He emerged from the tangle of steel and saw at once that something was wrong. Quanxi was kneeling in the middle of the factory floor, clutching an unconscious Minami. Kishibe hurried up to them. “She breathing?”
“Yes, but … I was lax.”
Blood glistened on Minami’s abdomen. Not enough to be immediately fatal. Quanxi must have stopped the attacker before it could stab any deeper. It looked like Minami had passed out from the shock more than the injury. But Kishibe sensed this was cold comfort to his partner.
The factory echoed with maniacal laughter, bouncing from one direction then another. Ah ha ha. Ah ha ha. Ah ha ha.
“We got her. We got her!”
“The girl was so trusting. Simple to deceive.”
The devil was jumping from mannequin to mannequin, mocking them. The taunts came from every direction until they swirled into a hideous miasma of noise.
“Humans fear us!”
“They say it’s our blank faces.”
“Such fun! But we want to change.”
“We can change.”
“So we shall! Let’s change into the people who touch us!”
“Take their faces. Take their thoughts.”
Kishibe’s brow furrowed. “You can read people’s minds?”
“The one-eyed woman. The unshaven man. Strong. Something wrong in their heads. Hard to tell what they’re thinking.”
“But the other one, the young woman. Weak. Earnest. Easy to read.” One of the mannequins pointed at Minami where she lay in Quanxi’s arms, then turned slowly to point at Kishibe. “She’s in love with the unshaven man.”
“I’m sorry—what?” Kishibe burst out.
The mannequins ignored him and chattered on. “She was attacked by a devil once. The unshaven man saved her. Love at first sight.”
“She wanted to see him again. Couldn’t sleep. Decided to join Public Safety. Worked very hard. Got in.”
“She wanted to be assigned to him. But what a shame! He’s not taking on students.”
“Decided to ask for the one-eyed woman instead.”
“Partners. They are partners. She will see much of her savior, the unshaven man.”
“She lets her guard down before him. She will be easy to deceive. She was easy to deceive.”
“Loyal. Earnest. Easy to read. Easy to kill.”
Kishibe found himself struck dumb. Minami had joined Public Safety because she’d been saved … by him? He’d had no idea. He’d fought too many devils to remember every person he had rescued. It would’ve been a challenge even if he hadn’t spent the years killing his memories with alcohol.
But Minami had said it when they’d met, hadn’t she? That it had “been much too long.”
The revelation stopped Kishibe in his tracks, if only for a brief moment. Quanxi had feelings for Minami, but Minami had feelings for him. And he’d spent all his time with them trying to get in Quanxi’s pants. A perfect love triangle. No … a perfect failure to communicate.
Kishibe locked eyes with Quanxi. Something impossible to describe passed between them.
“Well, well,” he said. “You gotta laugh, huh?”
Quanxi gently set Minami on the ruined floor. Minami groaned and her eyes fluttered open. She was coming around. Just as well she’d missed hearing her deepest secrets laid bare.
Around them, the chattering grew angry.
“Ahh, we failed to kill her. Better fix that.”
“Time to end this. Yes, let’s end it.”
“The one-eyed woman. Her body is strange. Hard to use.”
“Let’s use the unshaven man, then. Let’s do that.”
“All of us together.”
“All of us at once.”
“You sickos,” Kishibe grunted.
All the mannequins, heaped across the factory floor, began to tremble. There were so many. How many could the devil possess at once? The shivering dummies began to sprout black hair and stubble. In moments, each of them was Kishibe’s spitting image. They even bore the scar at his mouth.
In unison, they began to stagger to their feet. Kishibe discovered he didn’t enjoy seeing hundreds and hundreds of himself shambling toward him.
“Die.”
“You must die.”
“All of you die die die …”
Even the mannequins’ voices sounded like his as their chant rose to a roar. The noise jerked Minami to full consciousness. She screamed at the sight of her own blood and the mob of Kishibe-things closing in on them.
Die die die die die die die die die …
Countless Kishibes intoned the word like a curse as they advanced on the devil hunters. The aura of malice, of murder, was audible; it sounded like insects hissing.
“This is a nightmare,” Quanxi said, affectless as ever. “One of you is bad enough.”
“Gimme a break,” said Kishibe.
Quanxi sank to a crouch and put a hand on the hilt of her sword. A chuckle arose from the mob.
“She would fight?”
“It’s futile.”
“One-eyed woman strong. Still doomed.”
“There are so many of us.”
“There are too many of us.”
“If.”
“Just if.”
“You could defeat all of us.”
“Would you dare?”
“What if you kill the wrong one? The real one?”
Good question, Kishibe thought. The factory was crawling with his doppelgangers. If Quanxi started indiscriminately attacking every Kishibe in the place, it would be all too easy for him to join the pile of bodies. She wouldn’t take that risk.
No, that was a deeply mistaken assumption, Kishibe knew. Of course she would. In the time he’d spared on the thought, she’d already drawn her sword and vanished from his side.
A dark shadow slashed across the factory, not even sound giving it away. The only sign of Quanxi’s movements was a series of dark footprints, barely noticeable, across the floors and walls. Sound followed only after, amid the tempest of wind that slammed into everyone and everything in the vicinity.
The contest was settled with the first move. Dozens of heads flew into the air, each one bearing Kishibe’s face. The decapitated mannequins stood dumbly, as if not even realizing they’d been beheaded, before crumpling belatedly to the ground. The only ones left standing were Quanxi and the real Kishibe.