Tokyo Demons Book 1: Chapter 4

Ayase knew how far gone she was. She realized it from within her panic–a message from the tiny, remaining objectivity in the raging torrents in her mind. She was beset on all sides from a madness that threatened to swallow her, but she could see it. She could feel it. That meant she could do something about it.

She needed a plan. Too much was going on and she hadn’t been able to process it. Well, now she was going to process it. The best she could, anyway. She just needed time. And space.

So when she made it back to her dorm room that afternoon, she locked the door, dove into her bed, and buried herself under the covers. She could think through this. She could. She was a girl who turned into a swarm of bugs, damn it all. She’d dealt with the unimaginable all her life. She just had to block everyone out and lay all responsibility on the one person in the world she trusted.

Herself.

A few hours later, Sachi was knocking on her door and calling out questions. She ignored him. When he came back that night, she ignored him again, but he knew she was in there. She had to yell at him to make him disappear. Once she was left to blissful silence again, she went back to working through the tangles in her mind.

After hours of contemplating, she climbed out of bed and stumbled to her desk. She dragged her arms over the desktop, shoving everything off onto the floor. She dropped into her chair, slapped a single piece of paper onto the desk, and started roughly sketching out a diagram.

The giant gangster at Blue Light. He was an obvious enemy–he’d knocked her out and locked her up, and now she was pretty certain he’d figured out her secret and was chasing her. Ayase circled his name frantically. He was enemy #1.

But there were many others. The dark-skinned foreign man with the green eyes, the priest Daniel. Two Japanese women she’d never seen before. She circled them together; they’d all been in her dreams about being captured by the Blue Light gangster. Now she knew the dreams held a degree of truth, however that was possible. She considered them all a threat to her safety.

The police: Detective Nakajima and the heavyset officer she’d seen at the station and at school. They’d supposedly captured the Blue Light thug, but the circumstances had been suspicious–there was no proof that the man was captured and there was the possibility the police were working with him. Ayase drew a tentative line from the cops to the thug.

Then there was Sachi. Ayase bit her lip and drew a line between him and the priest. Sachi said he trusted Daniel and told him secrets…yet Ayase considered the priest a threat. Had Sachi told him about her? They’d been together when Ayase fled the church, so Sachi had probably filled the priest in. Ayase’s mind frantically scanned her few days with Sachi. Had she left any hints about her power? How much of her personal information had she given away? He might have even mentioned the school dorm, which meant Ayase had to consider her room unsafe. But where else could she go? She was too young to get a hotel room, which meant she might have to go back to her old Children’s Home. But it was Catholic, and she’d mentioned it to the priest…he might have already figured out which home it was, since she’d learned over the years that Catholics were better connected to each other than pretty much anyone.

And then there was Kadoyuki and the upperclassman with the gloves. There was a connection between them, but Ayase knew far too little to guess the nature of it. Kadoyuki seemed to have a connection to Sachi and, through Sachi, to the church, although the priest had said Kadoyuki was hesitant to talk about himself. Did Kadoyuki know the church couldn’t be trusted? But with what? Kadoyuki had his own secrets, but nobody had a secret like Ayase’s. Several people had already guessed that Kadoyuki’s secret had to do with drugs. And the priest did have some information on him now…Ayase shakily drew a connection between Kadoyuki and the priest. That one was her fault.

She still didn’t know enough. She expanded her diagram, adding and overlapping more circles and more connections. Jo and Kiyoshi had a connection to Sachi and the night at Blue Light. What was the drug dealer’s name…Suzuki? By the time she’d written out the names and descriptions of everyone she’d met since school started, there wasn’t a single person who could be ruled out as a threat.

Ayase blinked her stinging eyes. She’d always seen the world around her as a dangerous place, filled with people who would never understand her. But now, scribbled in her own desperate handwriting, was the world teaming up in an offense against her.

She buried her head in her arms.

“…Ayase?”

Ayase jerked up at her desk. There was knocking at her door again, accompanied by Sachi’s voice. She blinked her eyes, which felt unusually heavy. Had she fallen asleep?

“Ayase? Are you okay in there? Please open the door!”

Ayase rubbed her eyes and looked at her bedside clock. 6:45 am? she thought in disbelief. She’d been scribbling late into the night, but she’d still slept for several hours. She couldn’t remember any dreams.

The knocks on her door turned to bangs. Sachi started begging. “I’m sorry I brought you to the church yesterday,” he cried. “Whatever I did to upset you, I’m really sorry! Just…please open the door! Please come to school!”

Ayase’s eyes flew back to her diagram. Sachi’s name was right in the middle–linking everyone and everything. Inviting her to Blue Light and the church. Pushing his way into her life. Connecting the world against her.

Something in Ayase snapped. She jumped from her chair so quickly that it clattered to the floor behind her.

“LEAVE ME ALONE!” she screamed.

The bangs at her door stopped. Several moments of silence passed.

Finally, mercifully, she heard the sound of footsteps leaving.

Ayase ran a hand over her face and breathed heavily. She had to get out of there. She didn’t know if her dorm was safe, and Sachi wouldn’t rest until he’d forced his way in. She started pulling out all her drawers, throwing anything important she could think of into a pile on her bed. She wasn’t worried about a change of clothes–she just wanted underwear, money, medicine, pads for her period. She dumped all the books out of her schoolbag and stuffed it with essentials. She scanned the list of emergency phone numbers she always kept on her person to make sure it was updated. Detective Nakajima’s number was on there; Ayase angrily crossed it off. But there was also that hospital, her old Children’s Home, Sachi…so many numbers loaded with uncertain dangers. She was debating whether or not to toss the list entirely when she heard the scrape of a key in her door.

Ayase froze. Her eyes flew to the slowly turning doorknob.

Somebody had found her.

Somebody was already here.

“G-go away!” Ayase screamed in a panic. Heart in her throat, she grabbed a pair of scissors and whipped toward the door.

An upperclassman with shoulder-length bleached hair stood in the doorway. Surprise lit up her pretty face.

Ayase opened her mouth, but no sound came out. She…she’d seen this girl before. In the hallways and the lunchroom, usually surrounded by packs of boys. But other than that…Ayase didn’t know her. This girl wasn’t on Ayase’s list.

The upperclassman raised an eyebrow. “Sorry if I surprised you,” she murmured. “But I’m your roommate. Ayase Watanabe, right? I’m Mitsuko Hoshino.”

Ayase had forgotten she had a roommate. All the muscles in her body began to unclench. Slowly, carefully, she lowered her raised scissors.

Ayase swallowed. “N…nice to meet you,” she mumbled.

To her surprise, Mitsuko laughed. The older girl walked into the room and closed it behind her.

“You seem jumpy,” she commented. “Too much caffeine, or is it that boy with the spiked hair?”

Ayase tightened again. Mitsuko walked to their small dresser, opened one of the drawers reserved for her, and beckoned to the door.

“I saw him from the other end of the hall. Persistent much? I heard you tell him off, though.” She chuckled. “Actually, I’m pretty sure the whole floor did.”

Ayase’s hands began to tremble. She rested the scissors back on her desk. Her eyes fell to the mess on the floor…all the things she’d shoved off the desktop, all the crumbled-up diagrams she’d written during her hysteria the night before. She suddenly felt very lost in her own space.

Mitsuko rummaged through her drawer. “You’re a first-year,” she said. “Right? Good for you. Some of the guys here are really pushy. They don’t hear ‘no’ the first few times, if you know what I mean. That kind of shit gets dangerous fast, so forget all the nice girl crap your mom taught you growing up. You need to defend yourself.”

I noticed, Ayase thought darkly. At least–and this calmed her slightly–she was hearing cautious distrust suggested by someone other than herself.

Mitsuko glanced behind her. “My house is near here, and I like to crash with friends,” she explained. “You’ll have this place mostly to yourself. But don’t go through my stuff, ’kay? That’s all I ask. You can have anyone over, if you’ve got friends or a boyfriend or something.”

Ayase looked down. “Not really,” she murmured dazedly.

Mitsuko paused. “Hey.” Her eyes moved to the half-packed bag on Ayase’s bed. “Are you okay?”

Ayase squatted down to start picking up the chaos around her desk. “I’m fine,” she blurted. “Sorry about the mess.”

She heard Mitsuko sigh. Ayase dragged the garbage can closer so she could throw away the crumpled paper. She heard the sounds of more rummaging, then the drawer sliding shut. Footsteps across the room.

Mitsuko squatted beside her. She took Ayase’s hand, which made Ayase jerk back so suddenly that Ayase fell onto her butt. Mitsuko didn’t reach out again; instead, she offered something small and cylindrical that rested across her palm.

Mitsuko smiled gently. “I don’t make a habit of giving these to underclassmen, but you look like you could use it. Just don’t tell anyone it came from me, okay?”

Ayase stared at the cylinder. It was shorter and thicker than a pen, made of metal painted black. A yellow stripe sliced across its surface.

“…What is it?”

“Mace. Here.” Mitsuko gripped it with her palm and kept her index finger ready on top. “If you’re really in trouble, spray this into the bastard’s face. It hurts like hell but doesn’t cause any permanent damage.” She shrugged. “Sometimes just brandishing it is enough to get someone to back off. So don’t actually use it unless you really need to.”

Ayase was at a loss for words. She knew what mace was, she’d just never seen it before. “Where…where would you get something like that?” she asked absently.

“That’s not important. What is important is we Fukuhashi girls look out for each other.” Mitsuko put the mace on the floor in front of Ayase and gently clapped her on the shoulder. “Hang in there, kid.”

A cell phone went off in Mitsuko’s skirt pocket. She dug it out as she rose to her feet and headed for the closet.

“What? Yeah, I’m coming. No, just trying to be a good senpai…no, not like that.” Mitsuko pulled a spring coat off its hanger, the only item of hers in the closet. She shrugged it on.

Ayase stared at the mace in front of her. When she looked up again, Mitsuko was halfway out the door, the cell phone balanced on her shoulder.

She winked. Then she was gone and the door was closed; the keyhole clicked as Mitsuko locked the door.

Ayase spent several long minutes slumped on the tatami mat. Her overnight frenzy and her anger from that morning had finally dwindled down, leaving her both anxious and eerily calm. She felt like she sat on the edge of a cliff–a familiar, precarious position she’d held for most of her life. She was closer to the edge than ever, but now, strangely, she realized she had two options.

She could either stay there, or she could jump.

She’d never considered the second one.

Ayase had spent her entire life hyperaware of how close she was to disaster. She fought to maintain her safety, but how long could she really last? She could do everything possible to plant herself, but something could still come along and push her. There was too much working against her. She could cling harder than ever before, or she could take ownership of that fall and initiate it herself.

Stay or jump.

Stay or jump.

Ayase, suddenly, was tired of waiting for catastrophe. She was going to one-up it for once.

In a determined sort of haze, she snatched up the mace and shoved it in her pocket. Then she pushed herself to her feet and finished packing her bag. When she left her dorm room and locked it behind her, she wrote off everything inside, assuming she’d never see the place again.

She remembered the subway stop that led to the church. Once she arrived, she took plenty of wrong turns, but she eventually found the building tucked innocuously between businesses. She stood in front of the door, her heart hard.

This was it. The new pathway that had opened into her doom. She didn’t know what awaited her inside, but she was ready to face it. She was done waiting for her enemies to attack from behind.

She shoved open the door.

The pews were empty again, displaying random patches of dust that lit up in the patterns from the mosaic windows. Daniel sat on the altar stage, one leg crossed over the other and a sandwich in his hands. He looked up.

And smiled. “Ayase-kun!” he called. “Are you feeling better now?”

No turning back. Ayase threw the door shut behind her and ran up the walkway between the pews. She stopped a safe distance from him, dropped her bag to the floor, and planted her feet.

“Who are you?” she demanded.

Daniel frowned. He put down his breakfast. “What do you mean?” he asked. “My name is Daniel Ozimek. I’m an ordained Catholic priest. I’m in charge of this place.”

“That’s not what I mean!” Ayase clenched her fists. “Who are you really?! How do you know that giant foreign man who protects drug dealers in Blue Light?!”

Daniel’s eyes widened. “Who?”

“The one who got caught by the police at Fukuhashi High School!” Ayase’s mind flew back to that afternoon in the police department. One memory stood out. “The one…the one wearing long sleeves!”

Realization suddenly dawned on Daniel’s face. Ayase stopped breathing as Daniel paused, looked away, and carefully cleared his throat.

“Er…I can explain.”

Terror seized Ayase’s heart. Her predictions, her paranoia, were proving true before her eyes. She was over the cliff edge and hurtling to her doom.

No turning back.

One heartbeat thudded in Ayase’s ears. Then she yanked the mace out of her pocket and rushed the priest.

Daniel jumped to his feet and held up his hands defensively. “What is that?! Dear God!”

Ayase gripped the mace as she’d been shown and shoved it mere centimeters from Daniel’s eyes. “What do you know about me?!” she cried. “What did he tell you?!”

Daniel pushed as far back as he could against the altar, but Ayase pushed closer in. He frantically shook his head.

“What do you mean? Ayase-kun, please calm down!”

“About the insects!” she screamed. “What do know about the insects?!”

Surprise lit up Daniel’s face. “Insects?” he repeated. “You don’t mean…” His eyes suddenly widened at something beyond her shoulder.

Ayase heard the pounding footsteps too late. Giant arms jammed under her own and headlocked her, sending the mace to hit the wooden floor with a thunk. She was jerked back hard; her shoes lost their footing and dragged against the floor.

Daniel spluttered some call for reason as Ayase struggled against her captor. The giant arms felt terrifyingly familiar. Adrenaline and panic searing through her veins, she jerked her chin up to see above her.

Hazel eyes met her own.

Arms from the club, hazel eyes from her dream.

The world stopped.

Those foreign eyes narrowed. “The bug girl!” the thug barked.

Ayase screamed.

And screamed and screamed and screamed.