Momohime liked to think that, despite her tendencies, that she was a very calm girl. Certainly, she was not the kind of woman who would easily lose her temper. In fact, it was quite suspect if she even had a temper in the first place. The office lady would like it very much if she was able to just calmly and peacefully solve any problem that came her way.
Demon Blade was also a woman who considered herself to be calm and collected. However, it was not the sort of calmness that Momohime liked.
The magical girl took one look at the hallway, bulging with people that squished and held together like sardines in a can. To walk through the hallway would be a tight squeeze, even with her admittedly small stature. Thus, the swordswomen came to one simple conclusion: She wouldn't.
With a sigh, she quietly grabbed the office worker in front of her and met their eyes with a bored glare.
They flinched at her sudden grip, "Huh-?!"
"Move." The Magical Girl declared before nonchalantly tossing them behind her.
"H-Hey!" Momohime cried as she watched the poor worker stumble before falling flat on the ground.
"Isn't that a bit mean?!"
"We don't have time for this." Demon Blade responded.
"You could at least stand to be less rude about it."
"Very well." She grabbed the next worker in front of her.
"Please move."
The poor soul didn't have time to respond before he, too, was thrown behind her without even a blink.
"That wasn't what I meant and you know it!"
"Really?"
"Hah… Just… Be gentle about it I guess…"
The magical girl shrugged before continuing her monstrous rampage, brute forcing her way to the front of the line.
"Move."
"Wha-?!"
"Move."
"Who-?!"
"Move."
"Wait-?!"
Eventually when a stack of bodies began to pile behind her, the officer workers began to wise up and quickly parted to the sides of the hallway to get away from the youkai who were tormenting them. No, wait, that was Demon Blade, who was arguably causing more devastation then the monster attacking the building right now.
With light steps she made her way through the sea of tired and terrified office drones until the magical girl came face to face with the hulking suited man who was still messing with the door.
"Ah?" He cried, turning to the sword wielder. "Who are you? Did you come as a representative for some old culture company? I'm really sorry about this but we'd like to keep working with you-"
"Move." Demon Blade simply said.
"...Huh?" The man lifted an eyebrow before squinting, examining the woman. "Wait… How old are you? Fourteen? Sixteen? How'd you get in this building any-"
"Twenty Three. I work here, a few floors up." Demon Blade calmly declared. Her hands gripped tightly on her blade. The magical girl paused before furrling her eyebrows. What was she even doing down here?
"Ah it was um, everybody's looks were kinda, uh, murderous, so I just took a bathroom break away from the floor?"
"Really. Momohime doesn't need to worry about wastes of space like them." The magical girl muttered to herself before she was interrupted by the boss man in front of her.
"You… work here?" There was a pause before the man out a boisterous laughter. "HAHAHA! You work here?! As if I would believe such a shoddy lie! Do you think we'd let some cosplay wearing weirdo into our company?! Besides, even if you did work here…"
An arrogant grin spread across his face and Momohime suddenly had to fight back against both her and Demon Blade's sudden urge to paint the man's face black and blue. "Don't you think it's a bit rude to talk to your superiors like that?"
"Please please don't get me in trouble…" Momohime cried softly in her head.
Demon Blade sighed. "....I'm a Magical Girl. There's a monster here. It's my job to get rid of it?"
"Magical Girl?! There's someone deluded enough in this office to think she's a magical girl?!" The tired office workers all gave awkward glances as they tried not to acknowledge the sight in front of them. "Besides. What Monster!? It's just a building failure, don't use that as an excuse to go mad with delusion!"
"Building… failure?" The office lady in the magical girl mumbled.
"But- But we were just attacked in the bathroom!"
"As expected... none of you can see the youkai." With a sigh Momohime's body stepped forward, giving the man a challenging glare. "I will not repeat this again.
Move."
"Heh." The man stared back. "No."
"Very well. If you insist…" Demon Blade burst into action. Before any of the office workers could register anything, her fist exploded into a gut punch. Without even giving him anytime to pause to catch his breath she felt power course through her knee before delivering a devastating kick that sent the man flying backwards before crashing into the steel door. The arrogant boss let out a final gasp before slumping against the door.
"Did you just?!"
"He's not dead." The magical girl simply announced, walking over to him before checking his body. "Surprisingly tough… Well, with that body it would be weird if he wasn't. No broken bones, just knocked out."
She turned to glance around the room. None of the office workers would meet her eyes, all shivering in fear and huddling inwards towards themselves. Her eyes glanced around before settling on one particular youth from the crowd and without any hesitation she pointed him out from the crowd. "You. Are you new here?"
"U-Um, yes? It's my first day..." He glanced around nervously at his coworkers only to find them starting to shy away from him. "What...what do you need?"
"I'm going to open the door. When I do I want you to carry this man out of the building and get him to safety." Demon Blade declared.
"Why me" He groaned only to jolt and wave his hands desperately. "No! I mean, I'll do it- But-!"
"Hmph. Who do you think I could've chosen? The worker to you left? To your right?" The magical girl let out a bitter laugh. "In this room, you are the only person who is guranteed to not murder him on the way out. I can sense the anger, frustration, and madness behind the dead faces of our
coworkers."
Demon Blade practically spat out the word. An empty silence rang through the air before she continued. "Pathetic. I like the look in your eyes, so as your senpai, allow me to give you some advice. Leave this job and find another while you can. Don't let your soul be stomped down on like the rest of us."
She turned to the door and proceeded to swing her sword in a series of slices too fast for the eye to see. In an instant, what was once a steel barrier crumbled into a series of sliced chunks that hit the drab floor with a series of thumps. "I have opened the door. Do with it what you will."
The magical girl didn't even turn back, simply walking into the darkness that was the stairwell. "...Lights off." She muttered, before cautiously beginning her ascent up the building.
There was something different about the air in the office building. Or maybe it was just something that Momohime hadn't noticed before? All the office workers had rushed downwards towards the bottom of the building, and yet here she was. Practically alone in the dark. For some reason the stairs felt like they were going on forever. An Impossibly long spiral that just went up and up and up.
Well, despite what she could "Feel" Momohime was relegated to sitting backseat in her own mind. Which of course, gave her all the time in the world to think.
"....Hey, Demon Blade." Momohime shyly began, unsure of how many steps it had been at this point.
"About what you said back there-"
The magical girl nodded her head. "Mmh. You're right. I said more than I needed to."
"H-Hey! Don't interrupt me! That wasn't what I was going to say at all!" For once Momohime was glad they shared the same body, she wasn't sure how well she could have handled yelling at the MG after she had done
that to her fellow coworkers.
"It's just… What you said to that man… Is that what you think?"
She had practically spit on the entire company. Slapped the face of everyone who had ever worked there, including Momohime herself.
"My thoughts and yours are one in the same. After all, Momohime Tsukigami is Magical Girl Demon Blade."
"Huh?"
"Tell me, when you looked at that man, was there not some part of you who wanted to say those words? To warn him before it was too late?" Demon Blade elaborated. The office lady fell silent. "I wonder, just who was that message really for? Him or for the you of times long past?"
Momohime paused before thinking back. Back to when she first got a job here in this office.
"You're wrong. On that at least." Because no matter how hard she tried.
"I, I don't remember how I got this job."
The job hunting, the application process, all of it-
She drew a blank.
How did she end up here? What had happened in her life? It was all a blur. Studying at school, then going to college, then getting this job. Momohime didn't know the how or why of anything that had happened in her life. All she knew was that somehow, she had ended up in this office. Working her life away as one of it's faceless little drones. And then that night in the park happened, and here she was.
"...I see." Demon Blade didn't seem to need explanation by what she met. There was a stale pause as Momohime felt the magical girl trying to find something to say. "Then I guess Momohime Tsukigami died a long time ago."
"That's, that's one way to put it I guess." The office lady sighed,
"For most of us, real life isn't that colorful. Only those who have magic seem to live a colorful life. Like you?"
"Hmph. Please, life beyond the Horizon isn't what you can call a li-" The magical girl's walking drew to a halt. Momohime felt her body's eyes widen before Demon Blade suddenly got into a fighting stance. "Tch!"
"W-What's going on?!" If she could, Momohime would be glancing around everywhere. Then again, even if she did have control of her eyes, it wouldn't have helped considering the stairwell was barely lit.
"Can't believe I didn't notice!" Demon Blade cursed before suddenly sprinting up the stairwell. "This building, it's weightless!"
"Weightless?" The last time she heard that term was…
"Wait you don't mean to say we're in dreamland right?!"
"Something close to it!" The magical girl hissed, "The building is being warped by the perceptions of the inhabitants in it. This endless stairwell is just a result of that. Dammit! How much time did we waste here?!"
"Ah, ah!" Momohime practically screamed in her head.
"How do we even get out of here!?"
"Focus your mind! Traveling through weightless spaces won't get you anywhere if you let yourself wander!" Demon Blade instructed, "Try and picture our destination!"
"Where are we going?! I thought we were just heading up!"
"So that's why-!" Her counterpart took a deep breath before letting out an uncharacteristic hiss. "Look decide where we're going and focus on that. It can be anywhere in this building, just
don't stop thinking about it!"
Right. Right. Okay. Where were they going? Um, where was there to go? Uh, bathroom, elevator… AH! She couldn't picture anything! She never paid attention to any of the building before! Momohime had always just gone where she needed to go!
...Where she needed to go? RIGHT! Her office! It was one of the higher floors in the building! Remember remember- Why is this such a blur!? Come on! There's got to be an entrance. Right by the elevator should be-
"AHA!" Momohime yelled triumphantly, holding the mental image of the stair door to her office floor in her mind.
"I've got it pictured! I'll leave it up to you to do the rest!"
"Understood." Demon Blade simply replied before forgoing stairs entirely, jumping on to the sides of the walls and dashing on their surface. "You couldn't have come up with a clearer path?"
"I'm sorry! No one uses the stairs anymore!" The office lady cried,
"I can only picture the exit!"
"That'll have to do." The magical girl climbed up and up and up. It was an infinite spiral of stairs. Born from the monotonous, apathetic, and dull emotions of the workers who practically sacrificed their whole lives to this building.
Momohime knew that if she was just her normal, office lady self, then she wouldn't have been able to escape from this spiral. But with Demon Blade by her side, she could picture the way forward.
And for Demon Blade, that was all she needed.
With a calm breath, Momohime's body slammed the demon blade into the stairway wall. It sunk into the steel like butter, and to Momohime's shock ripples began to splash through the solid surface. A strange feeling, forigen and yet seemingly apart of her burst through her chest, rushing throughout her body and into the Blade.
It vibrated, a feeling of chaos as it's form twisted and writhed in the magical girl's grasp. The magical girl let out a grunt before beginning to run up the stairs once more, the blade creating a tear through the wall like it was merely paper. Behind the wall, was another wall. More older, detailed. Stained.
What it really was.
The energy boiled throughout Momohime's body as Demon Blade suddenly skidded to a halt at a plateau that had decided to manifest itself. There was no exit, but that didn't matter to the magical girl. With a grunt, she swung the Blade in a circular motion. As if merely a piece of fabric, the world around her was seemingly ripped off from the wall until eventually Momohime found herself standing in front of what she internally knew was the door for her floor of the office.
How…? What…?
"Hmph." Demon Blade wiped a rare bead of sweat off of her brow. She glanced at the Blade, and Momohime got the sense that it was growling before it returned to what could only be described as the shape of a Sword. "Needs work."
"What- What was that?" That energy, that power, it was something Momohime had never really felt before.
"Was that the power of that blade?"
"...That was just magic Momohime." Demon Blade replied, "I am a magical girl after all."
"...Oh."
Now she just felt dumb.
Demon Blade ignored the surge of embarrassment coming from her other half, "How close is the roof from this floor?"
"Um, we're on one of the higher floors soooo… relatively close to the roof?" If she could, the office lady would physically knock her head as she tried to recall everything.
"Why?"
"We'll be scaling up the side of the building. We should be safe from falling into a weightless space outside of this building." The magical girl calmly moved to the door that now appeared before her and attempted to push it open. The steel slab barley even budged. "...Tch."
"Is it locked?" Momohime wondered, her thoughts whirling.
"No, the handle isn't resisting… It's more like there's something on the other side blocking it from opening."
"I have a solution."
"Is your solution cutting down the door again?"
"...No." Demon Blade's hands drifted away from the handle of the sword. "I have other means."
Momohime would've blinked if she could.
"L-Like more Magi-"
The
magical girl shuffled a few steps back before bursting into a running charge. With only a short breath she jumped into the air before giving a flying kick that slammed into the door, sending it flying off the hinges with a loud boom echoing through the office hallways. Demon Blade closed her eyes and took a deep breath, her heart racing from the sudden movement.
"...You're doing this on purpose aren't you."
"Of course not. This was simply the most efficient and elegant solution." Momohime's reflection stood up, feeling her counterparts desire. "As a magical girl, everything I do is magical."
"T-That's not what I…" The office lady's reflection faltered before she pouted internally.
"But, but that was totally physical force wasn't it?!"
"Magical Physical Force."
"You know what I mean!"
"You can dream later Momohime. Right now we have a job to… do…" Demon Blade began to open her eyes only to flinch back at the sight of the room in front of her. Plant-like roots practically covered the walls, pulsing in a grotesque rhythms akin to the beat of a heart. They were like the veins of a great beast, clawing and fighting for every inch of the office building they could root themselves into. At the edge of her hearing, the magical girl heard the sounds of low moans and shuffles, there was also a prickly feeling, as if something was watching her. Of course, none of this was what really caught her attention. Instead her gaze was focused on the people the veins had gripped into. They hung upside down, wrinkled and pale, corpse-like figures hung out to dry as casually as one would do the laundry. Blood ran down their legs as the roots sunk into their flesh with teeth-like thorns that pushed deeper and deeper into the ashen flesh. "...Well then."
"Why…" Momohime gasped, and if she could, she might have even cried. However despite the sadness wrenching into her gut, not a single tear left her eyes. The face she felt at that moment was not hers, but the cool gaze of the Magical Girl who had taken hold of her body. No, that wasn't quite right. Demon Blade's face remained seemingly indifferent to the horrific sight in front of her. But Momohime could feel the trace of a frown on her lips, her mouth twitching. Sadness and displeasure boiled into one melting pot and the office lady couldn't tell which emotion belonged to who. Perhaps, like the magical girl insisted, they were all her emotions? Regardless of what the answer was, Momohime was forced to witness the grotesque scene, unable to pull her eyes away.
"Why would someone do this?"
"Youkai are monsters." Demon Blade's eyes scanned the room around her while she talked. "No, there's a bit more nuance to it. Youkai are born to be monsters. They are the creatures that humans create in order to scare and to entertain. Monsters born to be Monsters."
"But in order to come to this world, they have to have a contract right?" Momohime asked,
"Then that means that there's a human behind this… That someone wished for this."
"...Yes, I suppose you're right." The magical girl's eyes grew sharper before she blasted into motion. Her body twisted and turned as the roots around her began to try and chomp down on her like a hungry beasts. Roots from all directions shot towards her, but Demon Blade just kept a cool face as the Blade in her hand began to slice her assailants with ease. Soon the room around her began to recoil as the plants she had dismembered began to wither away into nothingness. Momohime felt her muscles fill with tension before the magical girl gave a dynamic leap through the hallway, her Blade slicing through both the roots and the air itself before she stabbed the roots covering the floor in front of her. As they scurried away from the sudden pain, the swordswoman slammed her feet on to the ground with a thundering boom before quietly taking her sword out of a squirming root. When she looked again a second time, nothing was there. "In that case we need to move as quickly as we can. Whoever called this disaster must've sacrificed a great deal of negative emotions regarding this place."
"B-But what about the people here?" The office lady asked,
"We can't just leave them here like this!"
"Cutting them free would take too long. Wouldn't it be more practical to solve this problem at the source?" Demon Blade countered, "And you can't hide anything from me Momohime. The people here are nothing more than blurred faces to you."
"Nothing more then-" Momohime cut herself off. The words baffled her, especially since they were coming from her own voice. Sure, in some way, Demon Blade was right. If she was being totally honest with herself, she didn't know the names of most of her co-workers. But did that really mean she should just leave them here? People she saw everyday? Ones she had worked with for years? Suffered with under the cruel reality of the modern day?
Suddenly, niggling into her head, a spark clicked and her brain charged into overdrive as one connection suddenly made her heart pound in her chest like it was trying to break free of her ribcage. This was the floor that she worked on… And that meant that everyone she worked with was in this situation… which meant…
In the blurred sea of faces, there was one that was clear for her.
"Chika!" Momohime cried in her head,
"We have to rescue Chika!"
"Grkh!" Demon Blade physically recoiled, clutching her chest as an intense wave of emotion swept the woman off her feet and into a sea of chaos. "C-Calm down Momohime! She'll be fine if we just-"
"No!" Momohime slammed the cage of her own mind and she could feel a headache beginning to form as the magical girl gripped her head and began to cry in agony.
"I can't just abandon her here! I refuse!"
"It's... It's not abandoning he- AHH!" Momohime could no longer see through her eyes as the one controlling her body had to force them shut but she didn't care. She pounded and rattled the inside of her head, doing anything and everything she could in order to make herself known. "S-Stop that!"
"Magical Girl Demon Blade!" The office lady shouted with all the authority she could muster.
"This Momohime demands you rescue Chika!"
"Alright! Alright! I yield!" The swordswoman screamed, her voice filled with pain. "Just make it stop!"
Momohime let out a deep breath before calming down, sitting in the silence of her own head. Despite not moving at all, she still felt completely exhausted. Nevertheless, she could formulate one sentence that encapsulated all of her thoughts.
"...Thank you."
Her reflection sighed. "I really am troublesome."
Chika's body wasn't at her desk. Momohime didn't know where her friend's body was, but it wasn't at her desk. Demon Blade's eyes scanned the office room as if picking apart the pieces to try and find some clue as to where Chika had vanished off to. Everything was in complete disarray, as if all the workers here tried to get up and run away in a hurry. Paperwork was scattered on the floor and desks, desktop monitors were left running with some outright destroyed by the roots, a dripping sound that Momohime couldn't quite pinpoint idly continued in the background, but there was one very important fact that both the office lady and the magical girl realized at the exact same moment.
"She's not here." The magical girl stated as she casually sliced an oncoming roots. "In fact, no one is here."
"I can see that." Momohime replied.
"It's… suspicious in and of itself."
"Suspicious?" Demon Blade quirked an eyebrow, "I apologize, but the only thing I see is an empty room."
"The fact that it's empty is
suspicious." The office lady's brain began to work into overdrive as Demon Blade began to move throughout the room.
"All the bodies we passed by on the way here are clearly visible, but there's nowhere else for the bodies to be."
"The bathrooms maybe?" Demon Blade pointed out, "That's where we were when this all began."
"Maybe, but I doubt that's the case here. Look at the number of desks." Momohime mentally counted the amount of desks that she knew for a fact to be filled. Five, ten, fifteen, twenty, etc. As far as she could remember, this room had about 50 people working in it at any given time.
"We passed by some of them on the way here, but do you really think that all these people went to the bathroom at the same time?"
"From the bodily reactions that I've experienced since you stepped into the night world, I'm surprised those with weight are doing away with waste whenever they can." The swordswoman nodded her head with absolute certainty of her conclusion. Momohime didn't say anything. She really wanted to say something, but she held it in. "What?"
"...U-Um, let's just focus on figuring out what's going on." Was what Momohime chose to respond with. Instead of what she was really feeling, which boiled down to the phrase 'Please don't say stupid things like that again.'
"Hmph. I find that it was a valid observation." The magical girl replied, just in time for Momohime to remember that they were the same person and her real intentions were broadcasted to her regardless of what she actually chose to
say. "But yes, let us move on. You know this location better than me, does anything in particular stand out to you?"
"I-I'm going to need you to look around the whole office a little more…" The swordsman obediently followed Momohime's instructions as the office lady took apart every bit of the view. Roots on the walls. Roots. And more roots. It was hard to find an area that didn't have any roots., but the more Momohime looked the more that a pattern started to emerge. They completely covered the ceiling of the room, but as her eyes trailed down they grew more sparse and when compared to the tightly-knit blanket on the ceiling, the gaps in the roots on the ground stuck out like a sore thumb. That is, except for one location on the ground floor that was covered just as much as the ceiling, as if the youkai was trying to smother something to death. In Demon Blade's eyes, this was just another area that had been covered by roots. But for someone who has worked in this office for years, someone like Momohime, this anomaly was immediately suspicious.
After all, that was the boss's desk.
"Demon Blade." Momohime calmly replied, knowing that the magical girl could feel all the focus she was giving to that desk.
"Head there."
The swordswoman nodded silently. As the drip drip dripping sound echoed throughout the room, Demon Blade's footsteps slammed into the ground like drumbeats. Momohime could feel the conviction in them, it was her own after all, but she wasn't the only one who noticed. The roots on the ground suddenly burst into life, whipping at her, and Momohime could feel the sheer hostility that filled the air that only grew more and more as Demon Blade marched forward. For her part, the magical girl didn't even bother to acknowledge the aggression, slicing and cutting her way through the onslaught of roots akin to an unstoppable force of nature.
And then somebody threw a chair at her and forced her to dodge as the heavy mass slammed into the desk behind her, causing a loud bang as it crashed directly into a monitor next to her, completely wrecking it into a pile of junk. Demon Blade glanced around the room only to see that the roots that weren't attacking her had picked up various office supplies around the room and held them up towards her threateningly.
"Hmph." She didn't give them a second glance, moving her muscles into getting ready to jump. "Make it rain."
Rain it did. Like a storm of bullets everything from chairs to pencils to even a giant sofa was thrown her way, and Demon Blade began to jump, duck, and weave her way through the office room. Her footsteps rained down on the desks as she forced her way through, jumping off the walls and doing flips to avoid the barrage of office supplies, all while calmly using the Sword in her hands to pierce through any barriers in her path. For some reason, what should be less than a minute's walk somehow felt like an eternity as the magical girl pushed to get even one more foot forward. Momohime was pretty sure that this was going to cause the company a whole lot in terms of damages but at the very least, um, at least it couldn't be traced back to her?
With one final shout, Demon Blade brought down a slice and landed directly in front of the bosses desk. For some reason the roots around her grew still, and only the dripping noise filled the silence. She brought her roots forward to the chair, which was completely covered in roots, and it felt like something hissed at her. "Well Momohime?"
"I'm looking…" Like the rest of the roots, it pulsed grotesquely, but there was something off here. The way it wrapped around the chair, it pushed forward just a bit too much. Like it was wrapping around something- No. Like it was wrapping around some
one! "DEMON BLADE!"
"On it." The magical girl replied and her blade blurred into motion, cutting away the roots even as the room physically recoiled in pain. The roots around the chair vanished away into nothingness and the old, aged, withered husk of Momohime's boss revealed itself. Silently, it slumped off the chair and onto the ground. He looked terrible, worse than the bodies they had passed on the way here. He was practically filled with punctures, like some sort of human pincushion, and now that the plugs were gone his body began to spurt out puddles of blood, filling the room with a twisted smell of copper.
"Is… Is he alive?" Momohime hesitantly asked as Demon Blade crouched down to examine the body. She dreaded the answer but also needed to know.
"He's breathing, at least." Her reflection replied, "I can try to stop the blood flow, but the roots may take him back if we just leave him here."
"Oh. Oh Chika…" The office lady hoped her friend was doing alright. Silence filled the room, the only noise between the shuffling of the magical girl's robes was the dripping sound- Wait.
"It's been in the background for a while but… What even is that sound?"
Silently Demon Blade drew her blade and held it forward. There was a drop as something landed on it, and suddenly Momohime felt the Sword writhe in joy as it hungrily began to eat a certain red liquid that had landed on it's edge.
The dots began to connect.
Just where did the roots come from?
From above.
What was the ceiling like?
Covered in roots.
What was covered in roots?
Human bodies.
Then the strange red liquid that made the Muramasa Blade cry out in joy could only be-
"Blood." Momohime gasped, before adrenaline coursed through her veins.
"Demon Blade! They're on-"
"The ceiling!" The magical girl cursed, crouching down before rocketing upward and slicing the roots that existed on the ceiling. As she fell back to the ground, the restraints holding another one of Momohime's coworkers vanished, allowing his body to land on the floor with a thud. Momohime's world narrowed down to a single point. Jump, slice, jump, slice, although her mind wasn't the one who was doing it, she still felt the world turn into a blur of motion. The roots struggled against her but she barely even cared, allowing Demon Blade to do her job while examining every body that fell on to the floor. No, No, No.... It was on the last mass of roots that finally gave way, revealing the sleeping form of her best friend. Demon Blade caught her fellow office lady and gently landed on the ground, placing her on to a nearby desk that had become empty of roots.
"Chika!" The mousey girl cried. Her friend's skin was greyer, with a couple more wrinkles that weren't caused by the stress of overworking this time, but even then, Momohime couldn't help but feel a pang of emotion at how the woman still looked pretty even after being attacked and knocked out like this.
"She's fine." Demon Blade replied, examining the wounds on her body. Idly the magical girl turned away before checking up on the other office workers. "Do you notice something?"
"Um…" Momohime's eyes glanced between the two wounds. it was mostly on their legs, with just a few stab wounds that let blood trickle down. Slowly, lightly. The dots clicked.
"Wait, are you saying-"
"Yes. These are relatively tame wounds compared to what your boss has." The swordswoman gestured to the pool of blood. "I don't think I need to tell you what this implies."
"...Whoever the contractor is, they wanted to harm the boss." Slowly the vague image she had of the contractor began to clear up, bringing their silhouette into view.
"The boss should've been the first one to leave if he saw the ceiling falling apart and yet he was still in his chair. This was sudden, a surprise attack, aimed at him
specifically. He was the one who was specifically harmed, with as many wounds as possible. And the only one who would have such a motive… Would be someone who worked on this floor."
"One of your coworkers." Demon Blade nodded. She glanced around, staring at the remaining roots, the bodies of the victims, Chika, and to nowhere in particular. The swordswoman felt it, that prickly feeling, as if someone was watching her. She laughed. "Hey. Contractor. You can hear me right?"
There was no reply, silence, but she could tell from the twitches of the roots around her that
someone was listening in on her. And if that was the case, she had only one thing to say. "If you touch any of these souls again, I'll be sending yours straight to hell. I'm already heading up to where you are in order to stop this madness, so why don't we make it a duel. A fair challenge. What do you say?"
For a moment nothing occurred, but suddenly one of the landline phones cut through the silence with a sudden ringing noise. Demon Blade calmly walked over to it and picked up the phone, pressing it against her ear. Contrary to her previous experience, the voice Momohime heard on the other end of the phone was cool and collected, answering her with no hint of fear or anger in his voice. "Very well. I'll be waiting."
The phone went dead and the magical girl calmly dropped the receiver onto the desk with little regard for the property. She glanced at herself in the dark reflection of a broken monitor. "So, shall we make our appointment?"
"But how? Aren't the stairs too dangerous to go up?" Momohime asked, only to watch as her body marched on over to the balcony and slammed the glass door open, letting the cool night air slam into her face. Momohime felt her gaze look at the side of the building walls before glancing upwards.
"Wait- You aren't thinking of?!"
Demon Blade only had one reply for her. "I can scale that."
The night air was chillingly cold. This was something Momohime knew to be a fact, as the only time she left to go back to her house was in the early hours of the morning. Normally, her skin would be getting goosebumps, but apparently Magical Girls had no such problems as Demon Blade was completely fine
jumping up the side of the building. Was it magic or something? Momohime could barely feel so much as a chill along their skin as they jumped up balcony to balcony, despite the fact that the only thing that adorned her body was a thin Kimono with some armor.
Really, was this one of the perks of being a magical girl? Her other self was capable of some seemingly superhuman feats, ascending the building in this manner without any fear of falling whatsoever. If Momohime had attempted this, she was pretty sure she would have slipped off the balcony railing and cracked her bones on the streets alone before she could ever manage to jump.
"...I'll be alright if you fall right?" Momohime asked, internally shuddering at the mental image.
"You're going to be fine. Besides," Demon Blade reassured her, taking another leap off the railing, grabbing the balcony above her and beginning to push herself up until she could casually toss herself over the railing and onto the flat surface. She glanced upwards, there wasn't any ceiling above her. "This is going to be the last floor before we get to the contractor."
"Are..." Momohime would've gulped if she had been physically capable of the response,
"Are you ready for this?"
Demon Blade calmly tapped the hilt of her blade. "Are
you ready for this?"
"Y-You know what I mean!"
"I do." The magical girl nodded, preparing herself for the final jump. "After all, something like this isn't enough to scare Momohime Tsukigami."
"Huh-?!" Momohime began, but her body had reacted faster then her own thoughts as the swordswoman cut through the night air, ascending like an eagle as she climbed the mountain of obstacles in front of her before calmly landing on the roof with a light thud.
The rooftop of the building was practically empty. It was a dirty, stained mess with the butts of used cigarettes crunching underneath her feet. Momohime was sure that nobody had gone up here in a long time, not even the janitors hired to clean this building. If this were any other night, the sheer filth that bathed this roof would've been enough to send her away, but this wasn't going to be that night. No, she could see them, the roots that pierced into the ground, the ones that had caused so much pain and suffering today. Demon Blade's eyes followed them upwards, and they all led back to one source.
"Good evening." A man said as he sat on top of the building's generator. Like every other employee of this office, he wore a formal suit, but there was something different about him. He exuded a sense of confidence, even as his face kept a relatively cool expression. His sharp eyes hidden behind a pair of glasses weren't something that Momohime had ever seen before in her fellow employees. He jumped down from where he was sitting and gave the magical girl a polite bow, but this simple act of subservience belied a hidden sense of pressure that made the office lady internally shrink back in fear. "That was quite the impressive entrance you had there. I would've thought you'd taken the stairs."
"Good evening to you as well." Demon Blade bowed politely, gaze never once leaving his eyes. "And I would, if we both didn't know the inherent dangers of being alone in this building."
"Right, right." He nodded, "I must say, I didn't expect to meet a magical girl of all things tonight. Just like that, all the plans I'd laid so carefully over the past week all went up in smoke. Poof. I guess that's just how my life's supposed to go huh?"
"A week?" The swordswoman cocked her eyebrows. "Given my last experience with a youkai contractor, that's a remarkable amount of patience."
"Yes well it wasn't much, I'll admit. I was quite shocked the first day I woke up and realized the power I now had, but my youkai has a… patient style." The man adjusted his glasses. "It wanted to slowly take root into this building, and so I obliged it. It was quite weak at first, so I simply absorbed the energy of those who hung out by themselves. In the dark corners of the office. Whatever was left, of course."
"Now that I think about it…" When she looked back on her memories of work today, she did remember seeing people who looked like they were about to collapse dead.
"...So that was him huh?"
"It must've been quite convenient to be operating in a building where the employees are already at death's door." Demon Blade began to slowly walk closer to the contractor, he didn't budge an inch. "A horrible, horrible convenience, but a convenience nonetheless."
The contractor sighed, glancing away from her. "...Yes. I feel quite guilty about getting them involved, but unfortunately I have already resolved myself. Speaking of, there's one mystery that's still lingering tonight."
His footsteps created a booming sound as he began to walk towards the magical girl. They both stopped, just a few breaths between each other, and Momohime looked up into eyes filled with cold steel. "Just who are you anyways?"
"Pardon me. It was quite rude to begin a conversation without introducing myself." The swordswoman placed a hand to her chest and gave a quick bow with her head. "I am Magical Girl Demon Blade, contractor of the Muramasa Blade. I'd ask if I'd have the honor of knowing who you are, but given the things you've done under the moonlight tonight it wouldn't be much of an honor at all."
"I suppose that's fair." The man stroked his chin, staring into her reflection's eyes. Momohime could see the gears working in his head as he tried to work out if he had seen her before and if the office lady was being honest with herself, she was doing the exact same thing. "Since we're apparently coworkers of this damnable company, I'm just curious to see if you know who I am."
Momohime stared. The blur of faces that was her company once again appeared in her mind. Of course, the chance that they'd met before in this company was slim but if she looked at the clues… He had a grudge against her boss, so he had to have been someone who worked on the same floor as her. But then again, everyone had a grudge against her boss, that barley narrowed it down at all. And that look in his eyes, that determination, for a bunch of corporate slaves, will power was merely a myth. Something that in this world, it's possession would send you straight to hell.
There had to be something else. Maybe a name? Did she and Chika talk about someone this morning? Let's see, she arrived, got tackled by Chika and… Come to think of it someone's name got brought up as well didn't it? And she could distantly link that name to the face of the man the Boss had been tormenting the night she encountered the Youkai. Yes, the more she thought about it, the more the vague image of who this contractor was cleared. As if someone had shown a light into her thought process. The eyes gave off a different feeling, but if she compared the face to the one in her memories then the person who came to mind was-
"Could you be the one known as Satoshi?" Demon Blade asked as Momohime finished that thought. The man in front of her merely sighed and took off his glasses, staring at them with a mixed expression.
"My name…" His face contorted into sheer rage as he crushed the glasses in his hands, the shattering sound sharply cutting through the noise of the city night. "Is not Satoshi!"
"Apologies then." The magical girl indifferently replied in the face of his rage, "It's the only name I know you by."
"It's the only name anyone in this collective shit stain of a company knows me by!" He howled before taking a deep breath and calming down, the anger quickly cooling back into the collected confidence he had before. "But, you are the first one to apologize to me, so I suppose I can let that be. SInce you introduced yourself, allow me to
properly do so as well."
The man known as 'Satoshi' took a few steps away from her and glanced at his body. At the roots connected to his limbs that stretched deep into the office building's many floors. "My name is Sahou Rokuki, and the Youkai I've contracted with is what's known as a Jubokko."
"Jubokko…" Demon Blade tested the name on her tounge before shaking her head. "Never heard of it."
"Whereas I've heard all about that blade in your hands, if what you say is true." The newly introduced Sahou glanced at the Sword. "Though it seems… difficult to capture the essence of one such as that."
"It is merely a Sword, nothing more." Demon Blade moved her body into a stance and began to circle around Sahou. "And I'm sure you know what Swords are for."
"Cutting, slicing… Killing." The contractor of the Jubokko nodded, "I suppose that was what we agreed to do. Though after meeting you I feel it's a shame we couldn't get along a little longer. If you truly worked here, I'm sure you understand my feelings on this whole matter."
In that brief instant, there was no lag between Momohime and Demon Blade. Their thoughts were perfectly in synch, and they gave their response in unison.
"I understand your feelings but… You hurt our friend, so there's no way we're just going to let that go."
"...To think that something as simple as camaraderie could bloom in this accursed building…" Sahou snapped his fingers and the roots on the ground all began to rush back into his body. The man cursed and screamed as he bent over, pain filling his face as his body began to swell. Suddenly, the shirt he was wearing burst open with a loud pop, and- Oh. Oh
my. Bulging rippling abs, muscles that barely fit the clothes that actually remained on his body. It was like he had never missed a day of exercise in his life, starting from when he was born. An adonis, sculpted by the gods themselves. Every breath he took was filled with power, and he soon clenched his fist as the last of the roots retreated into his body. "But I regret to inform you that I'll be taking every last bit of this office to hell with me."
The magical girl's lips twitched. "Do you think of yourself as a martyr?"
The contractor shook his head. "Of course not. This is merely just a grudge. A simple, personal grudge.The only thing I have left in life… By the time the sun rises, nothing shall remain. Me, the walking dead, and the accursed living, even you. All of it will be gone, I swear on my name."
"If that is your oath, then so be it. Now then." The Blade shown in the moonlight. It howled and whistled, sensing the emminante tension about to burst into a grand climax. Momohime could feel the bloodlust born from it's steel, but Demon Blade held it steady while making her declaration. "Our night duel begins."
[] All in. No pain, no fear. His thorns are sharp but your blade is sharper.
[] Light fingers, light feet, light weight. The wind is your guide on this starry night.
[] Write in
Will be bringing my attention back to my quests now that that's done.
AN: Well that was a fucking lie lol. It was shortly after the last update that I officially was just burned out on Quests in general. What you've read above wasn't written by me recently, in fact it's actually been sitting on my hard drive since
Feburary of 2020, back when I decided that I wanted to convert HNB into a story instead. That uh, didn't work out, and anyways I recently started to update more frequently again and I decided to bring this back because hey, it's not like I've been doing any other writing while waiting for votes in my other quest. So I cut out about 6k~ words and that brings us to right now! We're back, hopefully for real this time! Hopefully my writing style hasn't changed too much in the past year or we're all fucked!
Edit: I've actually gone and changed Momohime's last name from Kagami to Tsukigami. Sorry for the confusion.
