Chapter Text
“That’s disgusting, Kasukabe, why would anyone do that?”
Kasukabe shrugs at Nikaido and picks up the last of the dumplings on his plate. “They’re a sorcerer,” he says simply. “They want to practise.”
“Here?” Nikaido shakes her head in disbelief. “I thought they weren’t coming to Hole anymore?”
Dokuga’s not really listening. In the two years or so since they came to Hole there’s been only a couple of incidents like this, and they blew over without any of them getting into trouble. En generally stops the sorcerers from coming here to practise now, but even so a few sometimes slip through the cracks.
The first time it happened, the sorcerer came up against one of those statues made from Hole’s bones and fainted. He was dragged off by the militia and executed. Vaux had delivered this news to the Hungry Bug grimly and Nikaido had reminded Dokuga and Tetsujo to never tell anyone what they are. The second time it happened was far away from this part of the city, and the sorcerer managed to turn exactly one human into a dog-person before Shin and Noi had come after them and killed them with exactly as much mercy as the militia.
En doesn’t want another Hole. That’s what Shin had told Vaux, and Vaux had told them.
So, Dokuga’s not really concerned that another sorcerer has made it through to this world. Either the militia will get them or En’s cleaners will. He wants to stay far away in any case, because both of those options would happily kill him as well. Nikaido seems offended rather than scared, so probably they just have some kind of power that she finds distasteful. Like turning humans into bug-people, maybe. He’s focused on mopping. Tetsujo and Kaiman are out getting supplies for tomorrow and he wants to make sure the restaurant’s clean so they can go home as soon as they’ve had dinner. He crouches and sloshes some floor cleaner into his bucket, fills it with hot water, and dunks his mop in it.
“Make sure you guys are careful, Dokuga,” Nikaido says. She’s crisping some gyoza in a pan for all of them and the smell’s making Dokuga’s mouth water. “When you walk home, I mean.”
“We’ll be fine,” he says. They didn’t massacre hundreds of sorcerers on the boss’ orders back then to worry about one rogue magic user. “If they use smoke on us, whatever they do will wear off if we kill them anyway.”
“That’s the spirit,” says Kasukabe. “I thought I should warn you guys anyway. This sorcerer’s a wily one, Vaux was saying. They’ve avoided the militia so far.”
“En will get them,” Nikaido says with a shiver, “if the militia doesn’t.”
“Probably!” Kasukabe says brightly. “But if you do get hit, can you come to my house? I’d like to examine you for my research.”
“Professor, that’s gross!” Nikaido shoots him a venomous look and splashes some water into her pan with a hiss so she can steam the dumplings.
“Ah, no, I just want to ask you about symptoms!” He holds his hands up and grins awkwardly. “Haru’s been coming round, too, so she might be able to help. She’s really powerful!”
“Hmm.” Nikaido narrows her eyes and shrugs. “Maybe.”
“Dokuga?”
“Yeah, whatever,” he waves a hand and goes over a stubborn stain on the floor with his mop. When he touches the sole of his shoe to it it’s slightly sticky. He doesn’t actually know what this sorcerer’s magic does, but sure, he can go to Kasukabe’s house if they get him. Though he imagines if that happens they’ll probably be dragging the damn corpse along with them. There’s no magic user who would come to this place to practise that he and Tetsujo can’t kill.
He's not going to worry about it.
*
The sun has set by the time they’ve closed up and eaten their dinner. Kasukabe left a little while ago after finishing his own food, reminding Dokuga and Nikaido to come to his house if they got attacked by this sorcerer on the loose.
“We didn’t hear anything while we were at the market,” Tetsujo says, stacking the empty plates up to take them through to the kitchen. “Right, Kaiman?”
Kaiman’s leaning back in his seat with his eyes closed and his hands resting on his stomach. He’s in a food coma. Nikaido had made him extra gyoza.
“Well, anyway,” Tetsujo continues when Kaiman doesn’t answer. “Whoever it is, they’re probably far away from here. Maybe over in Migimaru.”
“Probably,” Dokuga agrees. Migimaru’s a shithole, which is saying something considering that Hole in general is pretty much just one big shithole. He grabs some of the plates and follows Tetsujo to the kitchen, dumping them into the sink where Nikaido’s washing up. She rolls her eyes at him.
“The militia will get them,” Nikaido says, plunging her hands into the soapy water.
“Or En’s cleaners will.” Tetsujo puts down the plates. Nikaido shivers.
“Don’t even talk about him,” she says. “Someone will get the sorcerer. If they were in this part of Hole then Vaux would have told us about it, anyway. Do you both have weapons?”
Dokuga catches Tetsujo’s eye. Neither of them have the weapons they used to fight with back then, but they don’t go around this place unarmed. They’re not quite that stupid. Hole might be safer than the magic user world, but it isn’t safe. They both carry knives when they walk the streets of the city. He nods and Nikaido smiles.
“You guys can go if you want. Kaiman can help me finish washing these.” She glances over the counter at him and rolls her eyes. “Or maybe I’ll just turn out the lights and lock him in.”
“Good luck with that.” Tetsujo grins. “Thanks, Nikaido.”
They hang up their aprons and make sure their knives are at their belts. Nikaido waves them off and they head out into the night. Dokuga wonders if he should have asked Nikaido more about the sorcerer since he wasn’t listening when Kasukabe was filling them in. It might be useful to know what kind of magic they have. Just in case.
It doesn’t matter.
When they were out fighting – killing – sorcerers in the magic user world, they never stopped to ask about their magic. All they did was avoid the smoke and kill them. It’s the same principle for all sorcerers. They all use smoke, and the Cross-Eyes know how to take smoke out of the equation. He fingers the bulge of his knife at his belt where it sits hidden by his hoodie. It’s a rough, sturdy thing made for everyday use. He misses his old knives. Not that he wants to have a reason to use them, but he misses the way their delicate handles would sit lightly in the palms of his hands and the long, slender blades which could perfectly pierce the arteries of an enemy when he threw them.
He wonders if Tetsujo misses his katana, too. He probably does. He definitely does. Dokuga has caught him on occasion glancing into the windows of weapon stores when they walk past, his gaze lingering a little longer on the swords. Maybe they could buy him one. But Tetsujo would probably say no. He doesn’t need one, and it would be a waste of money. Still, Dokuga’s eyes drift down to his hip where his katana would have been sheathed and he thinks it looks a little emptier without it.
“What’re you staring at?” Tetsujo glances over at him and grins, his eyebrows raised.
“Nothing,” Dokuga says quickly. He grimaces. Neither of them talk about back then all that much. They talk about their friends and how much they miss them. They talk about how nice it was to fly out to Hydra Forest and feel the wind in their hair. They don’t talk about the killing, the massacres, how they trusted someone they shouldn’t have even though they’d had no choice. “Weapons,” he ventures, nodding to Tetsujo’s hip. “I was thinking about your katana.”
“I think I prefer a baseball bat.” Tetsujo nudges Dokuga with his elbow.
“I’m not joining the team,” says Dokuga before he can ask. Vaux had roped Tetsujo into playing baseball for his hospital’s team pretty much as soon as Nikaido had hired them. Dokuga’s been to watch them play a few times and he has to admit that Tetsujo’s pretty good with the bat; he swings it like he swung his sword, all power without sacrificing any finesse.
He’s just thinking about this – thinking about the way that Tetsujo had hit a home run the last time he’d played, sending the ball soaring into orbit and lifting a hand to shade his eye from the sun, with a wide grin on his face as he watched it vanish – when Tetsujo stops in his tracks and grabs Dokuga’s arm.
“Look,” he hisses, nodding to the apartment building across the road.
Dokuga narrows his eyes. He can see in the dark better than Tetsujo can, and the only light is coming from the dim orange glow of the streetlights. There’s a person over there. The windows on the ground floor are strengthened with metal bars and someone’s clutching at them, trying to peer into the darkened room beyond.
It could be nothing. Maybe it’s some weirdo who’s trying to spy on people. Maybe it’s a human criminal who’s casing the place.
Or, maybe it’s the sorcerer Kasukabe was warning them about.
Dokuga catches Tetsujo’s eye and nods, gently pulling his arm free from his grip. He holds up a hand to tell him to stay there because Tetsujo’s not as quiet as he is, and if this really is the sorcerer then he wants to get the jump on them.
Whoever it is, they seem completely preoccupied with whatever’s through that window. He makes his way across the road, his knees bent and his footsteps silent. He pulls his knife from his belt and feels the weight of it in his palm. If it is the sorcerer then he’ll throw it at their heart. No need to work out what kind of magic they have. Then they can drag the corpse to Kasukabe’s and he can deal with it. Dissect it, most likely.
He spares a glance over his shoulder to see where Tetsujo is and just about spots him in the shadows. He has his knife out as well. Good, Dokuga thinks. He’ll be able to sprint to his side in the unlikely event that Dokuga can’t handle this.
When he’s almost across the road, lifting his foot to step onto the sidewalk and bring the person into the range of his knife, a flicker of doubt crosses his mind. What if he can’t handle this? It’s been two years since he last fought anyone, and the last fight he was in he lost. Sometimes he’ll play catch with Tetsujo after baseball practice but he hasn’t exactly been keeping up with his knifework. He pauses and takes a deep breath, forcing the doubt from his mind. You can do this, he tells himself. If it’s the sorcerer, you can kill them like you killed all the others.
If it’s the sorcerer. It could be some innocent person. Well, maybe not innocent – not if they’re sneaking around at night peering into windows – but Dokuga’s not going to kill anyone unless he has to. Which means he has to find out if they’re a magic user or not.
He slides into the shadow of the building and pauses for a moment to make sure he hasn’t been noticed. The person is still peering into the window, standing on their tiptoes with their face pressed right up against the bars. Hole is a city; with the streetlights and the glow of countless windows it’s never truly dark, and he’s close enough now that he can see what they look like.
Not that he can see very much. He can see baggy black pants tucked into boots and a coat hanging down to their thighs. A hood is pulled up over their head and their hands are gloved. He can’t even tell what gender the person is, but they’re short and slender and he thinks that he definitely has the strength advantage. The dark clothes tell him that this person is probably a criminal, because who else would go out at night dressed in black to snoop around apartment buildings? They’re definitely casing the place.
Dokuga adjusts his hold on his knife. What he wants is to get just a little closer so that he can see their face. If they’re wearing a mask – not a balaclava or a surgical mask but a sorcerer’s mask – then he can kill them. If these magic users had any brain cells then they’d leave the masks behind, but anyone who has an ego big enough to come to Hole these days isn’t going to stoop to pretending to be human. He takes a small step. He’s silent. He hasn’t had to walk through the shadows like this in a long time and he’s glad to find that his footsteps are still as light and soft as velvet.
The person lifts their chin a little and their grip tightens on the window bars. Dokuga presses himself to the building and takes another slight step towards them. Show me your face, he thinks. Show me if you get to live or die—
He grits his teeth. This isn’t going to be easy.
Dokuga narrows his eyes and leans in. He can almost see past their hood. His gaze flicks back to Tetsujo across the street and Tetsujo catches his eye, tilting his head. Dokuga grimaces. Stay there, he wants to say. I’ve got this.
Tetsujo nods and Dokuga breathes out in relief. But then Tetsujo takes a step back – presumably to conceal himself further in shadow – and his foot crunches down on a piece of discarded plastic.
Shit.
Dokuga’s head whips back to the person and as they let go of the window bars Dokuga sees their face.
Or, rather, their mask.
He takes it in in an instant. Two dark eyes, chitinous and shiny like those of an insect’s. No mouth. Two fuzzy antennae squashed beneath the hood. Absurdly, it reminds him a little of his own mask. He lifts his knife and takes aim because there’s no way that this person belongs in Hole.
“Woah!” The sorcerer squeaks and lifts her – because he’s pretty sure that they’re a her – hands in surrender. “Don’t stab me!”
“You’re a sorcerer,” Dokuga hisses. He’s not going to give her a chance to use her magic. The only worry is if her reflexes will be fast enough for her to avoid his blade. The sorcerers who survived the Cross-Eyes’ massacre and Hole’s rain were the ones either strong enough or smart enough to get away. He doesn’t know which one of those she is and he doesn’t want to find out.
“Please, I’m not a sorcerer, I swear!”
Dokuga’s almost in knife range. He just needs to take one step and he’ll be able to hit her in the heart. He bends his knees slightly and as he does the sorcerer tilts her head and the light catches on her mask.
Double shit.
He couldn’t quite tell in the dark, but with the light on her face it’s clear. That’s a devil-made mask. They don’t give those out to any old sorcerers. He takes a deep breath and tries to slow the pounding of his heart because this might just be someone who’ll give him a challenge, and after this long he isn’t sure if that’s something he’s ready for.
Dokuga drops low and the sorcerer rips one of her gloves off, leaping to the side as she does to avoid the swipe of his knife as he skids in towards her. He didn’t throw the knife; he knew she’d avoid it. He ignores the scrape of the sidewalk against his knees as he forces himself to stop and turn, springing up to lunge at her again. He can hear Tetsujo sprinting towards them and he feels a smile tug at his lips. Two against one.
She flings out her arm and shoots a dart of smoke from the index finger of her ungloved hand. Dokuga sidesteps it with ease and he looks back for a moment to see where it lands but all it does is dissipate against the wall of another building. So, it’s not concussive and it’s not destructive. He still doesn’t want to get hit by it. If she wants to use it in a fight then that means it can take them out. It’s probably transformational.
His head whips back to her and he ducks under another dart of smoke. She cocks her head at him and it bothers Dokuga slightly that she doesn’t seem too concerned about this fight. He’s trying to focus on what he’s doing but he can’t help but wonder why she’s even in Hole to begin with. She isn’t weak – the devil-made mask is enough to tell him that – and generally the only sorcerers who would come to Hole are those so weak that they think they have to practise on humans.
“Don’t get distracted!” she calls out, voice muffled slightly by her mask. “You—AH!”
She narrowly dodges the thrust of Tetsujo’s knife, hopping to the side as the blade scrapes against the concrete of the building. She shoots a clumsy dart of smoke and Tetsujo watches it miss him by a mile.
Dokuga adjusts his grip on his knife and takes aim. With Tetsujo keeping close to her she’s distracted, and he doesn’t doubt that he’ll be able to give her trouble with that blade even if it isn’t his katana. If Tetsujo can make an opening for him to get the knife into her heart then he can end this right now.
Tetsujo catches his eye and nods, jaw set with grim determination. He knows what he’s thinking. He knows what he’s thinking because he always knows what he’s thinking, because the two of them have been fighting side by side since they were kids. They grew up fighting together. Dokuga knows the movement of Tetsujo’s arms as well as he knows his own. When Tetsujo swings a sword it might as well be Dokuga swinging it.
The sorcerer tries to hop backwards out of Tetsujo’s range but he follows, feinting to the left and then catching her in the arm with his blade when she tries to tries to dodge the other way.
“Ow!” she yelps, grasping at her wounded arm. Blood drips to the floor and her hood falls from her head, the antennae of her mask springing free and a dark ponytail swinging at her back. She’s completely focused on Tetsujo now, backing away and flinching every time he makes a move. Dokuga thinks that she’s probably never been caught out up until now. She got cocky here in Hole. That’ll be her downfall.
He takes aim. He’s hidden from her view by Tetsujo’s back and the second Tetsujo senses an opening he’ll step to the side for Dokuga to throw.
One second. Two. Now, Dokuga thinks, and as if he’s reading his mind Tetsujo steps to the side and Dokuga flings the knife, knowing that he always hits his mark.
He misses.
Dokuga stares wide-eyed as the sorcerer drops to the ground to avoid the knife and then sprints over to where it’s landed, kicking it away and whirling around to face them again. She tilts her head and laughs.
“You two!” She points at them, her wounded arm hanging at her side. “Are you married?”
“What?” Tetsujo snorts and takes a step towards her. “Are you crazy?”
“You fight so well together!” Blood is still dripping from her arm, her injury seemingly forgotten. “I like it!”
“We don’t care what you like.” Tetsujo tosses his knife from one hand to the other, walking slowly towards the sorcerer as she walks backwards just as slowly.
Dokuga doesn’t like this. She’s outnumbered and outgunned, and even though Dokuga’s lost his weapon she should still be intimidated by their skills. She should have seen the crosses over their eyes and the knives in their hands and known that they can cut her down like they’ve cut down so many hundreds of sorcerers before. But she doesn’t seem scared. She’s enjoying this; he can tell that even if he can’t see her face. That fucking bug mask. A wave of anger bubbles up in Dokuga’s chest and it shouldn’t piss him off as much as it does that her mask reminds him of his own.
Her arm is hanging uselessly by her side – it’s the ungloved one, the one she shoots smoke from – and he just about notices the almost imperceptible twitch of her fingers.
She still has smoke.
Tetsujo hasn’t noticed. Dokuga’s faster than he is. Before he can even think about what he’s doing he launches himself towards Tetsujo and tackles him to the ground as the sorcerer lifts her arm and shoots. Dokuga winces when he feels the dart of smoke slam into his side and the two of them crash down onto the asphalt. He doesn’t stop to check what the damage is; instead he snatches Tetsujo’s knife from him, leaps to his feet and flings it at her.
“Missed me!” she cackles, hopping to the side. “I got you, though.”
“Dokuga,” groans Tetsujo, pushing himself up on his elbows. He’s winded.
“Okay, bye!” The sorcerer waves with her uninjured hand and with the other she quickly summons a door.
Shit. Shit. Shit. Dokuga curses under his breath and staggers towards her. He needs to kill her. If he kills her then whatever spell she’s cast on him will vanish. Whatever damage she’s done will be undone, and she must have known that he would push Tetsujo out of the way because she’s laughing far too triumphantly for someone who missed their mark. She wanted him to take the hit. Fucking sorcerers. He takes a step forward as the dark rectangle of the door appears in the air and his knee buckles under him. His vision swims.
He falls to his hands and knees and looks up from under the dark locks of hair hanging over his forehead to see the sorcerer’s door swing open. She gives him another wave, leaps through, and it swings shut behind her. Then it vanishes.
She’s gone.
*
“Dokuga?”
He opens his eyes and shapes swirl out of the darkness. He can see the spattering of silver stars up above and in front of them is Tetsujo. He’s leaning over him with a worried look on his face. His hair is ruffled and there’s a lock of it sticking straight up. Dokuga wants to reach out and smooth it down.
What?
Why would he want to do that? He grimaces and shakes his head. His back hurts. He’s lying in the road on the hard asphalt, and his side hurts as well where that sorcerer’s smoke hit him.
“You’re not injured, I don’t think,” says Tetsujo. He’s kneeling by his side, a hand resting gently on his arm. “Bruised, maybe. But her smoke wasn’t destructive.”
Dokuga nods weakly. He knew that from when she’d shot that first dart at him. He needs to get up. Tetsujo takes his hand and pulls him into a sitting position, keeping one hand at his back so he doesn’t fall down again.
“You just passed out,” he says, and Dokuga can hear the slight edge of worry in his voice. Worry, like the worry in his voice when Dokuga had woken up after the battle with Hole and he’d been missing an arm and an eye.
“I was dizzy,” he says. He remembers the sorcerer’s delighted laugh. I got you, though. He gulps. Her smoke knocked him out. Kasukabe’s voice echoes in his head as well. I just want to ask you about symptoms. “She made me sick, somehow.” He puts his hand to his stomach. Already he’s starting to feel nauseous and takes a deep breath, trying not to panic. Neither of them can afford healing smoke if it’s something serious, and it has to be something serious, right? She was a powerful sorcerer. Her mask was devil-made. Whatever she’s infected him with can’t be good.
He should have listened to Kasukabe. At least then he’d know where he stands.
“Do you think you can get up?” Tetsujo asks. He still has a hand supporting him, resting at the small of his back.
“Kasukabe said to go to his house,” Dokuga says, “if any of us got attacked. He said he wants to ask about symptoms.”
“That’s good.” Tetsujo nods and stands up, taking Dokuga’s hand and helping him to his feet. Dokuga staggers a little and Tetsujo puts an arm around him.
His face feels hot. He’s starting to get a fever. Tetsujo slings Dokuga’s arm over his shoulder to hoist him up and steers him slowly to the sidewalk.
“If Haru’s there, then she’ll probably know who that sorcerer was,” Tetsujo says as they make their way to Kasukabe’s house. It’s probably going to take a while at this pace but Dokuga can feel the tremor in his legs and he knows that he’ll fall over if Tetsujo lets go of him. “I can go through Kasukabe’s door and kill her.”
“She might kill you,” says Dokuga, thinking of the way she’d dodged his knife even though he’d been hidden by Tetsujo until the last millisecond before he’d thrown it. Her reflexes had been faster than she’d let on. If he didn’t know any better, he’d have said she was baiting them.
“You tackled me out of the way.” Tetsujo’s eye flicks to meet Dokuga’s and then he looks away again, his jaw clenched and a stern look in his eyes. “You saved me.”
“From what, though?” Dokuga feels like he’s going to throw up. His mouth fills with saliva and he swallows it down, not wanting to spit his poison out on the sidewalk.
“I don’t know,” Tetsujo says, and Dokuga catches the crack in his voice that he tries to hide. He wonders if he’s thinking of the months after the battle. “Let’s just get to Kasukabe’s.”
By the time the two of them stagger up to Kasukabe’s door and Tetsujo rings the bell, Dokuga’s legs are trembling in earnest. He’s shivering and he can’t seem to stop his teeth from chattering but there’s sweat beading on his forehead. It was like this in the months after the battle when his wounds got infected and there was nowhere to buy healing smoke from – not that they could even afford healing smoke. He’d had to curl up by the fire, alternately sweating and shivering, trying to sip rainwater without his shaking hands spilling it all over himself. Tetsujo had taken care of him then, just like he’s taking care of him now. He has one hand holding Dokuga’s where it’s draped over his shoulder and the other around his waist so he doesn’t fall sideways.
“Hello!” Kasukabe says brightly when he opens the door. He looks like a child and there’s a lit cigarette dangling from his lips, smoke swirling up into the night air. His eyes flick to Dokuga and his smile widens. “Sorcerer trouble?”
“We ran into her on the way home,” Tetsujo explains. “She got Dokuga.”
“Let’s get him inside.”
Dokuga groans as Kasukabe takes his other arm and the two of them get him to Kasukabe’s lab and into a chair. He flips a light switch and Dokuga squeezes his eyes shut at the sudden brightness.
“He doesn’t look so good.”
At the sound of a woman’s voice Dokuga’s eyes snap open and his hand goes to his hip for his lost knife. Then his vision focuses and he spots Haru sitting at Kasukabe’s desk. Her devil body is lurking in the corner and she leans across to peer at him, a smirk on her face.
“She only got you?” Haru asks.
“We tried to fight her,” Tetsujo says. He’s standing at the back of Dokuga’s chair, a hand resting gently on his shoulder. “She tried to shoot smoke at me but—” Dokuga glances up to see him wince, “but Dokuga pushed me out of the way. Her smoke hit him.”
“I feel like shit,” Dokuga says unhelpfully.
“Hmm,” hums Kasukabe, stubbing his cigarette out. He pulls a small penlight from the pocket of his lab coat and puts a finger to Dokuga’s chin to tilt his face up, peering into each eye. “Pupils are okay.”
“What are you looking for?” Tetsujo gives his shoulder a squeeze.
“Leave him, Haze,” Haru says, rolling her eyes. “It’s not a sickness you can cure.”
“You know what it is?” Dokuga narrows his eyes at her and Haru smirks. Tetsujo’s eye flicks from Haru to Kasukabe and he gulps.
“Can—can it be cured?”
“Oh, it can be cured.” Haru leans back in her chair and rests her elbows on the desk, steepling her fingers.
“Dokuga, didn’t I tell you and Nikaido all of this today?” Kasukabe folds hid arms and scowls.
“I wasn’t listening.”
“Of course you weren’t.” Kasukabe sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger like he’s trying to stave off a headache. He probably is. “If this sorcerer hits you with her smoke, then you have to have sexual intercourse within twenty-four hours, or you’ll die.”
Dokuga blinks. This sickness must be causing him to have auditory hallucinations, because that’s the stupidest shit he’s ever heard. He scoffs. “That’s ridiculous.”
“It’s true.” Kasukabe shrugs. “Nobody’s died yet, but you really should have listened when I was telling you all of this. I figured the militia would have caught her by now.”
“No.” Dokuga shakes his head. “She got past us. No sorcerers can get past us.” He shivers. “If we couldn’t kill her, the militia can’t. She made a door back to the magic user world. So, what, can I just—” the heat rushes to his face and he wishes that Tetsujo didn’t have his hand on his shoulder right now. He wants to look up at him but he can’t bear the thought of meeting his eye. He doesn’t want to see Kasukabe’s glimmering with curiosity either, or Haru’s smug smile. He stares at the floor instead. “Can I just jerk off or something? That’ll cure me?”
“That would be masturbation, Dokuga,” Kasukabe says, as casually as anything. “That isn’t considered sexual intercourse.”
Dokuga groans and rests his elbows on his knees so that he can put his head in his hands. He still feels nauseous but now it’s for a completely different reason. The shivering’s stopped, at least, but his face still feels like it’s on fire. Sexual intercourse. The way Kasukabe says it makes it sound so clinical, so cold. Tetsujo gives his shoulder another squeeze and he suppresses the urge to wrench it away because he can’t bear his touch right now.
“Haru’s given me a lot of information about this sorcerer—”
“Mayfly,” interrupts Haru.
“Mayfly. Yes. Nobody’s died so far. The other people she’s hit have apparently managed to find someone to take care of the problem for them. Maybe they’re married.” Dokuga lifts his head just in time to see Kasukabe shoot Haru a sickening grin. He puts his head back in his hands. “But Vaux was telling me that in Hole – Migimaru especially – there’s people you can pay—”
“Stop!” Dokuga says, exasperated. His hands drop from his face and he gives Kasukabe a beseeching look. “I can’t pay someone! Can’t you cure this, somehow? What about that sorcerer of En’s—Chota! What about his smoke? It dispels magic, right?” He’s aware of how desperate he sounds, but he can’t bear the thought of going to Migimaru with a pocketful of his savings and peering down alleyways to find someone who he can have sexual intercourse with.
“I don’t have any,” says Kasukabe. He glances at Haru.
“Not gonna happen. En would never give you that.” She drums her fingers on the table. “It’s not so bad. The symptoms will ease in an hour or so. They just come on to warn you that you’ve been hit by Mayfly’s smoke. It’s quite considerate, really.”
“Yeah, she’s real considerate,” says Tetsujo. He lets go of Dokuga’s shoulder and wanders further into the lab, peering into one of the big glass tubes holding a preserved corpse. “I injured her, at least. Will that have any affect on the magic?”
“You did?” Haru tilts her head, a lock of silky black hair falling over her shoulder. “It might have done if she’d hit you with the smoke. She can make it more specific if she touches you. Or something you own.”
Dokuga shakes his head. “She didn’t touch—” but he cuts himself off and his eyes widen as he realises.
He can see himself flinging his knife towards her and the way she dropped down to avoid it. He can see her running over to where it landed and kicking it away. He’d assumed that she’d just done that so he couldn’t grab it again. Maybe he’d assumed wrong.
“She kicked my knife,” he says. Tetsujo turns from to corpse to stare at him.
“Interesting.” Kasukabe isn’t even trying to hide the excitement on his face. He looks like he wants to start dissecting him. He turns to Haru and her smile is just as wide as his. “This didn’t happen to any of the other victims. How does it change things?”
“Mayfly’s other victims just had to sleep with someone,” says Haru, her eyes flicking to her husband as she speaks, “but if she touched you – well, your knife – she can tailor the conditions of the spell.”
“Tailor the conditions?” Dokuga groans. “What the fuck does that mean?”
“Now that is intriguing.” Kasukabe snatches a notepad and pencil from the desk and flips to a new page. “How can she tailor the conditions?”
“Well, she probably just made it so that he has to have sex a certain way.”
“Fascinating!”
“What the fuck!” Dokuga exclaims. “How do you even know all of this?”
Haru rolls her eyes. “Mayfly is a close friend of the devil Beach.”
Dokuga groans again. A close friend of a devil. That explains her mask, and how she was competent enough to escape from them. It also throws another problem into the mix; if she’s friends with a devil, then that’ll make it harder to kill her.
And he’s going to have to kill her. He can’t even stomach the thought of sleeping with some stranger, someone he barely even knows.
“Beach told me all about her magic when she was bragging about Mayfly the other week.” Haru waves a hand dismissively. “The spell will affect anyone hit with her smoke, but if she gets her hands on you or your possessions she can choose your position, so to speak.”
“Position?” Tetsujo asks, his voice small.
“Haru, you knew about Mayfly last week?” Kasukabe asks, a slight crease in his brow as he taps his chin with the end of his pencil.
“Yes, yes—” she waves her hand again. “It doesn’t matter. I didn’t think about it until you mentioned the sorcerer who’d come to Hole. Then I knew it was her.”
“Oh, okay—”
“Haru,” Dokuga hisses through gritted teeth. “What do you mean, position?”
“Really, Haru?” asks Kasukabe.
“Yes, really. Now, if you’ll excuse my crude language—” she grins and her eyes flick to Tetsujo. He’s still over by the corpse, leaning against the glass with his arms folded and the dim light shining blue green in his dark hair. “The only way to survive will be to fuck someone or get fucked by someone.” She turns to Kasukabe. “Dear, if you get a sample of his blood under a microscope, I’m sure I’ll be able to tell which it is.”
“Are you kidding me?” Dokuga gapes at her. “It’s that specific?”
“It’s that specific.” Haru nods as Kasukabe sets his notepad down and hurries over to the other side of the lab. He starts rooting through some drawers but Dokuga can’t concentrate on what he’s doing because Haru’s words are echoing around and around in his head. The only way to survive will be to fuck someone or get fucked by someone.
He doesn’t want to do either of those things. He leans forward to put his head in his hands again because he can’t bear to see Kasukabe’s curiosity or Haru’s delight or Tetsujo’s pity. He squeezes his eyes shut and he tries to think of a way out of this. He’s going to have to kill Mayfly. That’s the only way. Twenty-four hours is not enough time for him to come to terms with this.
This.
It’s something he’s never done before. Kasukabe taps him on the shoulder and he holds out his arm while still keeping his face covered with his other hand. Over the years the thought of it crossed his mind on occasion, but he spent so many years following the boss’ every order and then trying to keep the organisation afloat that he didn’t have time to think about it more than the occasional pang of desire. Kasukabe rolls his sleeve up and he can vaguely hear him warning him about the scratch of the needle. Like he needs warning. He has tattoos over his eyes and he’s lost count of the number of times he’s been cut. He was sliced to pieces by Shin and tortured by Chota, and he tries to tell himself that at least this isn’t as bad as that but it isn’t working. The needle punctures his skin and he barely feels it.
He doesn’t want to die. He knows that much.
But he doesn’t want to have to go searching the alleys of Migimaru for some loser who’ll fuck him, either.
Kasukabe pulls the needle from his arm and goes off to do whatever it is he has to do. Haru stands up and follows him. He lifts his face from his hand so he can pull his sleeve back down and he looks over at them. Haru’s leaning over the counter at the back of the lab, peering through a microscope. Dokuga’s eyes drift to Tetsujo and he looks away quickly when he sees the nervousness in his eye.
He can hear Kasukabe and Haru muttering to one another but he can’t bring himself to listen. He pushes all thoughts of this out of his mind and tries to come up with a plan for how he can kill Mayfly. Tracking her down will be the hardest part. Though it occurs to him that with how sparsely populated the magic user world is now, it won’t be as hard as it would have been before. As long as he can disguise the crosses over his eyes he can probably just start by asking around. Someone will point him in her direction and if he confronts her then what exactly is she going to do about it? It’s not like she can use her magic on him twice.
“Dokuga?” Tetsujo shifts against the glass and Dokuga doesn’t look at him. He’ll have to go alone. If he takes Tetsujo then he’ll just risk her using magic on him.
“Don’t,” he sighs, leaning back in his chair. “I can’t even think about it. I’m going to have to kill her.”
“It might not be so bad—”
“It is,” he says through gritted teeth. Of course Tetsujo thinks it might not be so bad. He’s probably done this before. There’s a lump in Dokuga’s throat when he realises this and he wonders when he would have had the chance. Probably when Dokuga was preoccupied with the boss and the Cross-Eyes’ operations. Or when he was cleaning up Risu’s corpse and hiding his severed head. Or maybe even when Dokuga was sitting alone in that secret apartment and staring at the boss’ knives, willing him to come back to them.
His face is growing hot and he doesn’t think it’s the fever. He doesn’t even feel that sick anymore and the dizziness has passed. The only way to survive will be to fuck someone or get fucked by someone. Haru’s voice echoes in his mind again and he doesn’t know which of those options he would prefer.
“I’m going to kill Mayfly,” he hisses, but even as he says it he’s finding himself trying to picture what it would be like to fuck someone. He shakes his head. He can’t imagine some faceless shadow lying before him, some stranger who probably wouldn’t even tell him their real name.
“If she’s friends with a devil—”
“I’m going to kill Mayfly,” he says again. It doesn’t matter that she’s friends with a devil. Devils like to be entertained and wouldn’t interfere with a good fight. Kasukabe and Haru are still muttering over by the microscope and Kasukabe seems to be taking notes.
“I know it sucks, but it’s just sex—”
“It’s not just sex,” Dokuga snarls. He can feel his face flush red and he can’t even look at Tetsujo. “I’ve never done it before.”
“Seriously?” Tetsujo grimaces. “Shit, Dokuga. You pushed me out of the way.”
Dokuga nods. “You saved me in the Central Department Store. After that, as well.” More times than he can count. Tetsujo’s spent his whole life saving him and Dokuga couldn’t let Mayfly’s smoke hit its mark when he’d known he would be able to do something about it. Even now, knowing what’s happening to him, he can’t say that he wouldn’t do it again.
“It should be me whose blood they’re looking at.” He nods over to Kasukabe and Haru. Kasukabe flips his notebook shut and nods and they turn back to Dokuga. He can’t interpret their expressions. Both of them seem somewhat satisfied, but that’s probably just because they get to do research. He doesn’t know Haru all that well but she seems to be just as weird as her husband. Tetsujo steps away from the corpse and comes to lean against the desk, and he rests a hand on Dokuga’s shoulder again. And again, Dokuga doesn’t shrug it away even though he wants to. “Have you—do you know which you’d rather do?”
“What?”
“You know.” He nods at them again. “Haru’s looking at your blood—”
“I said I’m going to kill Mayfly. I’m not having sex with some stranger.”
“What if—”
“Dokuga!” Kasukabe comes striding over with his notebook in hand and cuts Tetsujo off. Dokuga glances up at him and frowns when he sees the flush across his cheeks. He doesn’t know what he was going to say but he suspects it was probably something along the lines of: what if I came with you to kill her?
He couldn’t let him. He couldn’t risk that he’d get hit as well. If Tetsujo fell down in the middle of a fight with that dizziness and nausea then they’d be done for. Dokuga would help him – he’d have to – and Mayfly would escape again. No, he thinks. He has to do this alone.
“Results are in!” Haru announces.
“Well?” asks Dokuga with a sigh. Tetsujo squeezes his shoulder but Dokuga finds that he isn’t even anxious. He isn’t going to do it either way. Fucking, getting fucked – it makes no difference to him because when he tries to imagine it, all he can picture is the shadow of some faceless entity.
Maybe it wouldn’t bother him so much if he’d done it before. Maybe if he’d found the time when he was younger between the long days of collecting heads and dealing powder to let himself experience more than just thoughts of desire then he’d be able to think about some stranger’s cock in his ass with excitement instead of dread. He doesn’t know if he’s ever imagined what his first time would be like but he’s pretty sure he never pictured this.
“So, Dokuga,” Haru says brightly, her hands on her hips and a smile on her face. “It looks like Mayfly wants you to be the one getting fucked. Congratulations.”
“Great,” Dokuga says blankly. It doesn’t matter. “So, Professor—” he turns to Kasukabe, “can I borrow your door?”
“Dokuga—” Tetsujo starts, but Dokuga shakes his head.
“I’m not doing it,” he says to Kasukabe. “I need to borrow your door.”
Kasukabe winces and shares a glance with Haru. “I don’t think you can kill her, Dokuga.”
“You can’t.” Haru’s voice is blunt and the smile drops from her face. “She’ll be hiding after your fight. There’s no chance in hell that you’ll be able to find her and kill her in twenty-four hours. If you do somehow manage to find her, then she’ll just escape through a door and she’ll go to Beach.” Haru points at her devil body, still standing in the corner like some kind of uncanny taxidermy display. Dokuga’s gaze drifts from the spiked antlers on the head to the taloned fingers and he remembers Nikaido telling them about her disastrous fight with Haru in the Central Department Store. “Beach won’t let you kill her. Devils like Mayfly’s power because it’s funny. She’s more use to Beach alive than she ever could be dead.”
Tetsujo gives his shoulder another squeeze and this time Dokuga does wrench away, standing up and willing the blush to disappear from his cheeks. He can almost hear Mayfly’s triumphant cackle when she’d hit him. She’d seen how fast he was and she’d known he was going to push Tetsujo out of the way. He wishes he could turn back time and listen to Kasukabe when he’d warned Dokuga and Nikaido about her so he would’ve known what he was in for.
“Haru,” Tetsujo says, and even though he’s trying to keep his voice level Dokuga can hear the nervousness beneath, “what are you saying?”
“I know what she’s saying.” Dokuga clenches his fists and he can feel his heart sink. He can’t bring himself to look at Tetsujo and see that pity in his eye, so instead he looks over at that corpse floating in the blue glow of the glass tube. “She’s saying that I don’t have a choice. Right, Haru?”
“That’s right.” She catches Dokuga’s eye and grins, completely devoid of any sympathy. Not that he was expecting it. “You get fucked, or you die.”