A cold moon hung over Tokyo.
Ghost Festival night had deepened—the hour of demons long past. Now came true midnight, when phantoms and monsters danced unseen across the city.
Modern Tokyo no longer swarmed with visible spirits.
Or perhaps they'd simply grown cleverer—luring humans into their realms rather than revealing themselves in ours.
Ghost mazes, spirit realms, divine vanishings—whatever names people gave them, they were all the same thing:
methods for the dead to confuse the living.
They didn't always rampage openly, but they were hardly rare.
In 2018 alone, Japan recorded 16,927 disappearances linked to dementia—elderly who wandered out and never came home.
Age explained some, sure. But as the years went by, that number climbed—1.7 times higher
than in 2012.
Society blamed aging.
But in this world, some vanishings belonged to spirits.
For them, an old mind was soft clay—easier to shape than a young one. Yet some spirits were more arrogant still.
They drew no lines—man or woman, young or old.
Their divine vanishings struck anyone.
Dòu Táng had met such creatures before:
mindless beasts of hatred, lashing out at life simply because they could. He'd always thought of them as animals—wild, irrational, beyond reason.
But tonight, that assumption cracked. He'd met two that defied it.
First, the calm, calculating school doctor, Ejima Isei.
And now, the soldier spirit before him—disciplined, dignified, still clutching honor after death.
Corporal Yamashita.
"Your Excellency is…?" Yamashita asked, voice steady, unfazed by the kick he'd just taken. His outline flickered faintly beneath the moon.
At the cafeteria door, Lu Zizhen had one hand wrapped around the neck of a trembling campus guard.
"Don't hold back!" she barked. "Kill that bastard for me!
How dare you attack me, you miserable ghost! I'll kill you, then screw you, then kill you again—!"
Dòu Táng slowly turned his head. Lu Zizhen glared right back.
"Don't look jealous! I'm joking! And if anyone's doing the screwing, it'd be you doing him!"
Dòu Táng froze mid-turn.
…No comment.
Ignoring them both, Yamashita adjusted his grip on his sword, bowed slightly, and said with rigid formality,
"Osu! Your Excellency—please, enlighten me!"
Dòu Táng cracked his knuckles. His blackened muscles flexed under the moonlight as he advanced.
Yamashita struck first. The blade hissed through the air, slicing across Dòu Táng's left shoulder.
Clang!
The sound rang like a struck anvil. The soldier's arms jolted from the impact. It was like hitting forged iron.
"Wuhuu…"
The low growl rumbled out of Dòu Táng's throat—not anger, but amusement. To Yamashita, it sounded like death itself laughing.
Those dull eyes behind the wolf mask seemed to mock his effort. Dòu Táng raised a fist.
Yamashita lifted his blade instinctively to block—
Bang!
Sparks burst in a blinding flare. Steel shrieked.
A shockwave rippled through the courtyard. Yamashita staggered, one knee nearly buckling.
What monstrous strength…
He ground his teeth, the bandages over his eyes burning faintly as he met that endless, depthless gaze.
Dòu Táng's fist pressed against the blade. No blood spilled.
His body was something else entirely—neither flesh nor metal, but some unyielding alloy born of will.
He pressed harder.
The sword bent, creaking, the edge lowering inch by inch toward Yamashita's shoulder. "Ugh… hrrk—raaah!"
With a roar, the ghost forced himself upright, breaking free, and leapt back several paces to reset.
"Nice!" Lu Zizhen whooped, dragging a GoPro out of her pocket and shoving it at the terrified guard.
"Hey! You're lucky, you know? Not many people get to see my Candy Man fight evil spirits live! Consider this your lucky day!"
"L-Lucky?!" The guard looked ready to faint. He was watching a monster beat up a ghost.
But her manic cheer, somehow, made it all slightly less terrifying. The absurdity itself dulled the fear.
Ignoring him, Lu Zizhen turned the camera toward the fight. "Make it flashy, Candy Man! This is gold footage!"
Her voice rose to full announcer pitch.
"Good evening, viewers! This is our Obon Festival special! Look—the soldier's body is semi-transparent! A rare wraith manifestation!"
Dòu Táng's tension eased.
Her ridiculous commentary defused his fury, leaving only quiet amusement. Facing Yamashita, he gestured with one hand. Your move.
Yamashita hesitated. "Your Excellency's strength is… formidable. Perhaps, if one such as you protects this place, my duty is no longer needed…"
Then his eyes blazed again.
"Very well! Witness my full power! This is the will of the Shōwa era—prepare yourself!" Dòu Táng tilted his head, curious.
Black energy laced Yamashita's corroded sword, coiling up his arms like smoke. It was the first time Dòu Táng had seen a sentient wraith fight like this.
And then the thought hit him—
Ah. So when it's dumb ghosts, it's a horror arc. But when they talk back—it's a fantasy battle arc!
Fantastic. Two genres in one. Double the fun. Like getting two scoops of ice cream.
Yamashita didn't appreciate the joke. He sheathed his sword, bowed low, and drew again in a single motion.
Dòu Táng mirrored him, lowering into a stance—one hand forward, one guarding, perfectly balanced.
Lu Zizhen gasped.
"Ah! That's the original Ultraman battle pose! Tokusatsu fans, rejoice!" And as she finished the word, Yamashita struck.
The blade flashed like lightning, screaming with a thousand lost souls—straight toward the black wolf-headed Candy Man.
Dòu Táng thrust out his palm to meet it.
Lu Zizhen's voice rang again, delighted and irreverent:
"It's the Spacium Beam!"
It's NOT! he thought, panicking. This is NOT the time for memes! Palm met steel—
and the world roared.
A thousand whispers flooded his ears, echoing from nowhere, fading into silence as his strike fell.
The blade shattered under his palm.
In Yamashita's eyes, for one fleeting moment, there was satisfaction. Then the shockwave devoured him.
One strike. That was all it took.
"Thank you… Your Excellency," Yamashita murmured as his body dissolved into light. "Your… Spacium Beam… was… sublime…"
Oh, for the love of—
Don't listen to her nonsense!
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