1.20: The Void Incarnate“I’d suggest you visit Rickey next, RuiRui-chan,” Ume said gently. “Sadly, I can’t do anything else for you.”

  “You could come with us,” Rui pleaded immediately, her expression turning into the most dramatic, wheedling look a person could pster on their face without melting into a puddle. “It’s incredibly awkward with just the two of us. Susumu constantly compins, flops around, thrashes… he’s terrible company.”

  “She’s always calling me names!” I shot back, unable to hold it in. I turned desperately toward Ume. “She insults my manhood, my intelligence, my face! Please protect me from this tiny oni!” I pointed accusingly at Rui with great theatrical flourish.

  “You need protection from a small girl?” Ume blinked once. “Noted.” She cast Rui a little amused side-smile.

  “She’s really fierce, you know!” I yelped. “You saw that kiss! She’s clearly biased!”

  “Well…” Ume’s lips curled into a wide, toothy grin, “it would be fun to spend the day with you two.”

  Rui’s entire face lit up, joy bursting across her like fireworks.

  “But,” Ume continued, lifting a finger, “I have upcoming appointments. A few major clients. One wants an order of shrunken heads. Another is interested in a nail coffin I got my hands on. And there’s a cursed hutch rumored to contain body parts hidden inside by a master yokai craftsman. The wood shines like blood… which caught my interest. But unfortunately it doesn’t smell interesting. Whatever scent it once had likely faded long ago.” She sighed, disappointed. “Anyway, my customers await. I have to make a living.”

  I noh-gaped. This was just… normal business in the yokai underworld.

  Oh crap. I’m way too deep now.

  “Awwww…” Rui whined dramatically as her eyes filled with tears. She threw her arms around Ume. “Nyaaaa, please! It’s going to be so boring without you! If I at least had another cute girl with me, I could ignore the disgrace to humanity dragged behind me!”

  “H-hey!!” I protested. Filing my arms wildly, I rushed to defend myself. “I’m a good person! I’m worth helping! Even before I changed, people didn’t react quite as terrified as they do now!”

  “That’s really rough, Susumu,” Ume said with unexpected warmth. “But I know you’re a great kid. I can tell from the smell of your blood. It’s warm. Sweet. Like strawberry syrup. You don’t have much left, but you give off pure kindness. Not many evil thoughts in you.” She winked and ruffled Rui’s hair. “Take good care of him. He’ll look after you too. Another noh-face at your side might be surprisingly useful. More than you think.”

  “He’s a total, absolute noh-nuts,” Rui snapped, stomping a tiny foot. “He has no guts. You really think he can do anything if the noh-face attacked us? The moment he sniffs danger, he’ll fall over crying. I just KNOW it.”

  “So dramatic,” Ume giggled, rolling her eyes. “Be brave and get it done. You can do it, RuiRui-chan. You have a lot of pride.” She bounced lightly in pce, looking impossibly cute.

  “Of course I do! I’m a genius!” Rui booped her nose with a smug grin. “Ohohohoho! Fine! I’ll drag this sorry deadweight across Tokyo.” She twirled dramatically. “We’ll find Noh-face, and I’ll vanquish it singlehandedly!”

  “Take care, you two!” Ume waved brightly. “I hope you get your horrible face back! You’ve really piqued my curiosity. If it’s really that bad, I absolutely want to see it. I’d love to add your face to my collection too.”

  I hoped she was joking. I couldn’t help picturing my face on dispy in her shop, giving off creepier vibes than anything else in there.

  “Noooooo!!” I howled, bolting from that aggressively pink girly room straight back into the nightmare catalog of horrors.

  “Here, RuiRui, you’ll need this. I think you aren’t—” Ume’s voice faded behind me as I ran.

  I sprinted through Ume’s shop, flinching every two steps. The dolls twitched. The boxes had moved. I was certain things weren’t where they had been ten minutes ago. Most of the objects in here had seals pstered on them… and now I understood why.

  I screamed one more time for good measure and smmed the door behind me as I stumbled out into the street, sucking in the fresh air like a drowning man.

  Rui joined me a little while after I had fled to the safety of the street. Just having everyday humans around… pedestrians, cyclists, a guy dragging a undry basket after him… it all made me feel marginally saner.

  The loli-oni appeared at my side and opened her mouth, and of course the first thing she unched at me was an insult, “Drama queen,” she muttered. “I’m gd you didn’t wet yourself in there.” She gave me a suspicious look, as if double-checking that I actually hadn’t, then jerked her chin up the ne. “We’re going this way.”

  I hurried after her, tapping my phone. It was fifteen-forty.

  Seven and a half hours left to be a human.

  She led me down what she’d called “Yokai Street,” which looked… utterly normal. Like aggressively, insultingly normal. People rode bicycles. Cars honked at one another. Sarymen marched in clusters. Vending machines glowed with ordinary brands… no bottled souls or haunted melon soda. The only strange thing here was me.

  As we neared a major boulevard, the crowd-noise swelled around us, along with the constant rumble of traffic.

  Rui ducked into a side building and descended a narrow staircase leading to a basement-level office. The windows downstairs were pitch bck, tinted so heavily they looked painted. No sign. No lettering. Nothing welcoming.

  Except for the statue by the door.

  It looked like something from a Shinto shrine… if a shrine were designed by someone who had nightmares for hobbies. The creature was a twisted yokai form, carved in a posture that suggested it wanted to lunge the moment someone blinked.

  Rui knocked, looking uncharacteristically uncomfortable.

  “Look, Susumu,” she whispered. “When you see this… ehrm… guy, don’t freak out. Be quiet. Dial down your typical drama. Actually… if you think you can’t handle it, just stay outside. I don’t like coming here either.” She exhaled sharply. “Rickey’s clientele pass along information of a less savory nature. It’s… useful. But it comes with risks.”

  In one hand she carried the bag Ume had given her…. possibly a gift for this Rickey. The knocking continued in a weird, intricate rhythm, like a coded pattern. It didn’t resemble any song I’d heard in my life.

  Finally there was a… click-click-CLACK… as a chain of locks disengaged.

  “Last chance. Are you staying or coming with?” Rui asked me seriously. “My advice: just stay here.”

  I thought it over, frowning, pursing my noh-lips. “Do we have to go in there?”

  “Yeah.” Rui smiled. “If you want that ugly mug of yours back, we have to exhaust all of my contacts. I’ve been hesitant to call in favors like this one… but the longer this goes on, the victims will continue to pile up.”

  “Is it really so bad in there?” I asked, hedging.

  “Definitely. It’s something out of another world.”

  “Well… whatever’s in there, it can’t be worse than being nearly killed by noh-face and Ume’s shop of…. Antiques.”

  Rui cracked the door open and shot me a look sharp enough to slice through steel.

  “Fine… but hold your ground. Remember whatever you do, don’t run from Rickey. You’ll trigger his instincts. And do not attack him. Ever.”

  I wanted to protest, but she was already dragging me inside.

  The door smmed shut behind us.

  And the world became pitch bck.

  DUMMMMMM.

  My orientation vanished instantly. One second I was upright… the next I wasn’t sure if I was falling, floating, or had been folded into some other dimension. I blinked, relying on my new vision… an ability to see everything in every direction around me.

  …

  …

  I could detect nothing.

  Absolutely nothing.

  Even the faint outlines of Rui were gone.

  As we walked deeper, at least I assumed I was following her based on the sound of her footsteps, panic crawled up my spine like icy insects. This darkness was nothing like Ume’s shop. At least Ume had cute plushies between the horrors. Here, there was only a void. A suffocating, absolute void that reminded me far too vividly of the train car… the cramped shadows, the feeling of being prey.

  Every tiny sound felt amplified. My footsteps echoed strangely, like they were happening far away. Or underwater. Or not belonging to me at all.

  Then —“Uwaaaaa!!!”

  Something grabbed my side, tugging on my bodysuit.

  “YAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!”

  I exploded into a spasm of primal terror, arms filing overhead in a dance of pure PTSD.

  Nightmare stallions galloped across my thoughts, trampling whatever sanity I had left. I couldn’t tell up from down, or right from left, or whether I was even still in Tokyo.

  “Susumu,” Rui sighed at me. I could see only the vague outline of her body, an arm raised, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Noh-nuts. Shut up. I’m guiding you.”

  She sounded both exhausted and vaguely impressed at the same time. “Are you really that afraid of a little dark? Just wait. What you’re about to see next will really make you pee your pants if you’re not prepared.”

  I noh-gulped so hard it echoed.

  “I-I’ll try,” I whispered. Remaining quiet was about as easy as swallowing gss.

  A rustling noise crackled close by… dry, brittle, like old bones snapping under pressure.

  My heart dropkicked my ribcage.

  Then came a noise that didn’t come from either of us.

  HISSSSSSSSSSS!

  I squeaked… I let out an involuntary prey-animal type of squeak… and toppled backward, nding on my butt. I curled up, trying to make myself smaller than any theoretical target.

  “W-why are you not terrified like me?” I whispered, voice tiny and trembling.

  A faint sickly-green glow appeared above me, illuminating Rui’s unimpressed face. She didn’t look scared. Not even startled.

  There was titanium in her bloodstream. That had to be it.Or some kind of alien alloy. Oni metallurgy. Something...

  …

  SPLURPPPP!

  SPLASH!!

  SPLOSH—SLURCH—GLOOP.

  …

  The sounds alone almost killed me.

  “Good afternoon, Rickey,” Rui said pleasantly, as if greeting a friendly old neighbor instead of… whatever was making those noises. “It’s good to see you again!”

  …..

  …………

  “Rui… kisses…” a voice gurgled from ahead of us, bubbling like a tuba gargling acid. It hissed at the end, somewhere between a steam pipe and a dying animal.

  “Of course,” Rui replied. “Before I give you the customary kiss, understand this… my friend is not to be disposed of. I don’t kill people, so leave him alone. If he sees you, he’ll piss his pants. You don’t want that smell in here.”

  I opened my mouth to argue… to defend my bdder’s honor… but then something truly foul rolled over me. A stench so rotten, so putrid, it punched straight through my nonexistent nostrils.

  “K-Kiss… understand, Rui-Rui,” Rickey blurbled. Something popped wetly in the darkness.

  “This one… eliminated… not. Your kind… doesn’t fare well… in my void…”

  “He’s fine,” Rui said breezily. “He’s becoming a little yokai himself anyway. Probably not as bad off as he acts.”

  Excuse me?!

  Something made a wet, sticky smooch noise.

  She’d kissed him.

  That heroic loli just kissed… whatever that… thing… was.

  Where? Why? How???

  The courage this girl possessed was unreal.

  “Mmm— now the hug… I shall…” Rickey gurgled.

  A yellow-green fre bloomed, revealing just enough of the scene to destroy my soul.

  The creature… the void… the shapeless mass of glistening eyes and melting teeth… enveloped Rui.

  Completely.

  “R-RUI!!!!” I shrieked, rocketing to my feet so fast I nearly unched into orbit.

  Relwing