Aki slammed the door shut and braced it with his feet. On the other side, the fiend pounded on the door so hard Aki could feel the blows through his entire body. Himeno shoved a cabinet full of tableware across the room to use as a blockade.
Aki drove his sword through the door. He didn’t feel an impact on the other side. The fiend must have dodged. Its response came in the form of black arrowheads that burst through the door like nails from a nail gun. Aki twisted out of the way. Himeno thrust out her right arm, directing a phantom punch past the door. There was a yelp as she connected. The fiend must have gotten back on its feet, though, because a bevy of arrows rammed the door with the speed of a machine gun round.
Aki stabbed; Himeno punched; arrows fired. It seemed to go on forever. Only a door stood between the two sides, but since neither could see their target, neither side’s accuracy was very good. With each exchange, the wood of the door strained and splintered. The building was old to begin with, and it wasn’t built for a fight like this. Himeno gave the cabinet another shove, blocking the door entirely. As far as defensive structures went, it didn’t instill much confidence. The cabinet shook under each blow from the fiend, sending plates shattering on the ground.
“I feel bad for whoever lives here. And for myself. This is gonna mean extra paperwork.” Himeno patted Aki on the back. “No crying over spilled plates, though. Aki, fall back.”
“Excuse me?”
“I’ll handle this. Somehow.”
The blockade was only delaying the inevitable. To end this, they had to get line of sight on their adversary—which meant giving it line of sight on them. It’d be better if they were able to move first.
Unfortunately, the fiend was still armed with its brace of crossbows. Himeno wouldn’t be able to pin both of its arms with her single ghost hand. One would always be free to shoot. She could ignore the weapons and go straight for its throat, or try to land a single, fatal blow to its heart. But if it took her more than an instant, she’d be riddled with arrows. In these tight quarters, there would be no way to avoid them.
Aki could see only one solution—to win this, they’d have to work together. He braced his shoulder against the quaking cabinet and sucked in a large breath. “I’ll pin it down. Then you can do … whatever it is you’re going to do.”
“No. You’re still new at this, Aki. You’ll only get yourself killed!” Himeno’s normally flip tone was replaced by something tinged with panic. She grabbed his free shoulder with all the strength of a hunter who had buried her fifth partner just two weeks ago.
Aki placed his hand over hers and gently pried it away. “Yeah, I’m new at this. But I’m your partner.”
“Aki …”
“Let’s do this!” He pressed his back to the doorframe and kicked the cabinet aside. With the weight gone, the half-demolished door flew open. He could sense the fiend, close enough to touch, but he resisted the urge to lash out with his sword. If he missed his mark by even an inch, he’d make himself a target. His job was to immobilize the enemy long enough for his partner to strike.
Calmly, now. Steady breath. Focus.
The instant the fiend entered the room, Aki’s hand snapped out and grabbed its right arm. Not missing a beat, the fiend raised the crossbow in its left hand. But Aki was just as quick. With his free hand, he grabbed the fiend’s left wrist. Now both crossbows were neutralized.
Himeno didn’t waste the chance to wrap her ghost hand around the fiend’s neck. It screamed in agony. Now that they had it literally by the throat, victory seemed assured.
Then Aki’s eyes went wide. As the fiend screamed, a cruel black arrow appeared in its throat.
“Aki!” Himeno shouted.
“Forget about me! Finish it!”
She had to strike. There wouldn’t be a second chance.
An invisible fist wrung the fiend’s neck like a dishtowel. In a final burst of spite, the creature spat the arrow from its throat. It slammed into Aki’s chest with a thock. The monster’s death rattle was drowned out by Himeno’s scream.
“Aki … Aki!”
“I … I’m all right,” he whispered. “I will … not … die!” It was the last thing he said before he blacked out.
When he came to, he could feel the scratch of old tatami flooring under his head. “I’m … alive?” Himeno was looking down at him. When she saw him open his eyes, she almost collapsed with relief.
Aki glanced around the room from his position on the floor. Shards of broken china were everywhere. The fiend’s headless corpse lay in the hallway. Outside the window, the twilight had deepened. He found a clock and discovered he’d been unconscious for about fifteen minutes.
“I told you I wouldn’t die.”
“The arrow hit you, didn’t it?” Himeno asked.
“Yeah.”
“I don’t see it anywhere.”
“I figured as much.” Himeno shot him a questioning look. He tried to marshal enough of his wits to explain. “I thought there was something funny about the fiend’s pattern.”
“How do you mean?”
“In every attack, there was a survivor. At first I thought it was dumb luck, or the fiend was sloppy. Until you pointed out how precise the rest of its behavior was. Attacking every other day, working its way up the building floor by floor, starting from the first apartment each time. Anal-retentive, right? Didn’t seem like the type that would rely on luck or miss its shots. So I thought maybe the survivors weren’t a mistake. Maybe they were just what the fiend wanted.”
Himeno said nothing, silently urging him to continue.
“You said it yourself,” Aki commented. “It’s easier to plan if you know what kind of fiend you’re dealing with. So I went back over what happened in those attacks.”
In the first incident, the woman who had been shot first survived and the rest of her family was killed. In the second, the wife died while her husband, the second target, survived. The third case involved a student living alone who survived even after seemingly being shot.