Chapter Text
A private jet sliced through the stratosphere, a black needle stitching through a tapestry of winking constellations. Inside, the cabin was a pocket of silent luxury. Aku, reclining in a velvety seat, gazed out the window at the cosmos, his reflection a ghostly superimposition over the stars. A small, rod-like device on the table beside him cast a pale, holographic light, illuminating the face of the High Priestess, who sat in the sterile comfort of her own aircraft many a distance away.
Her voice, reverent as always, crackled through the live feed. “My Lord, you are quite the busy leader these days.”
Aku’s lips curled into a lazy, suave grin. “Of course, dear Azumi. Bet-Azakh was tough, but I managed to secure deals and make agreements with the local populace.” He gestured vaguely at the stars. “They’ll be part of this new world. Willingly.”
The High Priestess bowed her head slightly in the projection, a gesture of absolute deference. “I’m amazed by the amount of effort you put into this, my Lord. I’ve also arranged for the ‘leash’ to be sent your way.”
Aku’s fangs protruded almost imperceptibly. “Oh?”
Azumi’s ruby eyes narrowed. “I’m sending the shard to you, as requested.”
Aku glanced back over his shoulder. In a seat behind his, the Young Priestess was slumped over, her pointed hairdo askew, her chest rising and falling in the gentle rhythm of exhausted sleep.
Turning back to the hologram, Aku’s voice dropped. “Phew. Had to check if she was listening. She isn’t.”
“Perhaps I should have called you at a time that was… more convenient for you,” Azumi said, her mouth pursed with concern.
Aku shrugged, the motion impossibly smooth for his demonic frame. He stroked the beard of cool blue flame that coiled from his chin. “No, no, dear. This is the most convenient moment I’ve had in a while to talk to you.”
A soft, almost grateful smile, rarer than a blue moon touched the Priestess’s lips. “I.. see.”
“So,” Aku said, a light laugh rumbling in his chest, “who’s delivering the precious cargo?”
“A representative of the Woolie race, my lord,” she replied, matter-of-factly.
Aku’s grin returned. “So Scaramouche backed out of it once again?”
The High Priestess’s expression soured, her gaze turning as dark as an overcast thundercloud. “I think you and I agree that his unreliability has become a liability.
The joints in Aku’s hands made a sound like creaking floorboards as he flexed his claws. “Azumi… don’t you remember what I’ve said about the erased timeline?”
She nodded, her expression solemn. “Yes…”
she nodded.
"He spun tales so long they almost sounded believable, that the Samurai had lost his holy sword and his spirit. Only for it to be a lie."
Aku recited the memory with the dramatic flair of a seasoned storyteller, his eyebrows of blue flame clapping with emphasis. “Elementary, my dear Azumi!”
He gazed wistfully out the window again, at the endless sea of stars.
“With our new philosophy of doing things, though…” He paused, letting the thought hang in the sterile air of the jet.
“There will be neither a need for me to kill the Samurai, nor a need to kill Scaramouche. My goals are above them.”
“They can’t comprehend it,” The Priestess agreed, her voice a low hum. “For totally different reasons, yet still similar in the end.”
Aku let out a small yawn. “Well, I’ll leave for now, dear Azumi. Much gratitude for your help.”
“With pleasure, my lord. Goodnight,” she replied, politely covering her own yawn.
“Goodnight.”
Aku pressed a button on the metal rod, and the holographic projection vanished. Alone again, he stared out at the cosmos, his reflection a six-horned silhouette against infinity.
“I should have done this strategy a long time ago, shouldn’t I,” he mused aloud.
“My hubris killed me last time. Not the Woolies, not the Scotsman, not those frivolous ravers. No, not even the foolish Samurai nor… his lover.”
Something, not regret, but cold, analytical acceptance–passed through his eyes, ice cold, yet ironically passionate.
“It was my fault.”
“This time… things will be different.”
In the back of the cabin, Ashi’s eyes were wide open. She hadn’t been asleep for the last few minutes. She kept her body slumped over the armrest, her breathing even, feigning slumber as the words echoed in her mind, a cold knot forming in her stomach.
“The… leash..” she thought, her world tilting on its axis.
“What does… Father mean by that…?”
Beep beep beep.
A sharp, searing heat jabbed at Aoi’s cheek. She let out a choked cry, her body lurching awake.
“AAARGH…”
“I said…” Ami’s voice was a blade in the darkness of the apartment. “WAKE UP.”
Aoi clutched her face, a fresh, angry dark mark already forming on her pale gray skin.
Ami knelt before her, a psychotic grin plastered on her face, the metallic click of a lighter extinguishing plunging the room back into soft, neon-filtered gloom.
“AHAHAHAAHAHAH!!! You’ve slept long enough. For seven years, probably,” Ami cackled, laughter bouncing around in Aoi’s hollow skull.
Aoi, too weak and dreary to fight back, could only hiss. “Fucking hell bitch… WHAT WAS THAT FOR…”
“Don’t die on me, fuckface. In about a few mins we’ve got to go out,” Ami said, ignoring the question entirely.
Propping herself up on her trembling arms, her scruffy black fringe falling over her face, Aoi managed a defiant glare. “So?”
Ami closed the distance in an instant, her fingers tipping Aoi’s chin up, forcing their eyes to meet. “Refusal’s not an option, big, dead sister.”
Aoi’s defiance crumbled. She slumped down, her blackened eyes dull and lifeless. “Urgh…”
Ami cackled again, sauntering over to a wardrobe and pulling out a teal shirt and long dark pants, her blazer from the night before bunched in her other hand. “Shit man. Next time I can't sleep in my underwear coming here. E-877’s filled with bugs.”
Aoi just stared at the shadowy ceiling, saying nothing.
Ami’s pink gaze locked onto her. “Get up, fucker.”
“Let me.. get energy back first...” Aoi’s voice was a dry rattle.
Ami rubbed circles on her brow, brushing a lock of hair from her forehead with an exaggerated sigh. “Fucking hell. Such a serial complainer. Should have left you dead as fuck.”
Aoi muttered under her breath, a curse lost to Ami’s ears.
The pink-eyed cambion, meanwhile, was already focused on her phone, a small smirk playing on her lips.
“Hm. Right, yes. So they’ve located that facility. Shit, why is it so, like on the fringes of E-877 though? Damn…”
Her gaze shifted to her pale, gaunt sister shuffling towards the closet, looking for anything to cover herself with. “Thought you wouldn’t need to stay warm. You’re half dead already!”
Aoi just glared, her black voids staring at Ami, a silent promise of violence in her clenched fist and the sharp gnashing of her teeth. Ami simply twisted her hand lazily and strolled to the apartment’s entrance.
“Alright. Come. Shit. Not at E-273 anymore so gotta make do with this…”
The disgruntled manananggal pulled on a gray hoodie, the fabric as dull and lifeless as her skin.
They walked in silence through the air-conditioned marble halls, past the portraits of Aku—at inaugurations, receiving awards, shaking hands. His eyes seemed to follow them.
“This is just like that time…” Aoi whispered, her mind reeling back.
The memory was a decade old, maybe. Her and Ami, walking down a similar dark hallway in Aku’s central tower, past self-portraits and glass cabinets filled with trophies from subjugated worlds. They’d just been chewed out by their father, maybe from getting into a gang fight in public. Too long ago to remember.
“My wish is for you two to live differently,” Aku had said, dismissing them.
Aoi, hands shoved in the pockets of her blue tracksuit, had a thousand-yard stare. "Let's be honest here, something WILL happen...."
Ami, beside her, swallowed the last bite of a savory pancake. "So? We still get his genes though. All good."
Aoi’s voice was a low hiss. "It's not all good. Do you just accept you're his daughter? Just like that?"
“Meh... I get to eat good stuff like this daily, 24/7 365," Ami had grinned, holding up the empty wrapper. "It's not all bad sis, like look at this hotteok. Good ass shit.”
Aoi had taken a different stairwell, away from her sister. "Yeah. Tell yourself that when he inevitably leaves you for dead.”
“When he inevitably leaves us... all for dead."
Ami’s expression had hardened as she watched her sister disappear. "Haaa. Aoi must be on her period today. As usual."
“Girl… your hair is greasy as fuck.”
Ami’s voice snapped Aoi back to the present. She said nothing, only pulling her hood further over her face.
They descended the massive escalator spiraling around the skyscraper, walking to not waste time dawdling on the machine’s slow pace. Below, the city’s pylons glowed with an intense luminosity, a carpet of neon draped over the buildings and nightlife below.
“Damn. The faith here is pretty high,” Ami observed. “Feels like we should investigate it.”
“I didn’t consent,” Aoi muttered.
Ami shot her a wicked grin. “Do you have the cards?”
Aoi just hung her head.
“Of course not,” Ami cackled.
They reached the brightly lit lobby, and Ami walked up to a man in an official uniform, who was typing away single-handedly at his computer.
“Yo, dude. The valet guy’s here?”
The man simply looked up, nodded once, and returned to his screen.
“Yoohoo, Aoi!” Ami called.
Aoi gritted her teeth, pulling the collar of her hoodie up to hide the gaping, necrotic wound on her neck as she walked past, earning an odd, terrified look from the man at the desk.
Outside in the private car park, an indigo hovercar, steel grate gleaming in the dark, waited.
“Doo… doo doo…”
At the wheel sat a robot. His purple overcoat sat loosely on his metal frame, his black conical hat sat askew, and his teal-blue eyes lit up at the sight of the two.
“Heya Ami! Haven’t seen ya for so long, babe! What’s cooking, good-lookin'?” He reached out and shook her hand.
Ami brushed her bangs from her face.
“Yoooo… Scara, my dude. Nothing’s cooking at the moment. Glad you’re here in E-877. You know the deal we made right? Or..”
She leaned in, her brow furrowing, a wicked glare on her face.
“...has it been wiped from your memory?”
Scaramouche feigned indignation, tapping the wheel of the hovercar.
“Nah, don’t ya worry Ami. I don’t forget things easily! Especially not a deal with someone who treats me so well, babe!”
He beckoned for Ami to get in the front, then his pupils suddenly dilated at the sight of the freakishly gray woman in the hoodie.
His fingers scraped the welded gaps on his head. “Ami babe. Not cool! You didn’t tell me someone else was coming to play! What’s your name…?”
His pointer landed squarely at the zombie, his metal jaw unhinging in horror.
Aoi froze, rigor mortis seeming to recapture her entire body.
Ami cackled. “Ah, nah. That’s just my friend. Siche. She’ll be tagging along with us today. We’ll need to go to the facility.”
“Absolutely, babes!” Scaramouche chirped.
“The hell did she just call me…”
Aoi thought, hanging her head as she slid into the back.
The hovercar sped out of the building, joining the highways that snaked between the obsidian-glass ziggurats and pyramid-like structures of E-877. The streets were luminous yet dull underneath the streetlights, mostly empty save for a few hovercars and other vehicles at this time of the night. The silhouettes of cranes and building equipment loomed overhead, maintenance work on the train lines and skyscrapers adjacent having quieted down for the day. The neon GUI on Scaramouche’s car dashboard showed the time: 3:40am, casting a gentle teal glow over the car.
Aoi, boredom further hollowing her out, phased back into reality, listening to the conversation between her sister and the robot.
“Aku’s recent progress here has been the talk of the town! Literally, of course.”
“Of course,” Ami nodded, folding her arms. “But you and I know it’s all a facade, isn’t it?”
Scaramouche’s bombastic nature seemed to dim for a moment.
“Couldn’t agree more. By the way, Countess, didya know the new hotel might be the site of something big? I wouldn’t know though. It’s all under wraps for me.”
“He tries to hide things from us, but it’s so sloppily concealed, you know?” Ami said, staring out at the skyline.
“Anyone with a brain can see he’s just using it for his own gain.” She paused. “Though… you wouldn’t happen to know the truth of what he’s
really
doing, would you?”
“How curious you are! Doo doo ba bee, I’m just playing, babe,” Scaramouche sang, before his tone shifted. “Doo da doo… I don’t have all the details, woman, nor can I disclose even ten percent of what I know! But…”
He tapped the wheel, chip in his head straining to recall memory.
“Word on the neon grapevine is Lord A’s got half the city worshippin’ his six-horned mug. Can’t walk five paces without someone tryin’ to sell you Aku-branded toothpaste, know what I mean? But hey, that’s progress, baby! Progress and… big ol’ reality-breaking secrets. But don’t look at me, I’m just a humble robot with style for miles and a memory full of jazz, not classified data!”
“So I guess by this logic there should be a big Reality Breaker somewhere below the subterranean tunnels of this city?” Ami asked nonchalantly.
“Yes! Dee dee daa daa dooo…. I’m not so sure where it could be, babe. I may be a robot but there’s limits to what my memory banks can store!”
Ami scratched her nose, cross-legged on the seat, letting out a tiny hum. “Mmm… Yes. It’s a good thing I think I know where we’ll be anyway.”
“Oh right, Countess. Did they notify you about the specifics of this location?”
She shook her head, air-headedly tightening the pounamu around her wrist. “Nah. But I doubt I’ll really need the instructions anyway. Last time I requested, they gave it to me at a busy ass bar instead of just dropping a message on AkuTalk. Was scared I’d get anthrax…” She let out a small laugh.
Scaramouche burst out laughing. “Doo doo doo ba… HAHAHAHA! How old fashioned. The world’s progressing fast, and they’re still acting like deliverymen!”
“Less traceable than electronic means,” Ami said with a smirk. “So I understand why they’d do it.”
In the backseat, all Aoi could muster up was mental static, only able to catch fleeting syllables of whatever the two were talking about.
“Urgh..” She muttered, as softly as she could.
“Fuck my life.”
“Oh, babes,” Scaramouche piped up, “looks like we’re almost here!”
The paved roads and bright lights gave way to overgrown tropical darkness. Hills and mountain ranges, once illuminated, faded into shadow as the glow of the main city slowly trailed off behind them.
The hovercar pulled up to an abandoned facility, half-collapsed, a few lights flickering weakly inside.
“We’re here! Payment please! Doo~ doo doo~”
Ami’s phone screen illuminated her face in the dim light. “Mmm… 800 credits as you requested. Oh, plus 50 as a tip.”
Aoi stepped out, her feet crunching on rocks and gravel, saying nothing.
Scaramouche waved jauntily. “Daaa daa deee~... thank you! Catch ya later, Ami and her weird friend!”
The hovercar sped off, leaving them in the oppressive silence of the jungle.
Ami’s gaze locked onto Aoi’s. “Aha…”
Aoi pulled her hoodie’s collar down from her mouth. “Blah…. Fuck…”
Ami beckoned with a single finger. “Come.”
“I believe I can fix you.”