“Wow, this is some place you’ve got,” Lucian said looking again to the waterfall outside of a floor-to-ceiling window.
Lucian and Yoshimi were seated at what he would call a coffee table, but was probably called something else, the table just about a foot and a half above the ground, black, inlaid with delicate stones that had been polished until they almost had a mirror-like quality to them.
Similar to the decor in Yoshimi’s last place, the paper-thin walls were covered in markings that indicated how many parasites she’d killed.
Thousands upon thousands.
There was no window on what he assumed was the front-facing wall, the centerpiece of the entire room being the waterfall, which meant that if the home had actually existed in real life, it would have had to be built jutting out of the rock wall of a cliff, which Lucian knew would have been a hell of a construction job.
“I can’t have people finding me, as you know,” she said as she poured Lucian a cup of tea.
“I get that.”
“The waterfall gives the place an ambiance, does it not?”
“I’ll say.”
Yoshimi set a small saucer before Lucian, and placed the cup on it. She poured herself a cup of tea as well, Lucian almost making the faux pas of cheersing her.
“Heh,” he said under his breath, mostly for himself as he laughed at his lack of Japanese tea ceremony manners. “Well, it’s a nice place, but you probably already knew that. I’ve been working on a little place of my own as well, but I don’t know if I’m proud enough of it to invite you there. What can I say? It’s a bit of a man cave.”
“I’m sure it is,” Yoshimi said as she took a sip from her cup of tea.
Following what he assumed was proper etiquette, Lucian too took a sip, instantly feeling rejuvenated. “I don’t know how you do it with the food and beverages you make, Yoshimi, but they are awesome. I managed to get my cup of coffee tasting the way I like it, but haven’t really experimented with any other foods.”
“Have you tried pouring all your energy into it yet, and not doing anything for a day while you recharge?”
Lucian gave her a funny look. “Not really. But speaking of recharging, I took a few days off. I didn’t really pour all my energy into anything. I was mostly…” He grinned. “Playing video games. I’ve been playing this one game forever.”
“Imbuing food with your power could be a way for you to create elixirs, which is essentially what I have done through the food and drinks that I have learned to make over the years. If it wasn’t clear, this tea is an elixir, that’s why it is so refreshing.”
“You mean I could, like, create potions or something?”
“You could call them that, yes.”
“Well, I have plenty of Soul Points now to work with,” Lucian said. “And I guess that brings me to my first question…”
“Please, ask away.”
“Actually, let me save that question. I have a few other things to tell you about and ask before we go there. That one is maybe a bit controversial.”
“I see,” she said, taking another delicate sip of her tea.
“The thing is, you were there at the South Wind, so you know what happened.”
“Indeed, I was.”
“And guess who showed up right outside my home just the other day.”
“Injuresouls?” she asked.
“Nah, they came later. The Committee on Luminaries decided to pay me a visit, and as you can imagine, they had questions.”
When she didn’t reply, Lucian continued. “Anyway, they were asking all sorts of questions about why we were at the South Wind, and Old Death’s whereabouts, and what I know about it. They even brought me in front of the Committee. Well, sort of. I was supposed to show up myself, but then I got distracted with something and they came and got me. Just rounded me up,” Lucian said, not wanting to reveal to her that he had been meeting with Danira.
He’d already been warned by Yoshimi about associating with the Progeny of Light.
Yoshimi made a sound with her throat. “They have a habit of doing that when you don’t obey their requests.”
“But they have no real jurisdiction over me, at least that’s what I thought. That was until they told me that they would torture me until I gave up my mantle if I didn’t help them find Old Death. Can they actually do that?”
“They are more powerful than you, so yes, they can,” Yoshimi said, a strand of her dark hair falling in front of her eyes, contrasting with the pale moon white of her face. She politely swept it aside.
“It has sort of pissed me off, to be honest with you,” Lucian told her. “You know as well as I do that my predecessor could be anywhere. How am I supposed to know where he ran off to with the angel? And just so you’re aware, in case you didn’t already get the word, they’re looking for you too.”
A cold expression swept across Yoshimi’s visage. “Those fools will never find me, and if they do, I will make them regret the day that they even assumed they were powerful enough to question me on their terms.”
The way she said this sent a chill down Lucian’s spine, the intense focus on Yoshimi’s face something that he hoped never to see in an opponent.
“Anyway, that was the gist of it,” Lucian said. “So now they’ve given me a limited amount of time to find him.”
“That’s another trick that they use,” Yoshimi said bitterly. “By not giving you a precise amount of time, they assume that will make you work harder. It also gives them the time they need to debate how they should actually handle this. Did the ranking member explain your potential punishment to you?”
“No, it was another guy, a real…” Lucian swallowed. “Well, you know.”
“There is always one of them like that,” Yoshimi assured him, “and I don’t keep track of who these people are any longer, or their make-believe rankings. It really doesn’t concern me; they have no real power over me. They generally only have power over newer Deaths, and those that believe in their system, of which there are thousands, believe it or not. Remember, they don’t acknowledge that there are other types of parasites; the Council and its Committees generally want to simplify the role of Deaths to make it crystal clear, and, in my opinion, to never expand upon our horizons and our responsibilities. They also want to keep us at war with the Progeny of Light, but that is a conversation for another day.”
“I get it,” Lucian said as he took another sip from his cup of tea, a warm feeling moving over him. He wanted to know more about making these elixirs, but he had other questions, and her brief explanation sort of made sense. “I know that you don’t know the guy, the former me, but do you have any thoughts on how I could find him? I don’t want the Committee to come down on me. Like you, I’d prefer to be left alone.”
“At your level, this is probably a wise decision,” she said, “and I would begin by searching through his things.”
“Already did that, although I haven’t asked my crows if they found anything while I was out.”
“Then that is what I would do if I were you; I would keep looking.”
“Maybe I could create something that will lead me to him, like they have in video games sometimes. It’s worth a shot, but it may not work. I don’t know how half the things I create work, yet they do.”
“I doubt that something that you could create out of thin air would help you find him. If this were the case, one of the Deaths that is more powerful than you would have already done so,” she said bluntly. “They would have done it for me as well. So I don’t believe it’s a possibility.”
“Makes sense. Okay, I got another question for you. Have you ever heard of a Death splitting their mantle? I just found out about this recently, and like I said, I’ll get to that piece in a moment. But have you ever heard of that?”
“Yes, I have. Where did you come to learn of this? I am assuming you are asking about this regarding your brother and his parasite problem, as a worst-case scenario.”
“I’
m not quite there yet,” Lucian admitted to her. “I don’t really know how my brother would fare in this role, especially with his addictive nature. But I guess I should just come clean with it: I killed Menor. Today, maybe an hour ago, an hour and a half ago. I really don’t understand how time works as a Grim Reaper, but you get the point.”
Lucian noticed a swift tightening of Yoshimi’s throat. “You killed him?”
“I was checking on my brother. He’s in New York City with his fiancée, Sam; they’re taking a little mini-vacation paid for by my Ma. Anyway, Menor just showed up out of the blue. He looked like he’d gone crazy. Believe it or not, the guy was naked, his face still painted with the white skull, and as soon as he saw me he grew bone armor that quickly turned to metal, which reminds me to possibly turn my armor to metal as well. Anyway, we went at it.”
“Menor had been a Death Hunter for a long time. How did you manage to beat him?” she asked. “He has even given me trouble…”
“To be honest with you, I think he could have beat me. I was always ready to teleport out of there, but the dude was so blinded by rage that he wasn’t thinking straight. He had a weapon, which is mine now, an ax. He probably could have just hacked me into bits, but instead, he had his weapon flying around, and then he was blindly attacking me, not thinking about the kind of weapons I could have, no real strategy. When he did actually get to me, he was super strong, easily able to overpower me. But I had a few backup plans, and was able to get to another rooftop to test out a new gun I’ve developed. It’s a particle-beam cannon. Ever heard of one of those?”
“No, but I can imagine what it does.”
“It basically microwaves the molecules inside someone and causes them to explode. I hit him with that, and even though his ax came at me, cut my head off even, my body still did what I told it to do which was continue to shoot at him.”
“So now you have killed two Deaths.”
Lucian shrugged. “Looks like it. And the reason I asked about splitting a mantle is because he revealed to me that he had split his mantle, that Alice was his sister. Which explains why he was raging out. So I was just wondering if you knew anything about that.”
“It is a possibility,” Yoshimi told him as she refilled her cup of tea, her tone of voice telling him that she didn’t want to elaborate. “Would you like some more?”
“Sure, the stuff is great.”
Once she was finished filling Lucian’s cup, she continued. “It is true that those two were trying to kill me, and this was an unwanted burden that I pushed onto you. It is also true that you didn’t mean to kill them, or at least this is arguable. But you have now killed two Deaths.”
“And that’s what I wanted to ask about: is this actually a bad thing?”
Yoshimi paused, the light from the waterfall rippling across her face. “You mean becoming a Death Hunter?”
“Like you, I’m not trying to hunt Deaths, the ones who aren’t bothering anybody. But these kinds of Deaths, the ones that are going after people? Has anyone ever been a Death Hunter for Death Hunters?”
“I can see the appeal. Killing one from the Progeny of Darkness is a great boost to your own power,” Yoshimi said, not answering his question. “But it can also bring you unwanted attention. There are those in our spiritual plane of existence that have been Death Hunters for hundreds, if not thousands of years. They generally only go after larger targets, fallen angels, and a few have formed alliances to rid the world of injuresouls.”
“I had a feeling those things were killable. Old Death warned me against engaging them, but I have had to defend myself and try to get away from them.”
“Everything is killable. But you would be ill-advised to consider yourself strong enough to take on injuresouls,” she said firmly, “even with your newfound power. But as to the question if being a Death Hunter is bad, because that’s what you’re hinting at, correct?”
Lucian nodded.
“I personally don’t believe there is any honor in becoming a Death Hunter, but I also don’t believe there is much honor in becoming Death. We are parasites that feed off other parasites, or at least that was one way I used to look at this role. What honor is there in that?”
Lucian considered this for a moment. Even though this role was unorthodox, there was still part of him that thought it could be used for good. “So it’s not exactly bad?”
“If you want to get stronger, it is one way to do so rapidly, but you will also bring attention to yourself that perhaps you would like to avoid. I suppose the real question is: what level of risk are you comfortable with?”
Lucian paused, considering what Yoshimi had just said. “What if I don’t know the answer to that question?”
“You should start to have at least some passing familiarity with the risks you would like to take in this role. How powerful do you plan to become? And aside from trying to save your brother, what are your ultimate goals?”
“I have to save him,” Lucian said firmly.
“You could always ask a friend, or, as previously discussed, you could split your mantle.”
“I’m not ready to do any of that yet,” he admitted.
“Good, because I’m not here to help you fight your battles,” she said, a thin smile on her face. “But I am here.”
“You went with me to the South Wind,” Lucian reminded her.
“I did, and it was a risky thing to do. You did well there, by the way. I never told you that; as you may recall, I was pretty busy with my own affairs once Azazyel showed up.”
“I remember,” Lucian said, a brief flash of their battle painting across his mind’s eye. He had been distracted with finding Old Death, but he recalled what it was like when a fallen angel had shown up, especially once he brought the fight to the other side of the gate.
“I know he is still out there looking for me,” Yoshimi said, her expression darkening. “And he may kill me.”
“You could just stay hidden forever,” Lucian suggested.
“I could, but that isn’t really who I am. Actually…”
Lucian waited for her to speak, the woman heavily contemplating what she was planning to say next.
“Actually, it may be who I am. What’s wrong with hiding? It’s easy enough to go out there, find a quick snack, and return here.”
“Something tells me that’s not how you really feel,” Lucian said.
Her eyes softened as she looked Lucian over. “You shouldn’t know me as well as you do.”
“Do you mean that?”
“I do. I’ve never been close to any other of our kind before. I’ve had plenty of battles with them, some that I have lost, and others that I have won. But I’ve never been close to another Death.”
“I thought I was getting along pretty well with Old Death, but now I don’t know if I’ll ever find him again. So, I guess what I’m trying to say is I don’t know anyone else like this either, aside from the Deaths on the Committee.”
“It does strike me as odd that our kind would structure ourselves in this way, especially with the power that we all possess, and the near inability, aside from sheer torture, to inhibit another Death’s power.”
“Bureaucracy exists on all planes. Who would have thought being the Grim Reaper would come with bureaucracy? Not me.”
“Nor me.”
“Okay, maybe I’m taking up too much of your time,” Lucian said, trying to read the vibe she was putting off. “I’m sorry I came all the way here to Kyoto to find you and bother you. I just wanted to ask you these questions, to let you know that they were looking for you as well, the Committee.”
“And the Death Hunters, and the fallen angels, and the Progeny of Light. A lot of different people would like to see me dead.”
“Somehow, I have the feeling that you’re going to show them all in the end. And if they got to know you a little better, that would be a different story altogether, I’m guessing. But I’m still new at this. What do I know? Okay, I’ll get going. But I’ll
probably want to contact you again. Do you have a better way for me to contact you than to come to Kyoto and play video games while I wait around for you to show up?”
“Let’s make it easier for you next time,” she said as she took a clip from her hair that Lucian could have sworn wasn’t there just moments ago.
Yoshimi extended her open palm toward him, her kimono pulling away, revealing just a small sliver of the pale skin of her wrist.
“Is my hair really getting that bad?” Lucian asked, running his hand over his head. He had short hair now so it was meant to be a joke; Yoshimi made no indication of acknowledging his humor.
“Throw this clip at any object and it will shatter. That will call me. The clip will reform, and you can use it to call me again.”
“I really appreciate it,” Lucian said as he took the hair clip from her. It was an absolutely exquisite piece made from a very dense wood, the clip suddenly warm.
Another question came to Lucian: “Have you ever seen a purple parasite?”
“A purple parasite?”
“Yeah, this person I know, my ex-girlfriend, her father recently passed and…” Lucian cleared his throat. “Anyway, I checked in on her, and I noticed a purple parasite on her back. It put up a hell of a fight. I didn’t have much power left, so I got out of there. But I wanted to ask you before I went back to check on it.”
“You say her father passed?”
“He did,” Lucian said, trying to hide the awkwardness in his voice. Even though he knew Yoshimi would not care if Katy’s father had died because of his actions, he still didn’t want to tell her how it happened, how it was all his fault.
“I’m sure you’ve seen the mental health parasites now, white, usually some type of red core, vertical eyes,” she said.
“I’ve seen and killed plenty of them, thanks to you.”
She nodded. “If her father has just passed, I would say that this particular parasite is an offshoot of one of them. That can happen, you know; different parasites can join forces as well.”
“Yep, I’ve fought one of those before,” Lucian said, again thinking of Katy’s father and what he had experienced on the train coming out of Boston.
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