We circled the hole. From every angle it was the same, pitch black, the kind of darkness that gave nothing back.
Nana looked at me, resolve still steady behind her eyes."Are we going down?"
"Looks like it. The demon is down there, I can feel it."
Jumping in felt like walking into something we couldn't see the bottom of. For all we knew we'd land directly in its mouth.
"If I reach the demon first, it's mine." I said to Nana, then jumped.
"No, wait—" She came after me.
We dropped fast, the dark swallowing us completely. I had no trouble seeing through it. Nana had nothing but blackness and the rush of air coming up against her from below.
Then the cold arrived. A creeping chill, and with it a stench that pressed in from all sides, thick and rotten, like something long dead in an enclosed space.
The floor came up fast. I twisted to brace for the landing and that's when I saw it. Nana was still in a full dive, head angled straight at the ground.
"Nana, grab my hand!"
"Why?!"
"Just grab the fucking—!"
She reached and I caught her. "Brace yourself."
"What are you—"
I flung her clear and hit the ground alone. The earth cracked under my feet, a small crater spreading outward as dust lifted around me.
"Ahhh!"
The throw had sent her spinning and she was falling backwards. I pushed off the ground and caught her before she landed. She was breathing hard, one hand pressed to her chest. When it registered that she was still in one piece, held up in my arms, her composure snapped back into place.
"What was that for!"
"You were about to—the ground came up faster than I expected."
"You could have said something." Her face had gone red, clear even in the dark. "Let go of me."
I set her down.
"Where are we?" Nana pulled her sleeve over her nose. "It smells like dead fish."
"More like dead people."
Bodies. Dozens of them, hanging from the cave ceiling by thick cords of slime, suspended in the dark overhead. I counted thirty before I stopped. Every one of them was gone. I could feel the demon's presence clinging to them, and beneath it something else, harder to name.
The demon was ahead of us. Nana had her back to it. "Sure it's a good idea, facing away from the enemy?"
It clicked immediately. She turned, katana leveled. "It's so dark."
"I know. Put your eyes aside and use everything else. Can you do that?"
"Yes." Steady. We moved forward together, blades drawn. As we went I found myself quietly counting the number of times I'd saved her life tonight. This was her mission. I had meant to stay at the edge of it. But without me here, where would she be right now.
I didn't finish the thought. One of the bodies above us swayed. "Watch out!" I pulled Nana back and she dropped into a fighting stance instantly. Nothing came. The body rocked once more and went still.
"What was it?"
"Bodies. A lot of them, directly above us."
"Bodies, you mean..."
"Human. That's where the smell is coming from."
She tilted her head back. Her eyes had begun to adjust and as the shapes hanging from the ceiling came into focus her hands started shaking.
"What is this?" The words carried two things at once, confusion and rage building quietly beneath it.
"They're gone," I said.
"They're dead, Tatsuya." She kept her eyes on the ceiling, then dropped them to me. "Why are there bodies hanging here? What is all this?"
I had nothing that would satisfy that question. So I said nothing.
After a moment she said, "We should keep moving." Either she was shaken through, or I was far too settled given what surrounded us. I genuinely couldn't tell which.
"Come out, demon! Come out and face us!!" Her voice tore through the cave and the echo stretched on and on, long enough to tell us the space was enormous, swallowing her words whole before letting them die.
"You children have no idea what you've just done." The demon's voice rose from somewhere close, hoarse and layered.
"Stop hiding. Show yourself."
"Gladly."
I didn't need to see it. I felt it moving before it appeared.
"Watch out."
"I know."
We split in opposite directions. The same attack as before, a massive dark green hand sweeping through the exact space we had occupied.
"It's fast," Nana said quietly. I was glad she'd found her footing in the dark.
"All of this is pointless, children." The demon's voice moved around us. "Every person hanging above your heads came down here the same way you did. They didn't understand that this place only goes one direction. Neither do you."
The hands came again. Smaller this time, faster. I moved through them in short bursts, each one crumbling on contact. Across the cave Nana was managing her share without difficulty.
"
We should push forward. The demon is just ahead."
"Not yet, children."
The ground lurched. The bodies overhead swung like pendulums and the shaking held long enough that I began counting the seconds. Then it stopped, but the bodies kept moving.
A wet tearing sound from above. We both looked up. One body had come loose and dropped, hitting the ground heavily.
"What's happening?" Nana whispered.
I gripped my tanto and watched.
A crack split the air. Then another. The body jerked, movements stiff and wrong. It went still, then slowly stood upright, its torso bending backwards past any natural angle. Nobody moved.
Then the upper body snapped forward, both arms extended, and a smile split the rotted face open. It ran at us.
I kicked off, drove my tanto through its neck and sent the head rolling. We waited. Neither piece dissolved. Neither stopped moving. The cracking returned. The headless body stretched its remaining arm toward Nana.
"Yours."
"Mm." She moved clean and fast, one slash taking both arms, another splitting the torso. The upper half kept crawling. She drove her katana through its chest and pinned it.
"Why isn't it burning?" She pressed her sleeve to her nose.
"Maybe it isn't part of the main body—"
"Exactly!!" The voice boomed from the dark, right on top of us now. "They are my soldiers. Handle one well enough, fine. Let's see how you manage the rest."
The tremor returned, heavier and longer. Then came the tearing, dozens of snapping sounds from every direction overhead. I stopped counting the falling bodies at thirty.
I looked at Nana. Composed, but the anger hadn't left her face. "Even if we cut them all down they'll keep coming, because—"
"We have to kill the demon controlling them."
"That's it. This is your kill, so you lead. Run straight and don't stop. I'll take everything behind us."
She nodded and broke into a run, cutting down anything that stepped into her path. I fell in behind her, putting down the ones that mattered and leaving the rest. Two with the bearing of samurai, rotted katanas in hand, dropped from the dark above her.
"Don't stop." She held her line without flinching.
I accelerated, kicked off hard enough to crack the stone, cleared her in a single arc and put both of them down before they landed.
She gave a short nod and pushed ahead. I turned to check behind us. The dead were closing from every direction, some running, most dragging. I stayed on Nana's heels.
The demon came into view ahead, still at a distance but no longer hidden. Massive and disfigured, its body webbed to the cave wall by thick glistening veins of slime. I wasn't sure how much of it Nana's adjusting eyes could make out.
"We're getting close."
The demon convulsed. Hands burst from its body and shot toward us. Nana hit the surface of one without breaking stride and ran across it like solid ground. I followed her lead and jumped, but it retracted the limb before I could use it. Didn't matter. We were still gaining.
"No you don't!!!" The body shook violently. More hands erupted, chasing us this time rather than cutting us off.
"Nana. I have a plan." I cut through the arms converging on me. "I'll carve a path to the demon. You make the kill." I paused. "We work together on this one."
"Okay!!"
I broke toward the demon head on. Big creatures like this one tend to bury their true body somewhere inside the mass. Looking at it now I noticed something. No eyes. No ears. Just a wide gaping mouth at the top, ringed and open like a pit.
I caught a hand on the way up and used it to launch myself higher.
"You stinking brat." The demon shrieked and convulsed, a tremor rolling through the stone. A hand came directly at my face mid air. I turned, caught it, and opened up the abdomen with a fast sequence of cuts.
Guts. Blood. Nothing inside worth finding.
I dropped back to the ground and cleared the spray. "Nana. That is the main body. I was wrong before. The kill is there, make it now."
The demon screamed. Hands poured from the wounds I had opened, already knitting the damage shut from inside.
"Arrogant children." It struck wildly, catching even its own dead in the frenzy.
"Now, Nana."
She ran at it without hesitation, leaping from one flailing hand to the next, using them to climb. When she cleared the peak she drew her blade back, eyes burning, and drove the cut in just below the mouth. She dragged it the full length of the body all the way to the base.
Blood and guts poured over her. She dropped clear as the massive body toppled, the impact shaking the cave, one final tremor, slow and fading, like something losing the will to hold to life.
"I did it." She watched the demon crumble into ash.
"You did."
I looked her over and it came to me where I had seen the haori before. It was Ms. Ayuma's.
A bell rang somewhere at the back of my mind. I let it settle for a moment. Leveling up still felt good no matter how many times it happened.
Behind us the dead had all gone down. Most were from the village. A few looked like travelers, people with no particular reason to end up in a place like this.
Death works that way. In a world like this you learn quickly that the person beside you might not be there tomorrow. You learn it, and you keep moving.