XCEL

Juusei Kanon had wondered why Kinuka Amibari had decided to help, what she could possibly want, what she possibly had to gain.

Now, she understood.

Kinuka truly wanted to help.

That was why she had proposed the shopping trip.

That was why she had offered to carry all the bags.

That was why she had gone to such lengths for her own happiness.

Kinuka had wanted nothing but to see her smile.

That was why, the moment she heard the girl’s scream, Juusei understood the full, crushing weight of her own mistake.

Her eyes widened. A mass had formed in her throat. The temperature dropped by several degrees, as prickles of dread seeped into her skin. Looking up, a towering column of smoke had converged on the upper bridge. That was exactly where she’d left Kinuka.

By jumping down and tackling the greying crowds head on, Juusei thought she could help. She was the one they wanted, she thought. She was the escaped prisoner. If she took action, then Kinuka would be safe. Juusei wasn’t the smoke’s target; she never had been to begin with.

“Kinuka!” She screamed. Frantically, she spun on her heel. She’d spent a moment paralysed in fear.

That moment was one moment too long. The smokeborne were converging yet again. Their strained, grey faces were paralysed in agony; their bodies, battered and bruised from her repeated assault. Their will was not their own, and so they kept coming. A lumbering pair of grey men lunged for her throat. Juusei shot them both in the face. She didn’t have time to waste on these small fry. They had been the true distractions all along. She had to move, before the distractions could reach her. Psychic energy surged, as echoes of blood pumped in her ears. Pointing both guns at the floor, Juusei let the energy converge. The air around her crackled. The potential condensed itself in the tips of her fingers. This output had to be different. Her focus this time was not a projectile; it was recoil.

“Bang.”

Juusei rocketed upwards. The resultant force shook the floor, and the front row of smokeborne were sent flying. This pair of shots were succeeded by several more. Each blast sent her higher, until she’d ascended to the walkway. With one final shot, Juusei launched herself forward and hit the ground at a run.

Cushioning her landing, she took stock of her surroundings. The giant net suspended from the ceiling caught her eye first. Squished up against the ropes woven for their capture, dozens of struggling grey bodies thrashed like fish. Streams of thick black smoke poured from in and around their mouths just like the smokeborne downstairs. Except here, it was leaving. All the smoke drifted away from the captured shoppers, and into a central column. The smoke in the column condensed and travelled down. It compressed and coiled into a single thread, converging on a singular target.

Standing at the root of it all was Kinuka.

In that moment, another stab of fear took root in Juusei’s heart and anchored her to the floor.

She was too late.

Kinuka had become one of them.

All colour, all life had faded from the girl’s face. Slackjawed, all muscles hung loose. Blond hair limply framed a head that lolled on drooping shoulders. Arms hanging by her sides, the girl stood but not on her own two feet. Her eyes pulsed a malevolent red. The shroud she’d woven to protect herself hung loose around the base of her neck. Her mouth then began to move, and from it came a voice that was not her own.

“I have achieved my goal,” said Kemuri. “This girl is of importance to him.” One of Kinuka’s arms rose, a feeble finger pointed at Juusei. “You are not.”

“What did you do to her?!” Juusei cried. She charged another shot in one hand. The hand shook so much, she had to grip it in the other. “Answer me!”

“The human nervous system is but a tool of control,” Kemuri continued. “You are simple creatures, puppets of flesh. Particulate can seep from the blood vessels into the cerebrospinal space. Once the central nervous system has been breached, all bodily functions are all but forfeit to my control.”

Juusei grit her teeth. The bullet on her fingers was primed to fire—the pressure, growing—yet still she could not release it.

Why couldn’t she shoot?

The pressure grew too great. Shoot, just shoot! Juusei winced. Her breathing grew fast and shallow. She needed to loose the shot, but couldn’t. Soon, it all got too much. The tension in her arms gave out, and the bright light began to fade.

Her bullet died on the tips of her fingers.

“You hesitate. In the end, your resolve falters,” Kemuri observed. “Curious, even though your friend will feel no pain, you cannot bear to harm her flesh. Your psychology betrays you in the end. This is an opportunity for me.”

Smoke puffed through every pore on Kinuka’s skin, a dense cloud shroud. The particles then aligned. Weaving it like her own threads, the Kemuri twisted the smoke into long, sharp whips. Kinuka's hands gripped the ends of the smoke and lashed out. The end of one fastened around Juusei’s ankle. The world was pulled out from underneath her, and she hit the floor. A painful impact jolted from the back of her head. She kicked out with her other leg to dislodge the whip, but her foot went right through the smoke. Kemuri unearthed a breathless laugh and flicked the whip skyward. Consumed by weightlessness, Juusei flew for a moment, before the reject slammed her into the ground. Kemuri lifted the whip over his head, and smashed her down on the other side, face first. He repeated this again, and again. Remorseless brutality.

Juusei gasped for breath. She didn’t have time to cry out. Every time she hit the ground, sparks of white burst behind her eyes as her skull bounced off the floor. The shock echoed through her bones, as she felt blood start to pool under her bruised skin. Psychic reinforcement was the only defence she had against blunt trauma, and even then, it only helped so much.

With one final thrash of the whip, Kemuri swung the girl around in a circle by the ankle before unfurling his grip on her ankle. Juusei barrelled across the floor before colliding with the concrete at the other end of the bridge. Each impact had left a small crater on the floor, and now the wall; Juusei crumpled inward.

“I wonder why I chose this method,” Kemuri began. “I could have killed you immediately. Brain death would set in following the slowing of the heart, starving you of necessary oxygen by touching your vagus nerve. Why, then, did I instead choose to brutalise you so?”

Releasing the black whips, the reject stared down through Kinuka’s glowing red eyes at the hands of his vessel.

“I felt… a compulsion,” he concluded. “It echoed through every particle of my being, a desire to see pain. Perhaps this is what they call cruelty. It is a human emotion—I cannot understand it; an echo of personal suffering, inadequacy, or perceived injustice, a desire to see that pain replicated on others.” It rattled off the definition as though giving a lecture. “I cannot derive pleasure; I am but a plague. Plagues do not toy with their victims; they simply sweep through, leaving only decimation in their wake. It must be a consequence of my identity, the humanity imprinted in me as a result of my soul.”

“Will you shut up already?!” Juusei had risen with a vengeance. Her wide stance stopped her from swaying from the lightness of her head. Psychic energy crackled through her limbs, one hand clutching the other. “I don’t care what you are, or what you think. You made a big mistake crossing me, you hear? Kinuka’s still in there. I feel the resonance of her psychic energy. Do you really think I’m going to let a useless meat shield stop me from saving her life?”

“How curious. Thanks to my identity, I can feel your resolve,” Kemuri commented. “It burns, like a fire.”

The girl’s psychic energy had taken on a new form, a new Flow.

He took a step forward, an inviting gesture. “Another human quality. Will I ever understand the complexities of this condition?”

“Die!” Three loud bangs followed the girl’s cry. A trio of bullets pierced the space between them, and blasted holes through Kinuka’s left shoulder.

“Foolish,” Kemuri remarked. “You cannot harm me in this way. I am but smoke. You cannot shoot smoke.”

Coiling another smoke whip, he lashed out at Juusei. The girl wove to the side, evading its strike before ducking under the return. Another three whips manifested behind Kinuka and struck out with a vengeance. The air was alight with the awful cracking of gunshot, as Juusei kept shooting. Psychic energy crackled through the smoke, aligning the particles, sharpening its edge. Juusei did her best to evade, but the whips moved faster. Blinding flashes of pain accompanied sprays of blood; the lashings took their toll, carving delicate red streaks across pale skin.

All the while, Kemuri maintained a keen eye. He didn’t bother to move, assured in his own inviolability. Now levitating Kinuka off the ground, more smoke whips emerged from behind the girl like tentacles from an old, dead god.

The relentless assault continued, but Juusei maintained her flow. Her focus was absolute.

Swift movements gave her just enough time to evade some attacks, though she was limited by the width of the bridge. A close call followed as she slid underneath a horizontal sweep; Juusei winced, one ethereal whip skinned her cheek and eyebrow, slicing off some of her hair. Blood from the scrape began leaking into one eye. It stung. Maintaining momentum, she dove and rolled into another sprint. Turning on a heel, the girl took half a step backwards and refocused her aim. Another burst of gunshot followed. The bullets pierced flesh; through the holes, Juusei could see the other side.

The pain that lit her skin on fire. Even so, Juusei smiled. Despite the bullet holes, no blood seeped from Kinuka’s wounds. The flesh around had been unravelled on impact. Threadwork. Kinuka was still in there. She’d lost control of her body, but hadn’t given up the fight. The ghost piloting her flesh seemed unaware of the fact. Kemuri turned around, and Kinuka’s head tilted to the side with an unnatural fluidity.

“Soon, your wounds will grow too painful to bear,” it observed. “Have you reached your limit?”

It was toying with her.

Juusei, in between desperate pants, spat out a wad of blood that had pooled in her lower jaw. The reject was saying something, but the ringing in her ears made it impossible to tell. Face contorted into a growl, Juusei raised a nested finger gun. Training her finger on Kinuka’s face, she fired. The bullet missed its mark by inches, hitting a ventilation shaft some ten metres behind.

Kinuka’s head turned to look, and Kemuri remarked, “your exertion has affected your aim.”

Despite the pain, Juusei grinned. She had missed on purpose. Focusing in, she saw the smoke had parted around where she’d shot. The wind pressure from her bullets caused the smoke to dissipate.

She was buying time. She had to find a way to expose a weakness. The more overwhelming a foe—Tegata had taught her—the more glaring and crucial its weakness will be. That was the give and take of psychic power. The smoke reject seemed invulnerable, but that was only part of it. She cast a glance around. The smoke had all but vanished from the ground floor. The smokeborne, still lifeless and grey, lay collapsed on the ground. The reject had collected and refocused the smoke, allowing him to shape it and attack her directly. Not only that, but it had chosen to conceal itself within a physical form. It must be hiding something.

“I must return with my captured target as per my orders,” Kemuri stated, “but I am conflicted. I feel I must stay here, and kill you. I do not know what it is to experience pleasure; yet the more I wound you, the more I am driven to do so further. It is a curious thing: what drives a human to wound another? You so willingly shoot your friend. Are you so cruel? My identity means I am feeling human emotion.” As it spoke, Kemuri’s voice became louder, a little more bodied. Kinuka’s mouth began to move in sync with the words, as though the spirit were fully coming into its own. “I puppet this girl; her movements, her actions are under my control, but still I have no body.” Its voice then lost focus, reverberating through the smoke. “It is lonely, in this fog. Won’t you help me?”

Another volley of gunshot pierced Kemuri through the middle. Three shots, evenly spaced around where the heart would be. Just as before, Kinuka’s flesh wove itself out of the way of her bullets, and the wind pressure cleared the smoke. Her eyes narrowed. For the briefest instant, Juusei had seen a hint of something shiny, something glimmering amid the darkness.

Something was hidden in the smoke. Kinuka—holding open the bullet holes—had been trying to tell her this. It was to improve Juusei’s visibility. All she had to do now was find it.

“I thought that by possessing a body, I could feel… what you feel.” Kemuri’s rasping voice had taken on a new, pained tone; hurt, betrayed, at wit’s end. Kinuka’s hands clutched over the holes in her body. Her eyes began to cry. “I wished to become human too. Why, then? Why do I feel nothing? Then, what is this emptiness? I demand an answer!”

Juusei took aim. Psychic energy crackled along one arm, gathering at her fingertips. She wiped the blood from her eyes with her other hand. Crimson oozed and trickled down every inch of her torn skin and clothing. Every inch of her screamed in agony. Yet even so, she maintained her flow. The cooling, constant rush of her psychic energy calmed her panicking nerves. Juusei’s eyes narrowed. Stray threads had begun appearing all over Kinuka’s body, like it were fraying from the sheer strain of the possession.

Juusei continued to charge her shot, supporting her gun with the other hand. The pressure was building, but she had to hang on. She couldn’t miss this shot.

“Why do you ignore me? Do not ignore my cries!” Kemuri screamed—Kinuka’s face contorted in rage. “Answer my loneliness!”

A new set of whips formed, deadlier than the last and Kemuri lashed out once more. The same moment, however, the final thread came undone, and Kinuka’s entire body unravelled into reams of thread and collapsed into a heap. There, right where the girl’s head had been, a glowing white orb, Kemuri’s core, lay bare.

Juusei’s answer to Kemuri’s loneliness? She only needed one word.

“Bang.”

With so much psychic energy compressed into a single bullet, the resulting shot warped space itself. Stretched into a line, the bullet pierced the centre of the orb, splintering its perfect spherical surface into infinitesimal fragments. Unfortunately, the soul without a body would never get its answer. In that moment, the soul known as “Kemuri” completely ceased to be. Without a vessel to contain it, the light of its life began to fade. Without a core to centre it, the smoke of its body dispersed.

Pitching back from the recoil, Juusei steadied herself with a firm step behind her. Blood dripped from her arms, her chin, spattering the floor with shining scarlet. Little arcs of residual psychic energy danced across her skin. Dark spots from the blood shrouded her vision. Resisting the urge to collapse, Juusei watched the smoke rise in gradual columns from the mouths of all victims across the mall; the once heavy fog dissipating into a fine, skyward mist.

With a cracked grin, Juusei managed nothing more than a breathless “thank you” to the tangled mass of string that had once been Kinuka. She lifted the tips of her fingers to her lips, and with one last exhale, dispelled the remaining tendrils of smoke.

With that, her flow abruptly ended. Her blood pressure plummeted, and the last flicker of light faded from Juusei's eyes. There, she crumpled, pitching forward into gentle oblivion.