The days are long, the nights
fleeting glimpses of peace. You, who have come seeking something…allow me into
your mind. I ask not for control, nor shall I assist you in facing the darkest
parts of your psyche. No, I only ask that you allow me to show you what I have
experienced. The mind can process much in a short amount of time, even go
through what could be years in a matter of minutes. I have little time to waste
you see. The fact that you are here proves that you are curious, and wish to
know. By allowing my into your mind, I can use my long forgotten psychic powers
to allow us to watch the events unfold, as if they were a movie. Now come, time
is of the essence, and there is much to see before the day breaks.
One born of human flesh…
Man is now a race of some power.
You, son of man,
must face the power you hold.
And you must face your destiny as
well…
Though your days may be peaceful,
the fated time draws near.
I am your judgement.
I sundered the tongue of your
fathers
and shattered their arrogant
power.
So long as the Lord does not live
in you,
all living beings hold darkness
in their hearts.
If you truly wish to be yourself,
then rise and fight the darkness
within…
the demon inside.
If you have the will to challenge
your destiny of battle, son of
man,
state your name…
K I N G
As He proclaimed…this world,
created in seven days, shall be
destroyed
by the sound of seven trumpets.
You who have a will,
fear the numbers your eyes shall
see.
Fear the time left…
We begin our tale with me, standing
in the middle of Shibuya, with no idea how I got there. Then a sharp pain to my
head as I’m graced with memories of a life I never lived. I know why I’m there
now. To meet with my cousin, Naoya, and my two best friends, Yuzu and Atsuro.
Atsuro is the first to find me.
“Hey, King! Over here!”
I couldn’t help but chuckle at the absurdity
of it all. I haven’t used my real name in so long that I can only be identified
with a title I haven’t even earned yet. We exchanged greetings and saw how the
other has been enjoying the summer vacation. I noticed Leo
and Bruce waving at me, but a stern look is all I need for them to get the
picture. Forgetting to tell them to keep a low profile could backfire if they
say the wrong things.
We made light
small talk as Yuzu approached us unseen.
“Oh there you are!
I’ve been looking for you guys!”
Yuzu and Atsuro had
their usual banter. I simply smile dand let them have at each other. When Yuzu
seemed to be at her limit I interjected and asked where Naoya was.
“I ran into Naoya a moment ago, and
he asked me to give these to Atsuro and you. He said that something’s come up
and he won’t be able to make it.”
Yuzu’s answer
didn’t really surprise me, I expected as much from out of world knowledge. Atsuro
was noticeably more upset about the matter. She presented us with the COMPs
Naoya had gotten for us. I continued to play along as clueless and merely
regarded them as game systems. Atsuro noticed that they were custom COMPs a
little after opening his and was determined to hack into it and open the
encrypted folders. After some messing around he got the email functions working
on all three. Emails can’t be sent to other COMPs during the day due to server
volume or something, but our COMPs received a special mail called the Laplace
mail. It seemed like a sort of news broadcast. Only instead of giving
information about past events, it told the future.
Naturally Yuzu and
Atsuro shrugged it off and rationalized it as something else. So I let them
keep living in normalcy for the time being. The proof would come when the news
in the mail would come true at the times depicted. Atsuro would need some time
to finish unlocking the other features in the COMPs, so he told me and Yuzu we
were free to wander around. We ended up going to Shinjuku first and overheard a
man going on about God’s coming ordeal, and how through the power of the
Internet, we could stand to overcome it or something. I wasn’t really paying
him attention. We didn’t stay to hear the full sermon. Omotesando was next, and
Yuzu began by telling me about some insecurities she had about fitting in
there. Apparently all the fashionable clothing there is really mature. I
decided to be nice and assure her she fit in when she asked. She seemed happy I
paid her the compliment. When we noticed that the time matched up with the
murder in the Laplace mail she got worried about the fact that Naoya lives in
those apartments. Seeing police cars speeding towards Aoyama didn’t help ease
her worry.
We arrived at
Aoyama, and the apartments Naoya lived in, to the sight of police roping the
area off and going in to investigate. While we watched the scene Naoya
approached us, curious as to why we were there. I let Yuzu express her worry as
an adequate explanation. When Yuzu began musing about what the Laplace mail
could be, I simply let it be known that I believed it fortold the future. Naoya
seemed amused by my deduction and brought reasons why a normal person wouldn’t
got down that line of thought. He seemed impressed, if only slightly. After
that, he told us to reunite with Atsuro. We apparently weren’t supposed to have
met that day. “It” would begin soon. Yuzu tried questioning him, but was met
with a disregard for her desire for answers. Naoya did say something interesting
before departing though.
“Do not run away
from what is about to happen now. Do not be afraid to stand up against it. That
is when the door of truth will open… Overcome your fate.”
He didn’t listen
to Yuzu’s plea to wait, and left us standing there. Something seemed off about
Naoya according to Yuzu, but before we can discuss it Atsuro calls. He had
figured out how to unlock the COMPs and needed all three to be there. So we
planned to meet up. When Yuzu and I found Atsuro we all talked about what happened
at Aoyama for a bit before getting to what we came for. Atsuro restarted the
COMPs after cracking the encryption and the booted up. A bunch of text scrolled
on the screen, but the on line I was able to make out was: “None is righteous,
no, not one.” Then, distortions in space appeared in front of us and suddenly
three demons were right next to us. The demons said something about fighting us
for their freedom. It reminded me of the last time I was in Tokyo, so I figured
we just had to test our strength against them and come out on top. Atsuro and
Yuzu were freaking out as expected, but I took command of the situation and
told them to fight for their lives.
The demons that
were summoned were pretty weak after all I had been through with my last
encounter with demons of this kind. Although I was worried that even still,
they’d be too much for Yuzu and Atsuro to handle. I didn’t have to worry, as
the COMPs weaken the demons around them, and strengthen the humans. Putting us
on more equal footing with them. I wouldn’t have had a problem even without it,
but it was good to know I wouldn’t have to constantly protect Yuzu and Atsuro.
I beat the demon from my COMP quickly with some well-placed punches to its
head. It accepted me as its master after losing pretty easily. Yuzu and Atsuro
won as well, albeit less graciously.
When all was said
and done, I saw numbers above Yuzu and Atsuro’s heads. While they reacted like
normal people, I was focusing on this. Once they calmed down, Atsuro began
digging through the files of his COMP to figure some things out. Once we were
done theory crafting about why Naoya gave us the COMPs and what to do with them
given the information Atsuro was able to pull up, they asked what I had been
staring at. I informed them about the numbers over their heads. They couldn’t
see them, but chose to believe me. We decide that going to Aoyama again to try
and find Naoya would be our best option. When we got to his apartment we
realized the cops wouldn’t even think to let us near Naoya’s room. However, it
seemed like that would be a fruitless endeavor, since there was mail piling out
of his mailbox. He hadn’t been home in some time. Naoya emailed the three of
us, congratulating us on surviving the initial demon attack. He told us we’d
need the power of the demons to survive, and to head to the Aoyama cemetery to
meet someone who’d influence our actions. There was another email, notifying us
that we had become “demon tamers”. I almost laughed, having once been what one
might call a demon general, but I kept it to myself. On our way to the
cemetery, Atsuro pulled me aside and let me know that the COMP would probably
allow us to use spells and such like the demons.
We had been so
caught up with figuring out what was going on that we forgot that there would be
an exposition in the cemetery at the time we arrived. A strong demon appeared
and attacked someone that came after it. It was over before it began and the
person was no longer a living member of this world. But then, another person in
similar robes came and the demon was more wary of her. Atsuro recognized the
robes as those of the Shomonkai before we noticed that there were suddenly more
demons around. The priestess noticed us and told us to evacuate, but then
changed her mind and told us to just leave the big one to her. I was growing
tired of the facade I was putting up and decided it was time to start making
waves. Small ones at first, mind you. I told Yuzu and Atsuro to handle the
small fry while I went to take the big one out. The priestess was visibly
confused at the sight of me casually walking up to a Wendigo, but I paid her no
mind. I told her we’d take it out before it knew what hit it, adding to her
confusion, and causing the demon to laugh at the thought of a weak looking
human thinking he could stand a chance.
I used the demon’s overconfidence to my
advantage and closed the gap between us in an instant. I let him have a flurry
of blows from various martial arts and finished it off by kicking him into a
nearby wall. The priestess was too stunned to react, and the demon took the
opportunity to retreat after claiming he’d have his revenge. She apologized for
missing the opening I gave her and pursued the Wendigo. I took out a couple of
the other demons, but let Atsuro and Yuzu handle them for the most part. When
all was said and done we came out no worse for wear. Well, Yuzu and Atsuro were
still trembling from the battle, not being used to fighting for their lives. As
we talked about what happened (it seemed that they didn’t notice what I had done
to the Wendigo), and what the Shomonkai really were, the last thing the Laplace
mail predicted happened. A city wide blackout. The priestess returned shortly
after and introduced herself as Amane Kuzuryu. After we gave her our names, she
was about to ask me how I was so strong, but I cut her off and assured her it
was just luck, and a bit of old martial arts training. She seemed skeptical,
but could tell I wouldn’t open up about it and let it go. She told us that the
Wendigo had let loose a number of his minions in the area, but she had set up a
barrier that we could stay in for the night and be safe. She left before we
could get any more information out of her. I calmed Atsuro and Yuzu down and we
agreed to take turns watching during the night.
The COMPs email functions work at night,
even though the blackout cut off cell reception. Naoya and Atsuro both sent me
a message. Naoya, telling me that the Laplace mail would be good to use to
guide my actions. And Atsuro, just letting me know how the mail function works.
When it was my turn to finally take watch, I waited until I was sure Yuzu and
Atsuro were asleep and left to find my other companions. It didn’t take long.
“So you finally
got tired of playing the helpless teen and came to say hi.”
“Alice there’s no
need for that. We all know you missed coming along on jumps.”
“Yeah, we know
you’re excited to be here doing stuff with him again. Everyone is.”
“Shut up you
dumb lizard. Anyway, we all still need to get COMPs don’t we? We won’t be able
to blend in as well if we aren’t demon tamers.”
“I don’t think
it would be hard to play off any abilities we have once the chaos starts. But
having COMPs will mitigate most of the explaining.”
“Here. It’s not the same as the ones here,
but this is undoubtedly a COMP. It shouldn’t take too long for you all to get
your hands on some, but this will make blending in easier until then.”
“Awesome! Can I
be the one who gets it? Please!””
“Come on, I was
about to ask that! Let me have it!”
“I’m letting Flyer have it.”
“What, me?”
“Now this is a
surprise.”
“I trust she’ll
use it wisely.”
“I think I
understand your reasoning.... I won’t argue with this decision.”
“Just don’t let
us down okay?”
“I’ll need another day or two before I start
taking things into my own hands. You guys can do what you want, just don’t
stray too far. I may need you sooner than I anticipate.”
“You got it
boss!”
“My fists and
feet are at your disposal.”
“I’ll do my best with this. We’ll all get COMPs from this world
before you need us.”
“Keep everyone safe Alice and Karen. Flyer
is in charge whenever I’m not around until further notice. I’ve got to get back
before someone notices I’m gone. Don’t get stopped by too many demons while you
find a place to sleep for the night.”
After parting ways with everyone I made it
back just in time to see Atsuro waking up to take the next shift. My dreams
were uneventful, but I felt a subtle tug at my psyche, like a warning. I assume
he’s already anticipating our fight.
The next day, we all woke up unharmed
courtesy of Amane’s barrier. After some brief dialogue we all received emails.
One was sent solely to me from Naoya, explaining what the numbers above
everyone’s heads meant. The number is the “Death Clock”, which displays how
long a person has to live. While the Laplace mail does have incredibly accurate
predictions, Naoya specified before that it was not perfect. He said a person’s
actions can change the value of the Death Clock. As they say, the future is not
written. The Laplace mail predicted that power outages would continue in all of
Tokyo, that the trains have been stopped due to suspected poisonous gas and
that three people would be killed by a snowman.
I checked Yuzu and Atsuro’s Death Clocks
again and they displayed 0. I could only assume my own said the same, albeit
incorrectly in all likelihood. The two of them freaked out like any normal
people would. I let the conversation flow as it would naturally and we ended up
checking one of the train stations. Sure enough, there were SDF personnel
blocking access to the trains because of a poison gas leak. Yuzu was noticeably
dejected, but regained some hope when Atsuro explained that we could change our
fate to die if we tried hard enough. I decided to take the reins here and stop
the pretending.
“We’re not running away from what’s going
on. The best thing to do is to get stronger and change our fates with our own
power.”
They were visibly shocked at my sudden
outburst, and objections were raised as I expected. I took them to a more
secluded area and showed them a glimpse of my electrokinesis and shot a bolt of
electricity into the air harmlessly. I told them that I already had the power
to protect myself from most demons with ease. Atsuro was first to question my
power, but I quickly gave him a look to show that this wasn’t the time. Yuzu
just continued staring, unsure what to think of anything. I grabbed her hand
and told her that she would have to be strong and overcome her fear. It
wouldn’t be easy, but together the three of us can overcome anything as long as
we work together. And the start of that, would be gaining power. They were wary
of my sudden change in demeanor, but had enough trust to stick with me. As we
wandered Tokyo looking for information on what was going on, I had Yuzu and
Atsuro handle any demons we came across. They obviously didn’t want to handle
everything, but I reminded them that it was the only way to get stronger in a
short amount of time. I showed Yuzu how to use a bit of low level magic, and
Atsuro some basic martial arts techniques he could use. While it was still
morning we met with the leader of the Shibuya Daemons, a well-known punk gang
with surprising charisma. The leader, Kaido, seemed like a cool enough guy. I
asked him to keep an eye out for Naoya if he could and he agreed more easily
than I thought. He had six days left as opposed to our zero.
Naoya also sent an application for the Demon
Auction, which I used immediately to get us more fighting strength. My old COMP
could store demons in it if they agreed to join me, so the others should have
some demons on their side by now. But these COMPs can hold more demons at the
downside of being limited in acquiring them.
We kept going through Tokyo and met a man
that recognized Yuzu. Gin, the “guardian” of an indie singer that Yuzu likes
named Haru. Something about Gin got me thinking that there was more to him than
just his friendly nature showed. We parted ways with him and happened upon an
impromptu street performance by Haru. Yuzu recognized the song instantly and
rushed over to watch and sing along a bit. Haru’s singing was actually pretty
great, so I didn’t mind the distraction from Yuzu and Atsuro’s training. Yuzu
gave us the rundown on Haru’s indie music career. She used to be in a band
called D-Va, but they all split up once their lead singer left to study music.
Unfortunately her Death Clock read zero, which worried me. We hoped we could
find her again before it was too late to save her.
While we continued wandering Tokyo we
checked another exit out of the city but it was blocked off as expected. We met
and old friend of Atsuro’s, Keisuke, who somehow knew our number. He left in a
hurry once he realized what zero meant. I wanted to stop him, but I hesitated
too long. Atsuro spoke highly of him, but something must have changed in the
time they spent apart.
Continuing with our trek through the city we
thought we spotted Naoya and chased after him, however all we were met with
were a bunch of demons. Yuzu was frightened and Atsuro on edge, but I gave them
clear, concise orders and they proved that the demons were no match for them.
We lost Naoya and were left with no further leads, so we continued our
wandering. Atsuro and Yuzu were catching on to the flow of battle. Soon I
wouldn’t have to give orders every second and let them use their own judgement
in most common battles.
Eventually we found ourselves at the theme
park mentioned in the Laplace mail. Where a snowman would murder three people.
We didn’t notice at the time before it was too late, and the Wendigo had
already reappeared. Lamenting the apparent futility of it all I told them not
to lose hope. If we fought and won, the future would be changed. They seemed to
get the message and got ready to fight. I let them know I’d handle the Wendigo
and told them to focus on defeating his minions and getting stronger.
It didn’t take much for me to get to the
Wendigo, who was much warrier of me than before. He tried some sort of ice
magic that I shrugged off and it made it really upset. He tried using brute
strength next, but wild swings had no chance of hitting me. I said an
incantation for a fire spell in my mind and let loose on the pitiful thing. He
had no chance physically or magically against me and I watched him burn. The
demons he had gathered were scarred out of their minds, but they still wanted
to fight. Figuring that if they could take down my friends I’d surrender, the
demons all rushed towards them. I wasn’t too worried though, Yuzu had really
taken to magic and Atsuro had a surprising amount of strength for a programing
wiz.
We came out without any notable injuries and
our Death Clocks changed to two. During the celebrating Atsuro realized that
the COMPs run on rechargeable batteries and with a blackout going on charging
them normally would be impossible. We rushed over to Akihabara in hopes of
finding some sort of hand-powered charger. We really didn’t need one with my
electrokinesis, but they probably thought it was only good for destructive
purposes. All the stores seemed to be closed and their hopes were sinking fast.
Keisuke happened to be in the area and he had a hand charger. Atsuro got him to
take us to where he bought it and we got our own. We thanked him and had a
brief conversation. He was impressed that we managed to change our Death
Clocks, but shared that nobody in the Yamanote circle had more than six days to
live. His DC only said one, so I was worried, but he left claiming he’d only
drag us down.
We kept the trend of wandering and running
into interesting people when we found Haru speaking with some Shomonkai member.
It seemed like he wanted her to come to the Shomonkai if she needed help, but
she didn’t seem interested. Haru remembered our faces from the street show she
put on and after she finished talking with the man from the Shomonkai she
approached us. We went through some introductions before she went on her way.
The next person of note we encountered was Midori
Komaki, a cosplayer. Her clothes caught our attention and she noticed us
looking. She didn’t have a change of clothes because the city being locked down
wasn’t in her plans. She had us promise to let her know if we found a way out. After
she left, Yuzu revealed that Midori was actually a pretty famous cosplayer that
goes by the name Dolly. Atsuro was upset he didn’t notice and ask for an
autograph.
We took a break in Shiba Park only to find
the Shomonkai making a speech for those that gathered there. The founder talked
about the story of Babel and how that ordeal of multiple languages separating humanity
has been conquered by the Internet. God had already sent another ordeal to test
us. Standing with the Shomonkai would apparently help us all get through it.
The girl from the other night, Amane, was there as well. She approached us and
told us a bit about the otherworldly beings known as gods and demons. She
expected that we’d meet again. She also told us that it was the Shomonkai that
asked Naoya to make the COMPs.
While we were killing time while the sun was
still out, I heard singing in the distance. Once the others heard as well we
figured out it was Haru and went to check on her. She was suddenly surrounded
by demons. There wasn’t time to let Yuzu and Atsuro handle things, so I
combined my electrokinesis and magic to shoot binding arrows of light, filled
with electricity at the demons closest to Haru. Everyone was pretty shocked,
even the demons that weren’t attacked, but I paid them no mind. I snapped Yuzu
and Atsuro out of their daze and got them to start fighting. The demons while
many in number, weren’t great in power at all. Once I made sure Haru was safe,
I let Yuzu and Atsuro clean the rest of them up.
Haru was thankful that we saved her, and impressed
by our strength. She apparently would have been alright if her sequencer hadn’t
ran out of batteries, as it allows her to summon demons by singing with it. We
made some light conversation about what happened, and she said I had a
dangerous, but likable scent to me. I decided not to tell Yuzu about that last
part.
With our continued wandering we found Gin in
front of a Shomonkai facility. We couldn’t deduce why, and he didn’t tell us before
leaving either.
With the sun beginning to set we made our
way back to the cemetery, seeing as it was the last safe place we were at
during the night. A bunch of demons were in the area for some reason, and
before we knew it we were surrounded. I took command of the situation again and
instructed Yuzu and Atsuro when the need arose. The reason there were so many
demons is because there was an unattended COMP on the ground. Atsuro also let
us know that he figured out a little more about the demon summoning program. It
was actually a client, meaning that there’s a server out there that houses the
real program and does all the processing for demon summoning. If one could find
it, they could change the way it works however they want with enough programing
knowledge.
With the cemetery out for safe places we
decided to crash at Shiba Park. There would be people and water there, and the
demons would hopefully avoid it. As with the last night, I received some emails
before I went to sleep. Atsuo was gushing about how awesome the demon summoning
program is, Yuzu understandably was complaining a it, and Naoya let me know why
emails were restricted to the night. There’s only five days left until everyone
in the Yamanote circle dies. I’ve got to change everyone’s fate before it comes
to that.
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