hair, appear in the surrounding dark. Kukai’s
sokushinbutsu
was nearby, close enough to influence the surroundings. Latent energy was being sucked in from the mountains around him, flocking to him. The air was growing tight, crackling with an incredible sensitivity.

The atmosphere was reacting to him.

The grass teemed with reptilian shapes and grotesque, simian faces. One of the hair-things bumped into a bizarre lizard. They joined at the point of contact, the lizard squirming as the hair began to wrap around it—then the two creatures became one, something even more disgusting than before. The lizard began to dissolve like an insect inside a carnivorous plant. The hairs reshaped into another, emaciated reptilian creature. The things swarmed through the undergrowth, some ventured up his back, others floated in the darkness. Others still crawled out from under his clothing.

Fuminari saw none of this.

He was lost in darkness, blind but for Kumiko’s face. He saw her still-open eyes, staring up at the sky. They looked right through him, watching a far off blackness.

Still in tears, Fuminari began to undress her. He tore her clothes away, causing the warmth to seep away from her body. He pulled her close and howled, attempting to belay the effect. Even as he did so, he continued to tear the clothing from her back. Her warmth was being taken away, and he was helpless to stop it. He tried desperately, like a huge child throwing a tantrum.

She was naked. Above her left breast was a red flower in bloom—the puncture wound from Renobo’s knife. Fuminari’s bloodied tears trickled over her face as she lay there, facing upwards. He used the three fingers of his left hand to guide the blood to her lips, making her drink it. The left side of her face was split open, showing her teeth and gums. He ran the red liquid over her teeth. He let her head slowly down and tilted it to one side, concealing the scars so that she once again resembled the Kumiko of old. She was stunning. It was painful to see.

Fuminari pulled off his clothes and clambered over her. As her body took his weight a pocket of air hissed through the gaps in her teeth, tepid breath that washed over his face.

“Kumiko,” he moaned. He looked up at her.
Are you still alive?

No. Her look, the way her body felt—she was a corpse, like all the others Fuminari had come to know.

For his efforts, he had only pushed the air from her lungs. He put his left hand over her right breast, brushing over her nipple despite knowing that it would no longer harden. He squeezed, feeling a trace warmth spread over his three fingers. He began to massage her.

He put his lips over hers, but they were already cold. He spread her legs and rubbed his groin against her. His member was limp as he pushed into her. He began to thrust, like he was possessed.
Help me, please!
His features distorted as he beseeched her.
Kumiko, Kumiko!
He thrust harder still, pleading. He used his knees to shuffle backwards along the grass, taking her left breast into his mouth and flicking with his tongue. He grabbed her other breast in the three fingers of his free hand. His head shook, unwilling to accept the truth, causing his lips to touch where the knife had cut through her chest, spreading the redness over her pale breast. From deep in his throat Fuminari issued an animal sound, continuing to suck her nipple. He clamped his teeth together and lifted his head, pulling away from her. The nipple was gone, her breast flattened and red in its place.

The gap filled with red, viscous fluid. The liquid seeped outwards to spread over her saliva-soaked breast. Fuminari’s lips traced over the knife wound. He dipped his tongue over the already-congealing blood. He repeated the act endlessly, as though it might somehow bring Kumiko back to life. He cleared the blood from the wound, revealing the pinkish cut through her flesh. He pulled the wound open and licked the inside. Fresh blood welled into the moist, pinkish rent. He stuck his tongue in again.

Kumiko was not coming back.

Fuminari’s roaring cries had died down to a quiet sobbing. He continued to run his tongue over her, voicing her name the whole time he did. His mouth transitioned slowly, down from her breasts to her abdomen and from there to her belly, then finally towards the split between her legs. He let his tongue slather over her petals of flesh, as he had in the past. He opened her wider and stuck his tongue inside, flicking up and down. He used his fingers and tongue to tweak her clitoris. This time there was no moisture, no rising heat from inside her. He pushed his tongue deeper, but the temperature was the same as it was on the outside.

That bastard,
Fuminari groaned.
The bastard Hanko—this is where that beast fucked her.

Fuminari became engulfed in a shadowy flame. He brandished his teeth and bit into her, over and over. There was no meaning to his actions. Nothing he could do to this dead woman would pacify the monster inside him.

He felt something writhing through his insides, like a nest of black snakes prowling through his entrails, beating a path to his groin. But something was blocking the route, a dense wall that frustrated their efforts. The shame made him want to rip himself to pieces.

He forced his still-limp cock inside her, through the bloodied folds of flesh, wet with his saliva. Kumiko’s pale body—the body that had once writhed in his hands—offered no response. Fuminari pushed his hips forward, slipping out when he pulled back. He tried again, sliding his waist from side to side. There was no pleasure to the act. He had no idea what he was trying to achieve, what he even
wanted
to achieve. It felt like dousing a paper rod in frigid water.

He continued regardless, lost in the confusion.

He slipped out and pushed back into her. The process became an endless loop. His bloody tears had dried up. His eyes were vacant, devoid of expression—he wore the mask of the insane. He only ground his teeth.

“
Kumiko
…”

Every now and then he whispered her name, but saw only darkness.

2

The dark void was breathing, pulsing with a rhythm like the beating of a human heart. The void was no longer empty. There was a darkness, and the thumping rhythm was part of it.
It was reassuring, compared to the last dive. The sound symbolized a place to go, at least, regardless of whatever danger might be lurking beyond.

The darkness was inflating and constricting. It was waking up, and fast. Hosuke’s previous dive had awoken something that had been dormant inside Kukai’s mind. The thing had taken the form of the darkness he saw now—still resting. Gone was the sense of vastness he had experienced before.
But where had it come from?
Energy, infused with greed, nesting within Kukai—that was how he had described it. At the moment, it was still dormant.

It felt like they had dived inside a black ocean-serpent, a creature made from a repulsive, coiled darkness, one that would wait at the river’s edge for prey to flow downstream. Previously concealed under the sea bed, it was biding its time, appetite whetted, waiting for the river to carry more food its way.

Hosuke was afloat inside it. He had used the same entrance as before, but it had taken twice as long to get this far. This time, Kurogosho was with him. Hosuke had extended the reach of his mind, forming a barrier to protect the old man. He could not allow Kurogosho’s mind direct access to the darkness that surrounded them.

He could have offered Kurogosho a transparent Psyche Protector, but he would have found it difficult to maintain the transparency. He would have been ravaged to the bone the instant the black, odious energy realized his presence. What Kurogosho saw was a visual representation of what Hosuke perceived with his mind. It was possible, with a little cunning, to show the old man anything he wanted to. But it was still too early—there was no need. Inside the mind, Kurogosho’s fate was more or less putty in his hands. At the same time, it was clear that if he tried anything, any damage rendered to Kurogosho would also reach Hosuke. It would take an inordinate amount of skill to simply avoid being devoured alongside him.

The old man was sitting cross-legged, naked in a bubble of Hosuke’s creation. Inside the mind, it is common for a person to assume their natural form. Yet the outline is hardly ever distinct, it usually shivers and deviates, mixing patterns like an image projected onto fog. Kurogosho’s form was almost perfectly resolved, an effect only partially due to Hosuke’s assistance in maintaining it.

Hosuke was seated in front of the man, also with his legs crossed. This was how Hosuke chose to reveal that particular part of his mind to Kurogosho. It made things easier. He could have conjured up a table and some chairs, but felt it might have been overkill. They had already taken twice as long getting this far, compared to the previous dive.

Quite fascinating
, Kurogosho said.

His head turned slowly, a natural translation of his wish to look around. His features were more distinct than they were in reality, making him appear a whole twenty years younger—a sign that his mind retained a youthfulness and strength greater than that of his physical body. He was visibly excited, but his presence was as commanding as ever.

This darkness, is it Kukai?
he asked.

Not really
, Hosuke answered.

Not really?

Kurogosho’s eyeballs shrunk to half their regular size before expanding to double and finally settling back to normal.

This is all the energy he’s got balled up inside him.

I see.

Uh huh.

So we are submerged inside it now?

We’re inside, yep. Although it’s more accurate to think of the energy as being wrapped around us,
Hosuke answered.

His voice was a metaphor, a movement of the lips of his mind as he directed his thoughts at Kurogosho, who perceived them as sound.
If the recipient of his thoughts had been deaf they would have been translated into sign language or written text, whichever was the easiest template for understanding.

And where is Kukai?
Kurogosho asked.

Kukai?

You said he was alive.

Sure, he is.

Where is he?

We can’t rush things. There’s an order to follow here.
Hosuke formed a picture-perfect rendition of his real-life smirk.

I should warn you not to toy with me
, Kurogosho said.

Ha ha…

Show me to Kukai, now.

I will, in time.

How?

First we get clear of all this black shit.

Get clear of it?

Yeah.

How?

That is what I’m trying to figure out.
His eyes smiled as he looked at Kurogosho.

I’m sorry?

Look—I’ve already told you all this.
This is some kind of passageway we’re in
.

A passageway?

Yeah, the one Kukai used to get to the other side
,
nirvana—whatever it’s fucking called.

Ah.

So I already know it’s a passageway. The problem is finding the damn way in.

Despite us already being inside it?

Yeah.

So it’s complicated…

In order to find it, I think we need to discover a little more about this black stuff.

Okay.

First, I have to somehow digest a part of it.

Digest it?

Yeah, it’s a way to let it into my consciousness. That way I’ll get a better picture of what this crap is. Better than any guess I can make now…

I see.