The Psyche Diver Trilogy: Demon Hunters

by Baku Yumemakura

  Kurogosho’s hands shot up. As though he had an unbearable itch, his fingers stretched up and began to paw at his face with overly-long nails. They tore through his flesh until his face was solid red. His head thrashed from side to side, bellowing the whole time. Groups of the newly materialized haunts swarmed over his body.

  He sat upright, pulling half of the attached electrodes from his head as he glared around the room with hellish eyes. He reached down and pulled his loose gown open. Then he got to his feet and tore the garment from him—as though it was unbearably hot. He was wearing nothing underneath. Suddenly naked, his whole body was visible—distended and purple like his face. His cock was hard and swollen. It towered between his legs, pointing upwards so that it hit his stomach. Kurogosho’s head lurched back as he roared again, causing the walls to shudder with the vibration. The voice no longer contained any trace of suffering. The sound was of extreme pleasure, of intoxication. Whatever was before them now, it was no longer Kurogosho. There was nothing human about it. The powerful forces raging inside him had transformed the very cells of his body.

  Something odd was forming over the flesh of his right cheek. A black object, burrowing upwards like an insect crawling from under his skin. It was a horn. His forehead split next, making a loud snap. Another horn curved through the flesh there, secreted with blood and skin. Each of the protrusions was around twenty centimeters long, sticking out at a grotesque angle from his forehead and cheek respectively.

  “M…Ma…Master Kurogosho!” Katsuragi stuttered, backing up against the wall.

  Kurogosho’s red eyes flashed in his direction, hitting him like a steel pole. Kurogosho’s mouth flared open. The sound that emerged was a demonic cry, anything but human. Katsuragi was shaking his head from side to side. The demon charged straight at him. Its right hand hammered into Katsuragi’s face—bone crunched as the back of the his skull smashed into the wall. He slumped downwards, his back leaving a vertical line of blood against the wall, a thick brushstroke. His head had been obliterated, nose smashed through with the frame of his glasses lost among the gore. Glass stuck out from the skin above his distended eyes. He crumpled to the ground and went through a couple of convulsions, knees dancing upwards. Then he was still.

  Katsuragi’s assistant screamed and made a run for the door. The movement caught the demon’s attention. It dived in, violently attacking the man from behind. The man pitched forwards as his back broke, his upper-body snapping backwards to face up from a point halfway down the spine. The demonic creature kept moving, riding the man’s right-angled body into the door with a force that, with a bone-splintering crunch, folded him in two. The back of the assistant’s head came down to rest behind his knees. The demon fell into a squat and sank its fangs into the man’s neck. There was a wet sound as it tore away a huge chunk of flesh.

  Hosuke came around just as the demon began its feast.

  6

  Hosuke sat up on the converter’s bed.

  He frowned when he saw the state of the room.

  “What the hell?”

  The demon noticed him. Its head came up, smeared with blood, still chewing on the assistant’s flesh. It broke into a run, charging directly at Hosuke.

  “Oh for fuck’s sake!”

  Hosuke rolled from the bed. Something black soared past where he had been, smacking into the wall behind. It was the assistant’s head. The three men still in the room seized on the distraction to make for the door. The movement wrenched the demon’s attention away from Hosuke, it swung around to face them.

  “Hah!” Tsushima’s arm came around, attempting to stall the monster. Bone snapped, forming a right angle between his wrist and elbow. The remaining two men kept moving, managing to get the door open. They tumbled through to see a man standing there, shockingly beautiful and with a cool grace like a young, innocent girl.

  It was Biku.

  One of the men he had caught unawares took a sudden blow to the back of his head, splitting it open. Blood sprayed over Biku’s pale features as the last man scampered by, shoving him into the shadows of the door. The demon pursued, bellowing loudly. From the door, Biku peered into the room beyond. He saw Tsushima, groaning on the floor. He took a careful step into the room.

  “Uhh…”

  Hosuke crawled out from under one of the beds, like a bear coming out of hibernation. His eyes stopped on Biku. “You!” he called out.

  “Long time no see,” Biku answered.

  “You finally showed, huh?”

  Biku smiled a little awkwardly. Hosuke looked completely drained.

  “What was that?” he asked.

  “That was Kurogosho,” Hosuke muttered. “Err… it used to be Kurogosho.” Hosuke’s eyes were distant, he let out a shallow breath. “And whatever used to be Kukai.” He looked suddenly exhausted.

  “Kukai?”

  “Yeah, Kukai.” Hosuke scratched his head and turned to the shriveled form of Kukai’s sokushinbutsu, still connected to the Psyche Converter. “That thing’s an empty husk, now.”

  “An empty husk?”

  “Like I said, Kukai possessed Kurogosho. Although it might be the other way around, Kurogosho that’s possessed Kukai. Either way, the man’s lost his fucking marbles,” Hosuke scratched his head, agitated. “Anyway, what brings you here?”

  “I snuck into the grounds, then there was a bit of a commotion—so I just strolled in.”

  “A commotion?”

  “Another commotion, I should say.”

  Just then a gunshot rang out from somewhere deep inside the building.

  “That one?”

  “Perhaps. It appears that Hanko is on a rampage.”

  “Hanko?”

  “Yes, determined to kill Renobo. Enoh’s trying to intervene…it’s quite a show.”

  “Renobo—she’s Miwa Ishibashi, right?”

  “Exactly. It turns out she reverts to being an old woman if she doesn’t fuck for three days. I believe she’s out there on the prowl right now. Stark naked—she tore off her own clothes. She’s throwing herself at any man she sees, but no one seems to be taking her up on the offer. They all know Hanko’s following from behind.”

  Biku smiled beneath the blood staining his face.

  7

  A woman raced through the huge building in a naked frenzy.

  “Where are all the men!?” Her screaming was almost musical. “I need someone inside me!” She kept running, her gaunt arms and legs trembling. The place was littered with corpses. Bloody clumps of hair clung to the walls. Men—killed by Hanko, Biku and the demonic Kurogosho. “Men…”

  She turned a corner and found one—Kurogosho, transformed into a demon. The demon’s head was buried inside a man sprawled across the corridor, feeding on his entrails. The sound echoed across the dimness, fangs tearing flesh from bone, the demon’s tongue lapping blood.

  “At last I find one,” Renobo said, her voice a whisper.

  The demon rose, it turned to face her. It cried out. Horns protruded from its head in grotesque angles, over a dozen of them. Kurogosho, or Wanioh Ishibashi. And Renobo, or Miwa Ishibashi. Brother and sister faced each other, stark naked. Kurogosho’s bulging, bluish frame had already doubled in size. His cock bulged between his legs, over twice its original length. Renobo’s eyes were full of lust, fixated on it.

  “Mmmm,” she moaned, her voice liquid. She was instantly hot, wet between her legs.

  The two of them charged down the corridor, demon and lusty demoness, roaring in unison. She took its enormous appendage in her hands as the demon sunk its fangs into her shoulder, tearing away a huge chunk of flesh.

  “Heeeeeeee!”

  Renobo let out a blood-chilling scream. Yet she continued to hold onto the demon’s frame, tugging its cock towards her open legs. She began to ride it. The demon continued to tear at its sister’s flesh—even as the sound of it reached her ears, she began to moan.

  “Yes…yes! Oh yes! Oh..!” Mixed in with the cries of ecstasy came shouts o
f pain—it hurts, it hurts, it hurts!

  The demon’s jaw clamped down over her other shoulder. Meat came off in chunks, spraying red flesh and revealing white bone underneath. The demon took her disheveled hair in both hands and pulled. The hair came loose, skin with it. Renobo’s hips continued to pump regardless, mounting a crazed frenzy even as screams of pain and pleasure tore from her throat. The demon’s purple head jerked from side to side as pale-blue columns of flame burst from its face. The scene was something from a Hell Scroll. A reproduction, even, of the scroll that depicted Heruka mating with Varahi—perfect in every detail. They were lust incarnate, entwined together as the physical embodiment of all the base desire that lurks inside the human form.

  Something was approaching them, an immense power creeping in from around the corner.

  The demon’s throat vibrated with an animal cry as it continued to devour its sister’s flesh. Its head came up to reveal blood frothing at either side of its mouth. It saw the shadow, a hulking mass positioned at the end of the corridor. It was Hanko. The beast was soaked with blood, covered from head to foot. The beast-man locked stares with the demon across the corridor. The air hardened like glass, pulled tight with an almost tangible hatred. A short old man appeared behind Hanko, it was Enoh. He was standing still, eyes transfixed on the scene before him.

  “Master Kurogosho,” he said, staring in blank horror.

  As though the utterance had been a cue, Hanko burst into motion, the demon with him. An explosive shockwave punched through the air as the two bodies collided, powerful enough to warp the ceiling, floor and walls. The two monsters came apart. There was a terrific gash along Hanko’s chest, where clothing and flesh had been shredded. Kurogosho had torn off a chunk of the beast’s flesh.

  Renobo was still attached to Kurogosho but the part of her between her shoulders was gone, white bone stood there in its place. Blood spurted from the cleft, splashing up into Kurogosho’s face. Blood, over blood. Sour—in enough quantity, the smell of blood can register as a sourness. Enoh’s nose bristled at the stench. Hanko held Renobo’s head in its hands, decapitated.

  Renobo’s hips continued to thrash for a while, even with her head gone.

  The moment the demon reacted, Hanko turned to run, charging right past Enoh. Kurogosho sped in to attack, Renobo’s body still connected. Enoh leapt into the air, flying through the gap between the demon and the ceiling. He landed behind Kurogosho. There was a sudden smell of burning in his nostrils. Burning? The building was on fire. “Fire!” He heard shouting.

  “Master Kurogosho, you must get out!”

  Kurogosho was speeding in to attack again, even as Enoh called out. Just then, a group of men came running around the corner, their footsteps noisy behind Kurogosho—they skidded to a halt when they saw the demonic form before them. It turned its blood-stained features to face them. They began to scream, attempting to scramble away. The demon gave pursuit.

  “Master,” Enoh mumbled, helpless.

  8

  Fuminari listened to the song of the wind.

  He sat heavily in the grass, making a sizable print with his legs crossed. His eyes were closed. His clothes were back on. He was still as a rock, unable to understand the thoughts going through his mind.

  It felt like something, yet at the same time it felt like nothing at all. There was a flow, a constant procession of shadow-like things that moved through his flesh. He chased them through the darkness with closed eyes. As he gave chase, he listened to the sound of the wind. There was something pale, catching the breeze and swaying in the air above him.

  The naked form of Kumiko.

  Her bare corpse hung upside-down, strung from a branch of the birch tree, suspended from a rope around her right ankle. Her other leg wavered at an irregular angle, like a dancer preparing a step. Her arms hung below her, the fingertips dangling only fifty centimeters above Fuminari’s head. There was a gaping hole over her abdomen. No blood dripped from it—the blood in her body had long since emptied out.

  Moonlight shone down, cold and blue. The wind picked up, gusting noisily through the upper-levels of the forest. Her body was a pale blue in the darkness. There was something of a pathos, a beauty to the freakish, callous scene. A beauty that was Fuminari was utterly blind of. He saw faces. Kawaguchi—one of the men he slaughtered in the Tanzawa mountains. Behind him, Kumiko, on the grass and moaning with ecstasy. Then Hanko and Enoh. Biku, Ryoko. He saw Renobo, Toyama, Akio Ishibashi…each of their faces flashed briefly before him, then faded away.

  Finally, there was Hosuke. Each face wore an expression of sadness. The surging hatred that would accompany Hanko’s face was gone. There was nothing in its place. Nothing except a thing like arid scum, left behind as the hatred had wilted away.

  Why had it come to this?

  Fuminari considered the question. He had conned his way into the Kokushigun and stolen from the Towa Bank, then offloaded the blame onto the Kokushigun and kept the money for himself—part of his plan to live a life of luxury. But that was where he had met Kumiko.

  Was that when everything began to fall apart?

  Or had that happened as they stumbled onto Panshigaru’s secret ritual? Or, perhaps, after Hanko tore off his fingers? Fuminari had no idea. All he knew was that Kumiko’s body was rocking in the wind above him.

  Must it have ended this way?

  He asked the question. A part of him thought it inevitable, a part of him not. The wind blew and he listened to its song, only feeling something when he imagined Ryoko’s face, or that dumb-ass look of Hosuke’s—each came with a faint warmth that spread inside him.

  There was something huge, packed tight in his belly. He had no idea what it was. It felt like it might ignite, burst out of him at any moment. It was a concentration of force, powerful enough to tear his immense muscular frame to shreds. A dark power. Like a huge beast slumbering on a deep ocean bed, it was unmoving.

  What is it?

  He had no answer. He had no way of knowing, not until it was out of him. But it was stuck, unable to find an exit. That was what it felt like, at least. He felt like a kid that had finished crying, unable to recall his reason for crying in the first place.

  What was I crying about?

  He no longer understood. He only knew what he had left to do—without that, he might as well have been dead. What he had to do. Fuminari continued to breathe, clinging to this one thing.

  I must kill Hanko.

  That was all he had left. Gone was the why of it, along with any value he believed his life to have.

  I need to kill Hanko.

  The only alternative was death, there was no room for anything in between. The ongoing, sole object of his hatred had become the only thing supporting him—the beast that he despised, Hanko.

  He saw the image of Hanko again, just as Renobo had stabbed Kumiko. Hanko had gone straight after that bitch Renobo, without even running to Kumiko’s side.

  Could Hanko have…

  He felt a sudden bizarre empathy for the beast, but it was gone in the next moment.

  He knew Hanko would return eventually. That was his reason for waiting in this place. For his listening to the wind. Hanko would return, and they would settle their score. He would use his bare hands and tear Hanko apart in front of Kumiko. He would prove himself the strongest.

  Yet, he felt that he would accept defeat if it came to that. All that mattered now was that they settled this thing. That, perhaps, was all he really desired.

  How much time has already been lost to this?

  Sometime later he heard the sound he had been waiting for, carrying on the wind. Something heavy on the grass, approaching through the night. Its footsteps grew closer before finally coming to a stop.

  Fuminari opened his eyes.

  There in the undergrowth, just a few meters ahead, was the lumbering, black form of Hanko. Fuminari got slowly to his feet and faced the beast. Their silence lasted over ten seconds. Then Hanko lobbed an object to where Fuminari s
tood. It hit the grass and came to a stop. It was Renobo’s head—her elderly features peered up at him from the ground, lips pulled tight in an expression that looked something like pleasure mixed with suffering. The expression seemed perfect to mark her death.

  I see. Fuminari nodded, finally.

  It had not mattered which of them had stayed, which had left to claim Renobo’s head and bring it back. Fuminari understood now.

  Of course. He nodded again.

  As he did so, he brought up his left hand for Hanko to see. He straightened each of his three fingers in turn. It felt almost superfluous, to play out this ritual to mark their transition into battle. There, resting on the palm of his hand, was a bloody fetus. He had pulled it from Kumiko’s womb after cutting her belly open. An extraordinary fury exploded from Hanko’s frame. Fuminari’s lips curled into a sly grin. Then he showed his teeth in an outlandish smile.

  “We settle this now,” he muttered, tossing the unborn fetus towards Hanko’s feet. He lowered his center of gravity.

  The two hulking creatures roared as one.

  9

  A horrific form thrashed in a wild frenzy, inside the crimson flames.

  It resembled the deity Heruka—purple, swollen, and lost in ecstasy. Clinging to it was a pale, headless female form. Countless haunts swarmed in and out of the blaze.

  “Master Kurogosho!”

  Enoh called out to Wanioh Ishibashi, the man lost in the crazed dance. But his voice no longer reached Kurogosho’s ears. The man was blind. Unhearing. Howling in a mad frenzy. Laughing and enraptured. The demon’s head tossed from side to side the whole time it continued to devour its sister’s flesh. It was surrounded by flames. They had become an unassailable barrier between the two men. Kurogosho was visible on the other side, head and horns dancing through the air. Enoh’s clothing had begun to smolder.