Shinrabansho: Myriad Souls

The world felt too large without her beside me. I grieved her as if I had already lost her again.

The ground beneath my feet was stable now, cracked but solid, the dream no longer writhing beneath every step. Broken pavement lay chipped and damaged. Some of the surrounding buildings had been torn apart. Others had tried to rebuild themselves, reassembling imperfectly.

Several meters away, Baku lay prone, one arm twisted beneath him, his breathing shallow but steady. His top hat rested crushed near his head, a small, absurdly ordinary thing to notice amid the aftermath of something that had felt so vast.

Between me and Baku stood Reiko—no, Noh Face.

Her shape was too familiar to me, but the feeling was alien this time. I had faced her before, but it had never been like this, standing opposite her in a normal, fragile human body. I had chased her through the school’s hallways, up stairwells and through abandoned wings, always confronting her at the end of some corridor where she would tease me and flee. But I knew that she would not run this time. Only one memory matched, the moment she had broken me on the train that Halloween morning.

This time, the darkness clinging to her form was different. It no longer erupted or spilled out of control. It was drawn tight against her body, held there by will alone, like a cloak that she held rigidly. Her posture was straight, her feet planted, her shoulders squared but relaxed, expressing neither madness nor rage. She was waiting for me, not advancing nor retreating.

I took a step forward.

The sound of my shoe slapping against the pavement echoed too loudly in the open space. My body reacted before my thoughts could catch up, tension drawing tight through my calves and spine. Every instinct urged caution, urged me to slow, to reconsider, to say something instead of moving closer.

But this was what she had asked of me. To fight her seriously and show her how much I had grown over these two beautiful months.

I settled into my fighting stance, feeling my weight distribute evenly, my footing sure, my breathing steady, but shallow at first, then deeper as I forced myself to control it better. This was not a charge. This was not a race to get the first hit in. I reminded myself of that as I raised my hands.

Reiko was the first to strike.

She closed the remaining distance between us with speed, her fist snapping out toward my face without any attempt to feint or flourish. I raised my forearm and caught her strike, the impact vibrating sharply through my bones. It hurt taking that hit, but she still wasn’t using her full strength. She was testing me.

I countered with a short palm strike aimed at her chest. She evaded it with minimal movement and responded with a knee thrust upward at my midsection. I twisted, absorbing the blow along my hip, and stepped inside her guard, driving my elbow upward toward her shoulder the way she had taught me.

She blocked it easily.

We separated by a single step, both of us resetting at the same time. For a brief moment, the rhythm felt familiar enough to be a little comforting. My body adjusted on its own, my weight shifting, my feet planting, my hands rising as I judged how far she was and how much force I could safely commit. The habits drilled into me held my posture steady and kept my breathing even, controlling my fear, keeping it from creeping into my movements.

I was matching her.

Not overpowering her, not winning, but not being overwhelmed either.

She came at me again, dropping low for a sweeping kick and snapping a quick punch toward my throat right after. I blocked the sweep with my leg, shifting to the side as the punch rushed past my face, and drove my fist into her ribs. The hit landed solidly, knocking the breath out of her and pulling a sharp grunt of surprise from her.

For an instant, something flickered through her posture. Pride, maybe. Recognition of what I had done.

Then it vanished.

The darkness around her pulsed.

She inhaled sharply, her shoulders tensing as if she were pulling something heavy into herself. I felt the pressure shift in the air, subtle but unmistakable, like the moment before a storm breaks.

Her next strike landed against my guard and drove straight through it.

The force slammed into my chest, knocking the breath from my lungs and sending me skidding backward across the street. I hit the ground hard, pain blooming across my ribs as the world tilted violently. I rolled instinctively, barely avoiding her heel as it crashed down where my head had been, shattering the pavement with a sharp, explosive noise that echoed off the buildings.

CRACK

I scrambled back to my feet, my heart hammering now, my breath ragged.

DOKI-DOKI

I knew she hadn’t meant to hit me that hard, and I also knew that as the fight went on, it would only get harder for her to hold herself back. I could see the effort it took in the way her hands shook as she clenched them, in the uneven rise and fall of her breathing. The darkness clinging to her arms stirred and shifted, no longer held as tightly as before.

“Reiko,” I said, my voice shaking despite my effort to steady it. “Stop. You’re losing control.”

Her head snapped up in what felt close to rage.

“I told you,” she said, her voice strained. “Fight.”

She came at me again before I could respond. Her first strike slammed into my guard, hard enough to jolt my elbows back. The second followed immediately, heavier, driving pain up through my wrists and into my shoulders. I caught it, barely, my shoes gripping the pavement as I absorbed the force. I struck back out of instinct, faster now, sharper, not giving her any space to press me again. Her blows carried more power and effort than before. The darkness around her arms thickened with each swing, adding force she was no longer fully restraining.

I took a strike to the side that sent me spinning. Another clipped my jaw and filled my mouth with blood. I stumbled, barely catching myself before I fell, my vision swimming as pain radiated outward from every point of impact.

This was no longer sparring or training. This was a real fight, and for the first time, I understood clearly that I could lose it.

The truth hit me hard. If I kept meeting her straight on, trusting technique to carry me through, I knew that I would lose. Her strength was rising on instinct now, feeding on urgency instead of control. She did not want to hurt me, but that stopped being relevant the moment her power took over.

She struck again, and I raised my guard just in time, only to feel my defense crumble under the force. The blow was so powerful that it drove me to the ground, my body skidding across broken stone as my breath tore free in a sharp gasp. I lay there for a heartbeat too long, my lungs burning, my limbs slow to respond.

I saw her hesitate.

Just for an instant.

Horror flashed across her face beneath the mask as she realized how hard she had hit me.

“Sumire… I know this is all kinds of unfair,” she said, her voice shaking. “But you must contain me.”

The darkness inside her surged again and swallowed her.

Her restraint broke.

She raised her hand, her power wreathing violently around it, and for the first time since the fight began, I went cold, fearing my wife. I knew then, with absolute certainty, that if that strike landed, I would die.

I rolled desperately, forcing my body to move even as it screamed in protest. The blow shattered the spot where I had been, sending shards of asphalt flying past my face. I gasped, dragging myself upright, my arms shaking, my legs unsteady beneath me.

I couldn’t keep doing this.

Not like this.

I wiped blood from my mouth with the back of my hand and forced myself to stand straight, even as my body protested, as my rib twinged where Noh-Baku had injured me. My heart pounded violently, each beat echoing in my ears.

I looked at her, really looked at her, and saw the truth written across her posture. She was still fighting herself as much as she was fighting me. The power inside her was no longer answering to her willpower. It was responding to her emotions, to fear, to the desperate need to end this fight before she lost herself completely.

And if I continued to fight her the way I was now, relying only on what she had taught me to do with my body, I would die. Not because she wanted to kill me, but because she could not stop herself from doing it.

Something had to change.

I took a step toward her and she froze.

I did not raise my guard. I did not prepare to hit her. I forced myself to keep my hands open at my sides, even as every instinct screamed at me to not lower my defenses.

“I’m still here,” I said softly. “Look at me, my wife. I love you. It will be fine.”

The darkness around her writhed, uncertain, as if it did not know how to respond to what I was doing.

I did not yet know what I was going to do next.

I only knew that if I did not find another way forward, this fight would end with my body broken on the ground and she would be left completely alone.

My legs shook as I steadied myself, my breathing still uneven. Every part of my body ached, especially my ribs, not only from the pain but from the effort of keeping myself upright. The pavement beneath my feet was cracked and scarred, still bearing the damage from our fight with Baku and the clash that followed. Reiko stood several steps away, her silhouette rigid, shadows drawn tightly around her limbs. She was not advancing but not retreating. She was waiting, giving me the space to choose whether I would attack again or stop.

I could run if I wanted to. The opening was there. I knew exactly how that would end. Noh Face’s power would continue to surge inside us and eventually consume me.

That was why this fight could not be avoided.

Her words echoed in my mind.

Use all of your power. Your real power.

I swallowed and forced myself to meet her gaze.

“If we keep doing it like this, I won’t beat you,” I said, my voice hoarse but steady. “You’re a yōkai and I’m just a human, even though I can fight now. You know how futile that is. You fought Enenra. You fought Noh Face. And you lost to them both.”

The words hurt to say, but they were true. I had felt that gap clearly in my body just moments ago, the widening distance between technique and raw yōkai force, between what I could endure and what she could unleash.

Reiko nodded silently.

The movement was small, almost easy to miss, but it was very important. She was not arguing with me, and she was not trying to comfort me either. She was accepting the harsh truth alongside me. The effort it took for her to remain still showed in the way her hands tensed and the way the darkness around her quivered, straining against her control as she held herself in place.

I drew in a slow breath, forcing myself to think past my fear.

I searched my memory, not for the fights where I had relied on Reiko, not for the moments when power had been lent to me or awakened by something external, but for the first time I had stood my ground alone against an overwhelming force.

I thought about Mitsuhiko, then dismissed it.

I was a Noh Face then, fused with Reiko when we beat him. She represents that same power we used against him. I need something else.

After a moment, my lips crinkled.

Ushi-Oni.

The memory came back sharp and vivid, the raw power in his movements, the way the air had shaken when he struck, the crushing certainty of his presence. He had been monstrously strong, perhaps as strong as Aoi herself in pure force, even if his control had been crude compared to hers.

Back then, I hadn’t had real knowledge of martial arts. I hadn’t known how to move the way I could now, unassisted. Reiko had carried that fight for me.

But now, it was different.

Now I had that skill myself.

The realization slowly struck.

What I lacked wasn’t technique.

It wasn’t resolve either.

It was power.

My hand went to my wrist without thinking.

The jade bracelet wasn’t there, not physically, but the absence felt wrong, like a limb I had forgotten was missing. My fingers closed around my wrist as if something solid rested there, and I focused, recalling its weight, its smooth surface, the faint pressure it used to leave against my skin.

“This is a dream,” I said quietly. “Our real body still has it. I should be able to reach that power here, even if only imperfectly.”

I traced my finger slowly around my wrist, slow and deliberate, following the phantom shape of the bracelet, mimicking the way it felt when it was truly there. I let myself remember not just its presence, but the way it answered when I reached for it, the subtle tugging, the sense of when it aligned rather than empowering me.

Reiko watched me without interrupting.

Her form trembled more, not from weakness but from the effort of holding herself back on the point of breaking. The darkness around her rippled unevenly, flaring and collapsing as she poured every scrap of willpower into keeping it contained.

“I will call it now and use it to fight you,” I said. “I learned how to spiritually magnetize it recently, as you know, my wife. And not just that…”

I closed my eyes and let the world narrow.

I imagined four jade bracelets instead of only one, one on each wrist, one on each ankle. I didn’t imagine them as weapons or sources of strength, but what I required was simpler, points that I could magnetize against my own spiritual power, forcing it to compress and rebound. 

The yukata I wore suddenly felt wrong.

It was too loose in places, too tight around the waist, feeling wrong for this moment. If I was going to fight her with everything I had, I needed to change what I was wearing, like I was changing my identity.

Back to that rooftop where I gazed into her beautiful steel blue eyes. The lunches we shared and that one time we sparred. A moment when our movements flowed both against and with each other. I gritted my teeth.

“This is just a dream… It’s full of consciousness power. I will seize control over this part of the dream around me with my willpower.”

The fabric abruptly flickered.

The yukata unraveled into soft motes of dreamlight, drifting away like dust caught in a sunbeam. In its place, my school uniform formed around me, feeling as natural as ever. This uniform had come to mean a lot to me. It was symbolic, representing the happiest time of my life.

Tears welled up in my eyes and I grinned.

“This feels much better,” I said, a small, breathless smile breaking through despite everything. “And I don’t have to worry about it getting torn up, since there’s no school day tomorrow.”

The weight of it felt so right against my body, so snug where it needed to be, freeing my legs and arms for free movement.

I laughed softly.

Reiko’s shoulders lifted slightly, the darkness around her surging.

I opened my eyes.

The jade answered my summoning.

Four distinct points of pressure snapped into place at my wrists and ankles, each one humming with restrained force. It wasn’t a surge or a rush. Everything drew taut at once, the same way a body locks just before it explodes into motion, every muscle braced and ready.

Although they stood well outside the reach of our fighting, I noticed Natalia’s eyes widen and Kagami-no-Kami’s gaze fixed on me.

I planted my foot and the ground cracked.

I sprang forward.

The first step shattered the air behind me as I accelerated, shockwaves rippling outward from the impact of my foot against the uneven pitted pavement. I didn’t feel lighter. Instead I felt denser, my momentum building.

“Maneki-Neko Fist–Times four.”

My punch tore through the space between us, the air screaming as compressed force detonated outward. Reiko raised her guard instinctively and took the hit squarely, her feet carving deep grooves into the street as she slid back several meters.

She laughed.

A raw, broken sound that carried both exhilaration and pain.

“Yes,” she said, her voice cracking as the darkness around her finally burst free. “That’s it, Sumire!”

She came at me with everything she had been holding back.

There was no warning this time, no testing step or measured approach. The darkness around her detonated outward as she moved, tearing loose from her limbs in violent arcs that scorched the air. Her foot struck the ground and the street collapsed beneath it, the pavement pulverized into by a shockwave that raced toward me faster than sound.

I stepped into it.

I felt it before I saw anything change. Four points of pressure locked into place at my wrists and ankles, snapping into alignment. The force did not rush outward. It gathered. My joints tightened, my muscles bracing, and balance shifted forward, my weight rolling onto the balls of my feet as my knees bent and my hips set, adjusted for sprinting forward.

I met it head-on.

Our fists collided with a sound that didn’t fit in the world, a deep concussive impact that rippled outward in every direction. The air warped visibly. Windows along the street burst at once, glass spraying outward in glittering sheets. Streetlights tore free from their mounts and cartwheeled into the distance, leaving us fighting mostly in pools of shadow and moonlight.

The ground buckled beneath our feet, cracking in jagged rings that spread outward like the wake of an explosion.

Neither of us moved.

For a heartbeat, our arms locked together, our power screaming through bone and muscle. My teeth rattled as the force climbed up my arm and tried to tear my shoulder apart. I adjusted, shifting my weight a fraction of an inch, letting the bracelets draw the excess away instead of letting it shatter me.

Reiko snarled and twisted, turning the locked collision into a spinning backfist aimed at my head. I ducked under it and drove my elbow upward into her ribs, the blow compressing the air at the point of impact. Darkness burst from where I struck her, but this time it didn’t throw me back.

She reacted immediately, her knee snapping up into my abdomen. I caught it with both forearms, my shoes skidding across the pavement as I absorbed the hit and redirected it sideways. The bracelets on my ankles flared and I pivoted hard, turning defense into momentum, my heel slamming into her thigh with a thunderous noise.

CRACK

WHAM

She staggered half a step.

Then she laughed.

The sound was wild now, unrestrained, threaded with what felt like relief. She came at me again, faster than before, her movements no longer careful or economical. Darkness poured off her like smoke, wrapping around her strikes and making them unpredictable, heavier than they normally would have been.

I didn’t retreat, instead meeting her blow for blow.

Her fist hammered into my guard and the muscles in my arm screamed as the impact drove through bone and tendon, but I held my ground and answered with a punch into her shoulder that tore her off balance and sent her spinning. She recovered mid-turning and lashed out with a kick that slammed across my ribs, knocking the air from my lungs and sending me sliding across the broken pavement. I dug my heel in, grinding it down, bleeding off the motion, and surging forward again, each step sending a shock through the street beneath me.

We collided again in the center of the street.

This time it was a flurry of strikes. My fist met her forearm, my elbow glancing off her guard, her knee driving in sharply and I turned it aside with my hip, each exchange landing or being deflected with enough impact to crater the ground beneath us. The dream couldn’t keep up with us anymore. Buildings around us warped and reassembled in real time, their walls bending, splitting, and snapping back as the impacts of our fight tore through them.

I felt my body strain under the pace. My breathing grew harsher, my muscles burning as I pushed harder and harder, forcing the bracelets to augment my strikes again and again. Every movement demanded precision. Any mistake now would have been fatal.

Reiko’s control slipped further.

Her strikes grew heavier, wider, driven less by technique and more by raw violence as she fought when she lost herself in the Yamanote. One blow glanced off my guard and still sent me reeling, my vision flashing as I barely kept my footing. She followed immediately, slamming her palm into the ground and sending a wave of darkness racing toward me like a tidal surge.

I jumped.

The wave tore beneath me, ripping up asphalt and concrete alike, and I came down hard, driving both fists into her shoulders. The impact drove her to one knee, the street exploding outward beneath her.

For a moment, we froze there, me standing over her, her head bowed, darkness surging violently around her.

Then she surged upward, driving both palms into my torso as she straightened, the strike lifting me clean off my feet and hurling me backward through the air. I hit the side of a building hard enough to destroy it, pain flashing white-hot through my back as I crashed down through the collapsing facade and into the wreckage. I rolled through broken concrete, glass, wood and twisted metal, barely avoiding the chunk of debris that followed me down.

I pushed myself up, blood dripping from my mouth, my heart hammering so hard it felt like it might tear free from my chest. Splintered beams, broken glass, and shattered concrete shifted under my hands as I rose.

A shard of glass sliced my palm.

Blood dripped onto the wreckage as she followed me inside, stepping through the debris, fragments crunching under her feet.

Her fist slammed into my guard, driving me backward again, my shoes carving trenches through the broken concrete and shattered materials as I skidded across the wreckage. I countered desperately, striking her jaw, her chest, her arms, each hit landing solidly, each one answered by heavier attacks, more violent, sending dust and fragments spraying with every exchange.

For the first time since the fight began, neither of us was holding anything back.

I rose to the challenge.

And as Reiko unleashed herself fully, darkness roaring outward without restraint and tearing through the remains of the structure around us, I felt the truth sink in with terrifying clarity. This was no longer about surviving her blows or enduring long enough for something to change.

This was about whether I could stop her while she was still Reiko, or whether one of us would fall here, broken beyond repair, buried in the wreckage, leaving the other to carry that weight forever.

She overreached again and again, her strikes coming wider, her footing breaking down as she lost control.

It wasn’t obvious at first. Reiko came at me with the same terrifying speed she had maintained since unleashing her full power, darkness streaming from her limbs as she struck, each blow carrying enough force to split the ground. I met her again and again, my bracelets flaring as I accelerated to match her, my Maneki-Neko Fist driving my body past what I should have been capable of as a normal human being.

I wondered if my spiritual power was rising, giving me that same density I’d felt when I first rushed at her. That response wasn’t part of my technique. My stance tightened on its own, adjustments stacking as my body compensated for the strain before my spiritual power could tear it apart.

She drove into me and the wreckage gave way, the remnants of the house collapsing outward as we crashed through the shattered wall and spilled back into the open. We collided once more in the center of the ruined street. Her elbow crashed toward my head. I slipped inside the arc of her thrust and drove a punch into her side, shockwaves tearing outward as the force detonated through the air. She staggered but recovered instantly, retaliating with a knee that caught me across the ribs and sent pain lancing through my chest.

I coughed up blood, but I didn’t move away from her. Instead I pressed in harder, letting myself move faster than caution allowed, trusting the alignment of my body and the jade bracelets to keep me intact.

My next strike landed cleanly against her shoulder, not explosively but tightly focused, the force collapsing inward instead of scattering. I felt something give, the darkness around her tearing loose rather than rebounding.

Reiko snarled and swung wildly, her strikes widening and her timing breaking down.

That was the opening that I was waiting for.

I stepped under her guard and struck again, this time with both fists, my bracelets flaring in perfect unison. The impact slammed her backward across the street, carving a trench through stone before she skidded to a halt on her knees. Darkness poured off her in ragged waves, no longer controlled, no longer coherent.

I didn’t give her time to rise.

I crossed the distance in a single step and brought my palm down against her chest, channeling everything I had left into one decisive blow. The force rippled outward, the air screaming as the darkness fractured and was driven back into itself.

Reiko cried out and fell forward, catching herself on her hands as the shadow tore away from her form. It dissipated rapidly, pulled inward and contained, until only faint wisps remained clinging to her arms before fading completely.

She stayed there for a long moment, breathing hard.

Then she laughed weakly and pushed herself upright.

Her posture straightened. The tension in her shoulders eased, her arms lowering a fraction. Her gaze steadied, the violence draining out of her movements until what remained was achingly gentle.

I ran forward and embraced her tightly, kissing her neck gently, tears rolling freely down my cheeks as my strength drained away and the bracelets dimmed, their restraint easing until my limbs trembled with exhaustion. I stayed standing only because I refused to fall.

“You’ve done it, my love. You’ve stopped me.” Reiko said, her voice unsteady, her hand sliding through my hair as she held me.

Footsteps pounded across the street.

Rui and Ume ran toward us, skidding to a halt just a few steps away. Pon-chan clung to Ume’s shoulder, his small body vibrating, his eyes wide and alert.

“Sumire… Reiko… I saw your fight.” Rui said, her voice edged with awe.

“It was out of this world… Natalia’s idea sure paid off.” Rui grinned.

“Yeah.” I nodded, absolutely exhausted.

“It was just what we needed. Now I can rest,” Reiko said softly.

“Don’t talk like that. You’re not dying.” I took her hand.

“I misspoke.” Reiko laughed quietly. “What I meant is that your training is over.”

Rui nodded, studying me more closely. “Hey… how did you manage to put on your school uniform?” Rui asked, looking at me as if she were trying to figure me out.

“I changed my clothes. I imagined how I wanted to be dressed. This fight mattered too much for anything to be off.” I said.

Rui’s eyes widened. “Doing that means having taken control of Baku’s dream. To do that you had to have used your latent spiritual power the correct way. There’s no other way.”

I nodded. “I know. The jade bracelet helped me.”

“Why do you have four of them?” Ume asked, grinning as she tilted her head, her fangies poking out on one side. “I thought there was just one.”

“I created them too. Because I’m wearing the real one in my sleep, they became more real. To answer your question, so I could fight Reiko as well as possible, I imagined having four of them.”

Rui frowned slightly. “I only have one of them, you know? This isn’t anything that you’ll be able to do in the real world unless you get some other bracelets.”

“Didn’t your father leave you some papers on his craft? Isn’t there something you can do to support us?” Reiko straightened and smiled.

“You really say that like you’re married,” Rui said with a wry expression, her lips twisting.

“We are,” I said with a grin.

“But don’t misunderstand,” Reiko added. “She’s yours as I said. I don’t mind sharing with you two, plus whatever she does I get to experience too.” Her grin was lewd enough to make me blush. I looked away, my face burning.

Rui blushed too. “Baka… You’re implying that I’d actually… with…”

A soft, weary voice broke the moment.

“Are you all ready for this dream to end?” Baku asked.

He stood a short distance away now, no longer looming or distorted, his posture was tired but calm, his old self.

“Yes,” Rui said immediately.

I hesitated. Part of me wanted to stay, to hold on to the warmth of this place for just a little longer, but I knew why the dream had been created. That was all done.

“I’m ready,” I said.

“I’m ready,” Ume smiled, her fangs poking out.

“I as well.” Akuchi said, standing on both of his ferret feet.

“Me too,” Reiko said. “I’m proud of you, Sumire. With power like you showed me… you can build up and be everything you should be.”

I nodded and hugged her again with the knowledge that this was the end.

“Did you think you could get away from me without another kiss?” I asked.

Reiko smiled, rubbing one of her eyes as I leaned forward. I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her tightly against me, refusing to hold back as I kissed her, pouring everything into it—every feeling I hadn’t uttered, every moment we’d shared, every promise I didn’t want to forget.

The dream world began to fade around us.

For a moment, we stood suspended in empty space, fireworks bursting behind us in silent cascades of light. I felt Reiko smile against my lips and wondered if this was Baku’s final gift to us.

Then everything dissolved.

“I love you.”