Echoes from Beyond

The room became unnaturally quiet as the Fragment's song built up in Sophie's throat.

Everyone stared at her, unable to move as red lines formed on the girl's face.

Aiko shrieked beside Sophie as her Captain's head bloomed, revealing an ever churning flower of broken bone and ripped flesh.

Blood dripped onto the floor.

Then the song began.

An incomprehensible whistling noise pierced the air.

It didn't travel through sound waves.

It directly perforated the mind.

The show had begun. Sophie tilted her head upward, the fleshy tendrils pulsing sickeningly in the open air.

The surroundings changed.

Sayako and her henchmen found themselves standing on a plane of void, stretching as far as their eyes could see, until the line of the orange horizon.

Thousands of enormous eyes blinked in the distance, each several times larger than the sun. Childlike drawings of hearts and stars twinkled across the sky, illuminating everything around them.

And in front of them, they could see the creature that caused this. An eldritch monster in human skin.

Sophie's dress fluttered hypnotically as the unearthly melody filled their minds.

Nothing happened at first.

Then the endless illusions began.

Not even a second passed, but the first victims' minds had already begun to fragment.

The void's silence shattered like glass as a Kurokumo clansman's scream echoed across the plane. The rest of them, broken from their hallucinations, were allowed to see what fate awaited them.

"No! I'm innocent-!" The man opened his mouth one last time, his eyes bloodshot and deranged.

His skin turned into shards of light, peeling away piece by piece to reveal a hideous black husk underneath.

What lied beneath was grainy and black, twisted into horrid, elongated shapes. The true shape of a soul.

Merely a glance could cause an ordinary being's sanity to fragment.

Sunken holes surfaced all over the man's body, the holes caused by raving insanity. They punched into the man's body, oozing liquid despair.

Its last movements finally ceased. It became a standing remnant of a man's distorted emotions.

Before Sayako was pulled back into her childhood memories, it whistled.

It whistled. It whistled. The twisted mannequin connected with the Fragment's song. The wind blowing over the dozens of smooth holes on its body added another instrument to the melody. An even more disharmonic melody.

The black husk raised its head. Thousands of bloodshot eyes pulsed above it.

Sacrifice, Sacrifice, Sacrifice.

The Universe awaits.

The tendrils of Sophie's skull opened and bloomed yet again.

Sayako trembled, fading back into the sea of hallucination.

A sword was placed in her hand, fit for a young girl to wield. She was young once; she was innocent once. And this was a memory she once knew.

"Now, just like that... Follow my hand now." A shadowy figure guided her arm.

Sayako trembled.

The shadow released its grip, allowing her to do the work.

In front of Sayako was her mother's gasping body.

In front of Sayako was her mother's skinned flesh.

In front of Sayako was Sottocapo Kalo's test.

The shadow's maw drew into a grin. It was a sadistic grin which sealed her mother's fate.

"I-I... I don't wanna be a Capo anymore!!" Her past self screamed, babbling in terror. She was only seven.

The shadow's grin faltered, if only for a second.

Then her mother's head was gone. The body fell to the floor with a soft thud.

"What a waste of my time." As Kalo's cold voice rang behind her, Sayako raised her head to cry. The smoke clogged sky had grown thousands of bloodshot eyes. They blinked at her.

Judgement, Judgement, Judgement.

The Universe waits.

As you slowly turn insane.

...

Pete and Mangchi had gotten out of their bonds with the help of Aiko. They stared in horror as their Captain swayed amidst the eerie ritual. All the Kurokumo men were staring into the air, their gazes blank.

"A-Another one!" Aiko pointed to a man in front of her, whose skin began to melt away. Now there were seven black husks, their heads unnaturally twisted to the sky.

The air was filled with whistles now. Although the noise was unsettling, Aiko and the others still had their grip on reality, unlike the Kurokumo clansmen.

A minute passed. Now there were thirteen husks. Aiko whimpered behind Pete, covering her ears as the piercing noise became unbearable.

"Pete, Captain's scary! Is she really a...? W-We have to run!"

Mangchi shushed Aiko as another man succumbed, becoming the fourteenth whistle for the universe's song. Now there was only one person left alive. Sayako, the Dark Cloud Blade. Her title was not merely for show.

Fifteen seconds passed.

Sayako's hand peeled away, revealing a hideous black claw underneath.

Before her arm's skin completely disintegrated, the Fragment's song abruptly ended. The husks stopped leaking unidentifiable liquid, and along with it, they ceased their horrid, grating whistles.

The shells simply stood there, with twisted limbs and sunken holes in their flesh. They were humanoid sculptures of terror induced madness.

Sophie's face closed, reverting to its emotionless beauty. But considering what just happened, Pete and Mangchi had no time to appreciate it.

Mangchi was unsettled. Pete trembled with fright. Aiko had fainted.

Sayako croaked as she fell onto the ground, finally released from the years of torment she experienced in her mind.

Asher gained much respect from his Fixers, in exchange for their fear. Whatever comradery they had before had given way to near reverential terror.

"Captain. What should we do with her? And the husks?" Mangchi bowed, not daring to ask his Captain about her identity. They were lucky to be alive, lucky to have taken Sophie's death threat seriously, back when they were saved from Pierre's Bistro.

Because Mangchi knew that the wretched husks in front of him could have very easily been them if they got on his Captain's bad side.

Asher looked at his Fixers and sighed regretfully. The only way the four of them could have survived was if he used the [Echoes from Beyond], but it seemed like Pete and the others were traumatized by it.

He could understand that. Seeing Sophie's head split apart into writhing tentacles of flesh would be terrifying to anyone.

What surprised him most was how Mangchi reacted to all of this. Compared to Aiko, who was just now coming to her senses, and Pete, who couldn't stand up because of the cramps in his legs, Mangchi was comparatively calm. A bit shaken, but the boy could still talk normally.

"Do not do anything to the husks for now. Bring Sayako to me."

As Mangchi saluted, Asher had a gut feeling that the boy's demeanor wasn't only due to the fact that he was the oldest, or the most mature. He believed the dark-skinned teen had past experience with situations like these.

His guess was confirmed when Mangchi gingerly stepped past the husks, not making eye contact with any of them. The Fixer dragged Sayako's body to him with caution, careful not to touch any of the strange, black flesh.

"Captain. May I attend to my companions?"

Only when Asher nodded his head did Mangchi turn back to his friends. Aiko shuddered as her pants developed a wet stain. Pete leaned on the wall, a spot on the ground beside him revealing where he threw up.

The three of them conversed in hushed tones, leaving Asher to the corner, nearly forgotten. He didn't tune into their conversation, but every once in a while, Aiko would yelp in panic, or Pete would glance furtively at his expression.

After a few minutes, Aiko stood up shakily, with Pete's jacket wrapped around her waist to hide the wet spot on her tattered jeans.

"Captain... are you really a Proxy?" She ignored Mangchi as he whispered a warning, trying to pull her back down.

Asher pondered for a second. No way he could keep the disguise any longer. Besides, Aiko's face told him that if he said yes, her mind might not be able to handle it.

So he shook his head.

"No. I had to disguise myself as one for other reasons in the past. Besides, each Proxy is practically a Star. I do not know how many hundreds of times more powerful they are compared to I."

Hearing their Captain's explanation, even Mangchi couldn't help but shudder. It was a vast world out there, and their Captain was still only a slightly bigger frog in the proverbial well. How could she even be compared to the sun beating down overhead, or the cobbled stones that constituted the well itself?

The three Fixers' thoughts were broken by a pitiful croak below.

Sayako gasped, trembling as she opened her eyes. Sophie sat on top of her stomach, peering down at her face. The woman's eastern hairbun had unraveled itself; her hair sprawled on the floor with disheveled seductiveness.

But her expression broke the passionate illusion.

In the corner of her vision, Sayako could see the two boys who she tied up and threatened with death.

"No, please! Don't kill me! I'll never do it again!" She extended her arm toward them, only to be shocked senseless as a hideous claw had replaced where her hand and wrist once was.

Glancing at the other husks around her, she began to sob.

Asher noticed that none of the husks had as grotesque of an appearance as Sayako's claw did. She had suffered much more than her men had. It was only through sheer willpower that she prevented the Fragment's spread to only her hand.

Asher had decided. He motioned toward his Fixers, stepping away from the weeping body below him.

"The fairest way. These three will decide whether you live or die. Isn't this fair, Dark Cloud Blade?"

Sayako nodded her head in resignation. All three would want her dead, she knew. The monster in human skin was merely prolonging her death. But wasn't that what she deserved, after causing the deaths of so many people? When her naïve childhood dream was to become a Capo, wasn't she the one who ultimately caused her mother's death?

So Sayako closed her eyes.

Aiko was the first to speak. Sayako's pitiful appearance had no effect on Aiko's hatred towards the woman who nearly killed her friends.

"She should die. There's no," she looked at Pete and Mangchi for confirmation, "-excuse for holding my friends hostage and almost killing them. How would you feel if your family was treated like that, huh?"

Sayako flinched. She had no family left in this terrible, cruel world. All that was left of her blood relations was hatred. She got onto her knees, silently begging them to spare her life.

Pete stepped up. He had hesitated at first, but now his decision was clear.

"Yes. If we don't get rid of her now, who knows when she will take revenge on Captain if she gets the chance to?"

Sayako made a strangled noise at the back of her throat. So this was it. She made one last desperate attempt to convince the Fixer Captain, though she knew it would be useless.

"Please... Please!" She shrieked, crawling towards Asher as he broke off a rusty metal rod from the building's foundation.

"Do not worry. I have considered your opinion. Your death will be quick, and most painless. I will bear some suffering for your sake."

Sayako looked into the girl's emotionless eyes. Yes, this was the best end for her. Sayako stopped struggling, trembling to her feet one last time to face her executioner. She lowered her head.

"One." Sophie's monotone voice rang like a bell's toll. Sayako flinched as the metal rod touched her shoulder gently.

"Two." Another tap on the shoulder. What was happening?

"Three." Asher stared into the woman's eyes. It seemed like she could sense it as well.

The next time Asher spoke, she would die.

But before he could raise his hand for the finishing blow, Mangchi gripped his wrist, holding his Captain back.

"Forgive me, Captain. I have not yet given my input."