Chapter 6 — Poor Mokomoko is Turning Into a Cell Tower

Perhaps the tranquilizer he had taken earlier was still working, as Ryousuke Miyanaga somehow managed to keep his cool. Although he wanted to run away screaming, he knew that any reckless action here would be the end of him. He couldn't afford to make a single mistake. He had to remain calm.

If Yogiri wanted to, he could have killed him at any time, but he hadn't. That must have meant he wasn't planning on killing him right away. Someone had tried to kill him just then, but it hadn't been the boy.

Ryousuke inspected his surroundings. They were in the middle of the street. There were large cracks spreading across the stonework from where his head had impacted the ground. Besides Yogiri and his companions, there was no one around.

Only one day prior, there had been a large-scale disaster with many victims. With that fresh in everyone's minds, most people nearby were quick to flee at the first sign of danger. There seemed to be quite a commotion happening a little ways away, but that was likely the aftermath of his aircraft crashing.

There were two people in front of him now. One was Yogiri Takatou, whose face he had seen numerous times and would never mistake for someone else's. The boy's white shirt and slacks meant that he was likely still wearing his school uniform. He was talking into a smartphone, but Ryousuke wasn't paying much attention to the conversation.

Beside him was the girl who had been accompanying him. Earlier, she had been wearing ordinary enough clothes for a teenager, but at some point she had donned a skin-tight black suit, probably some sort of battle attire. She must have been the one who had yanked him out of the air and driven him into the ground. Luckily, he had no lingering injuries to speak of. It had hurt, of course, but he had healed almost instantly. Ryousuke had a number of self-healing devices on him, so near-death experiences were nothing to worry about.

And there was one more form beside the pair. It was hard to call it a person, as it floated around the students. It must have been something like a guardian spirit. Wearing a white kimono reminiscent of the Heian era, it looked like a surprisingly rotund woman. Ryousuke possessed something called Pure Eyes, which he had personally manufactured after the ones from his own world. They allowed him to see ghostly beings.

"Wait, since when were you calmly chatting away on that?!" the girl asked Yogiri, having just noticed he was on the phone.

"Well, I had to get in contact with Ninomiya and the others somehow."

"How is it even working here, though?"

I am acting as a relay. You could call it a virtual station. I can receive signals from the phones, decode them, and broadcast them back! the spirit said proudly, surprising Ryousuke. He had thought he was the only one in this world capable of using electronics in that way.

"Poor Mokomoko is turning into a cell tower..." the girl murmured, looking at the ghost with pitying eyes.

Fool! Such an activity is a basic among basics! And stop making such silly observations!

"Anyway, should we get this conversation going?" Yogiri interjected, putting the phone away and turning towards Ryousuke. "There've been so many incidents recently it looks like the people here aren't taking any chances, so we're alone. You're the one who's been watching me lately, right?"

"Wh-What are you talking about?! Who are you people?! I was just attacked out of nowhere. Was that you guys?!" Ryousuke cried, hoping to lie his way out. If he admitted he'd been watching them, things would go south pretty fast. It would connect him directly to the people hunting Yogiri, so he had no choice but to pretend he had nothing to do with it. If Yogiri didn't mean to kill him right away, there was a chance he would let him go if he thought Ryousuke wasn't personally involved.

Hm. I suppose declaring him the culprit just because he boarded an aircraft is a bit unfair, no matter how questionable his timing was.

"Well, now what?" Yogiri frowned. "I thought we could work things out easily if we found him, but..."

They didn't have much in the way of proof. If that were the case, Ryousuke had a chance. If he didn't try to fight back, he might not die. There was still a possibility that he could escape. He just needed to get away before Yogiri decided to kill him.

He did still have the Princess of Spirits on his side. With her magic, he should be able to get out alive. Being forced to rely on her power was something he generally preferred to avoid at all costs, but he didn't have many options left.

A thought came to him just then. It was odd that the Princess hadn't appeared yet with everything that was going on. Normally, she was always hanging around, doting on him. There was no way she would sit back and do nothing while his life was in danger.

Are you looking for this? Mokomoko asked, holding up another ethereal form by the neck. It was Elysium, the Princess of Spirits. As beautiful as she was, she looked somehow pathetic hanging limply in the other ghost's hand, her neck bent at an odd angle. And while a spirit wasn't something you could compare to humans, it was clear that she had been rendered powerless.

"What are you doing?" Perhaps unable to see the second figure gripped by the ghost, the girl turned a curious eye towards her.

A strange spirit attacked us, so I dealt with it.

"Whoa, that's the first time I've heard of you doing something that actually sounds like what a guardian spirit should do," the girl replied dismissively, moving on as if it were nothing.

"Wh-Why...that's the Princess of Spirits, the ultimate spirit that rules over all others..." Ryousuke muttered in shock.

Ha! There are no spirits who can hope to best me! The Dannoura way seeks battle even after death! There are none who can hope to best us in spiritual warfare!

"Wow. I guess you feel good because you finally did something useful, but do you have to lord it over him so much?"

And if this one is the "Princess of Spirits," does that mean this is the king? Mokomoko stretched out her left hand, grabbing another ghostly being by the neck. Though he seemed to possess some sort of godly power, once Mokomoko tightened her grip on him, he too fell motionless.

"I don't know exactly what you're doing, but could you not go around picking up a bunch of random things?"

Once I defeated the woman, he came to seek revenge! He was a little stronger than her, but as I said, the Dannoura way is peerless!

"Uh-oh, looks like her ego's starting to inflate."

Mokomoko squeezed both of her hands, crushing her two captives into a scattering of mist. Ryousuke didn't know if that would amount to death in their realm, but at the very least it ensured they wouldn't be able to help him out just then.

Yogiri's attention, however, had shifted to Mokomoko. Ryousuke knew that if he was going to make a move, this was his chance. Searching for something useful in his mind, he created a smoke grenade, an item small enough that he could replicate it instantly. Without hesitating, he pulled the pin and tossed it at the others, causing a thick cloud of smoke to immediately fill the street.

Ryousuke had used every method available to strengthen his own body to the limit, from drug-based enhancers to magical reinforcements to mechanical ones. Putting all of that supernatural strength into his legs, he was about to take off when he heard a voice.

"If you run, I'll kill you."

Those words as good as nailed him to the spot. He knew that he should run anyway. If Yogiri wasn't planning on killing him, he might just let him go. But he couldn't move. The precious time his smoke grenade had bought was wasted as he simply stood around waiting for the smoke to clear.

"You didn't run, so you probably know about my power, right?" Yogiri asked after seeing that Ryousuke had done as he was told. There was no hope of the assassin talking his way out now.

"Fenrir!" Ryousuke shouted desperately. That was the name he had given to a four-footed, god-slaying beast he had met during his travels. He had somehow managed to tame that incarnation of violence and cruelty, and bind it to himself. As the monstrous creature appeared without a sound, it likewise dropped instantly to the ground without a sound.

"If you have more like that, go ahead and bring them all out," Yogiri offered calmly. "It'll save me the trouble of explaining my power."

"Queen of the Dead, Yama! Save me! I'm clearly backed against a wall here!"

"Do you not think it appropriate to visit only when called? Even I would be wounded if told that I was being annoying by forcing my presence on others." A slender white hand laid itself on his shoulder. Turning around, he saw a flawless beauty in a black dress standing behind him. It was a woman he had met in an underground city that he had accidentally wandered into some time ago. She had taken a liking to him for some reason, but he had basically blown her off.

"Please! Help me!"

"Does that mean you are willing to become my partner?"

He fell silent. If he agreed, he would no doubt be trapped in the underground city, never to see the surface again. Would that fate be worth it to survive the current situation? Especially since he didn't yet know if Yogiri even planned on killing him.

"Well, no matter. It would be rather boorish of me to demand your hand in marriage in exchange for saving your life."

Ryousuke felt a wave of relief. Now he wouldn't be taken away to that awful place even if Yama succeeded. Now that he thought about it, it probably would have been better to have asked her to kill Yogiri in the first place, but it had all been a game to him before. He hadn't thought of Yogiri as being someone who had to be killed at all costs until that moment.

Ryousuke was sure that Yama could do it. She was the immortal queen who ruled over life and death. For her, there was no such thing as dying. And as someone who couldn't die, Yogiri's counterattack would mean nothing, which in turn meant he was just like an ordinary human to her. Getting rid of him would be child's play.

"Ha, haha! This is the end! Yama has no concept of death! There's no way you can —"

"Die."

Yama immediately went limp. Falling into a puddle of blackness, she quickly dispersed, leaving nothing behind.

"You know, all the people who've said they can't die, or that they're already dead, or that they have no concept of death...all of them have died so far."

"Umm, Takatou. That seemed like a rather important person. Don't you think you should have given it a bit more thought first?" In spite of her words, the girl didn't seem too surprised. Terrifyingly, she seemed more fed up than anything else.

"It doesn't matter. I don't care who they are." He was clearly thinking of Ryousuke as an enemy now.

If Yama couldn't kill him, there were no options left. In the back of his mind, Ryousuke heard a message from his android. She was heading his way. He didn't know what she thought she could accomplish, but he didn't care enough to stop her.

Before long, a girl in a red dress and red gloves arrived.

"Stay away from my master!" she shouted, throwing the knife in her hand.

There's no way that'll work. That was the first thing Ryousuke thought, but he soon realized that something was wrong. She had thrown the knife. When it came to Yogiri, even that much should have been impossible. She should have died the moment she moved to do it. That was supposed to be the rule. But Yogiri was staring dumbly at her, doing nothing to stop the attack.

"Takatou, what are you doing?!" the girl beside him cried, panicking as she grabbed the knife out of the air at the last second.

Ryousuke found himself frozen at the unbelievable sight. What had happened? Why had the boy's automatic defenses failed?

"Oh, sorry. I was just surprised. Enju, switch to Administrator Command Mode." As he spoke, Yogiri stepped closer to the android.

Enju. That was the code name of the robot girl. How could he have known that, to say nothing of his activation of the Administrator Command Mode? Ryousuke knew that trick, of course, but it shouldn't have been usable for anyone but the Administrator himself.

"Deactivate." At Yogiri's words, the android slumped to the ground. He grabbed her as she fell, laying her down gently.

"Takatou, uhh...what's going on?"

"It's complicated. I'll explain later," he muttered before turning back to Ryousuke. "All right, do you feel like talking yet?"

Ryousuke had lost his last shred of will to resist.

◇ ◇ ◇

Haruto was standing on the second floor of the Dark Garden's flower shop. He had come to find out what the assassins had learned about Yogiri. Part of the contract was for them to pass on anything they discovered.

It wasn't hard for him to locate the documents. One might have assumed Haruto could simply use his ability to find the information himself, without going all the way there in person, but as he was only able to access data about the past that was already archived, he couldn't obtain information about the immediate present.

Haruto looked over the documents quickly. As expected, Yogiri had perceived every kind of attack and intercepted them all. At first glance, he appeared to be invincible.

"But is he really?"

Haruto's first thought was that it was odd that Yogiri had been brought to this world in the first place. If he could counter any attack, the fact that he was here at all seemed unlikely. He hadn't killed the person who had summoned him and had been transported along with everyone else. In short, if someone had no intention of killing him, they could still forcibly move him around.

Next, his powers. He could kill anything, and perceive any killing intent. Between those two abilities, he certainly seemed invincible. Up until now, there had been no one he had failed to kill, and he had avoided every attempt on his life.

"So, what would happen if he targeted himself with that power?" Haruto wondered. What then? Wouldn't he just die? "We'd need to make him mistake his target...or drive him to suicide."

Taking a hostage in order to threaten him seemed the worst possible option. Using his Instant Death ability, he could simply kill any obstacle to recover the person in question. So if they wanted him to kill himself, he needed to do so of his own free will.

"He seems pretty aloof and unemotional, but is that really the case?"

Yogiri wasn't a machine. Even if he didn't show his feelings much, his nature didn't seem terribly different from that of an ordinary high school student.

"Yeah, let's try following up on that..."

Haruto had learned most of what he needed to from the assassins' experiments. Changing the scope or nature of the attack against Yogiri would be unlikely to work. He would need to take things in an entirely new direction.