My Scourge Wife can't be this Cute

Chapter 7: Night closes in

Hashira laughed, very softly.

The sound was light as wind crossing the surface of a still lake, and it eased the tension in the room by just a fraction. "No. I am only a little surprised." She paused, her gaze moving briefly over the firm line of his arm where the short sleeve left it visible. "Though... you look more like an ordinary young man this way."

"I am an ordinary young man." Hikaru replied, then scanned the room once more. "Just having a somewhat unfortunate evening."

Hashira walked slowly toward the edge of the bed, but the smile at her lips did not last.

It changed too quickly.

Quickly enough that Hikaru caught it at once.

Her already pale face lost another few shades of color. Not the pallor of fear. More like someone had just drawn a portion of the blood and warmth out of her body without touching it. The deep red of her lips faded visibly.

She stopped mid-step, fingers closing unconsciously around the front of her sleeping robe. "Cold..."

Barely audible.

But Hikaru heard it with perfect clarity.

He frowned immediately.

Not blood.

Yang energy.

Hashira's Yang energy was being drained.

He was already moving toward her when her body shuddered. Her slender shoulders drew inward, her fingertips ice-cold as she pressed them against her own arms, as though the chill had driven straight through to bone in the span of a few short breaths.

"Hashira." Hikaru crossed the room quickly.

She raised her face and looked at him.

In those eyes that always held warmth alongside something cold and sharp, real panic showed for the first time, and she could not hide it. "I... it's so cold..."

The words left her mouth, and then, as though raw survival instinct had overridden every layer of pride and composure she possessed, Hashira stepped forward and held onto him.

Her body was very soft.

And very cold.

Cold enough that Hikaru could almost feel the Yin Energy wrapped around her through the layer of fabric between them. Her arms went around his waist, pulling tight with almost no space between them. The thin sleeping robe pressed against him, and through it he was made entirely too aware of every curve of the figure pressing against his chest: the warmth at the surface of her skin, the unnatural cold underneath, the fullness of her against him through one layer of cloth. Her breathing had gone uneven, each exhale short and quick, carrying with it the faint scent of agarwood and camellia.

Hikaru went rigid for one instant.

Then forced himself back to clarity immediately.

This was not the moment for that.

Although... his face had, in fact, gone slightly warm.

"Hashira-san. Let go a little." He kept his voice low.

"No..." She shook her head, barely perceptible, her voice trembling. Her hands tightened. "Don't leave me..."

She was genuinely frightened.

Not the woman who commanded the largest shipping network in northern Japonia. Not the person with the gentle smile and something blade-like kept hidden behind it. Right now Hashira was nothing more than a small bird shaken senseless by a storm, and the only instinct left to her was to hold onto something warm.

Hikaru set his jaw, reaching to steady her, and then the soul-tracing bell hanging at the head of the bed began to ring.

Not a gentle ring.

A frantic one.

Clang clang clang clang!

The sharp sound tore through the room's stillness.

Immediately after, a heavy impact hit the far side of the bedroom door.

Then another.

BOOM!

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

Like something throwing the full weight of its body against the wood repeatedly.

At the same moment, from behind the curtained window, a dry and continuous sound erupted.

Ketch... ketch... ketch... ketch...

Fingernails.

Countless fingernails dragging slowly down the glass.

The sound went on and on, overlapping, broken in places but relentless, as though there was not one thing outside pressing against the window but many, each one drawing long, cold lines down the surface of the glass.

Hashira flinched violently, her whole body shaking as she pressed herself deeper into Hikaru's chest. Her breathing turned ragged, her fingers clutching the back of his shirt until her knuckles went white. "What is that... what is that..."

Hikaru did not answer immediately.

Because he had already seen.

The Yin Energy inside the room was surging.

Not from any one direction.

From all four at once.

From beneath the gap under the door.

From outside the window.

From the dark corners of the room.

Thin black tendrils, fine as wet hair, crept outward slowly, spreading across the floor, up the legs of the bed frame, along the feet of the furniture like starving things dragging themselves forward.

And then, directly in front of him, across from the wide bed, the black shadow he had seen standing behind Hashira during the day began to take shape.

Nakamoto.

Or more precisely, the Wraith that had once been Nakamoto.

Its form was still tall, still warped, still black as pooled ink. What served as a face shuddered violently, like water surface struck with a stone again and again. The split where its mouth should have been opened slowly, widening all the way to where a jaw would have been. The Resentful Energy on it tonight was far heavier than it had been during the day, dense enough to be visible with the naked eye.

But what made Hikaru's neck go cold was not only Nakamoto.

It was what stood behind him.

In the dark outside the glass. In the thin gap beneath the door. In all four corners where the ceiling met the walls. Other dark shapes were gathering.

Some had human outlines.

Some were nothing but a single arm, disproportionately long, with fingernails like blades.

Some pressed flat against the glass from outside, faces mashed against the surface as though crushed from the other side, eyes nothing but two lightless holes.

Some had no legs at all, hanging in mid-air with long black hair hanging down around them like old webs.

Not one Wraith.

Many.

A great many Wraiths converging on this place.

The lavish bedroom had become, in the span of minutes, a dark hollow saturated with Yin Energy and unbearable sound. The pounding at the door was more frenzied now, powerful enough to rattle the entire door in its frame. Through the window, the layered scratching of countless nails on glass went on and on without pause, turning the scalp numb.

What was left of Hashira's composure had almost entirely collapsed.

"Onmyoji..." Her voice came out faint, smaller than he had ever heard it. "Hikaru..."

It was the first time she had called him by name.

No more formal address.

No more "sama."

Only that one trembling sound forced out by instinct when a person has been frightened past every layer of self-possession.

Hikaru drew a long breath. His left hand closed around her shoulder to keep her upright, and his eyes went cold, degree by degree.

This was the kind of confrontation no other Onmyoji could approach in the same way.

Not because he preferred using his fists.

Because he was capable of it.

Years ago, Miyuki had told him: the Yin-Yang Fate within him did not only make him more attuned to the spirit realm than ordinary people. It also allowed him, within a specific and limited range, to cross the boundary between the physical and the incorporeal.

In other words...

He could make contact with Wraiths through physical force.

This was something most Onmyoji would consider entirely unreasonable. For anyone else, a Wraith was without form or substance, something that could only be countered through talismans, barrier seals, ritual implements, and technique. But for Hikaru, when the Yin-Yang Fate was properly activated, his fist could function as a ritual implement in its own right.

It was his most distinctive approach to combat.

Also his most unorthodox.

With one arm still steadying Hashira, his other hand moved quickly to the space at his side, and he called on the System silently.

A long strip of white cloth appeared in his hand immediately.

It was wide, and soft, but its surface was covered with interlocking characters written in gold and black, as though passages of Talisman Script had been compressed and pressed directly into the weave of the fabric. In the unsteady light of the room, it gave off a faint glow that was both strange and quietly imposing.

Hashira was still holding onto him. She may have sensed something had appeared, but her mind at this point was completely overrun by fear. "What are you... what are you going to do..."

Hikaru kept his eyes fixed on Nakamoto's Wraith, which was taking one slow step toward the bed at a time. His voice came out very low, very even. "Fight."

Hashira went completely still for a moment.

Perhaps she had not misheard.

But precisely because she had heard clearly, she found it even harder to believe.

Hikaru did not elaborate. He moved her gently behind him, far enough that she could still grip the back of his shirt but without blocking his arms. "Stay behind me. Don't let go of my shirt. Whatever you see or hear, do not run."

Hashira's fingers locked onto his shirt and she nodded, almost purely by reflex.

Hikaru began winding the white cloth around his right fist.

One wrap.

Two.

Three.

The cloth tightened around his knuckles, the back of his hand, and his wrist like a second layer of skin. The gold and black script on the surface began to grow brighter one increment at a time, reflecting against the lines of his wrist and forearm. With each additional wrap, Hikaru felt a current of energy, half-hot, half-cold, the push and pull of Yin and Yang within him, moving slowly down to concentrate in his fist.

Outside the door, the impacts came faster now.

The dark wood shuddered with each blow, the hinges producing sounds like something under extreme stress.

The glass of the left window cracked.

A thin line, splitting across the surface.

Ketch...

A black hand with fingernails long as blades crept slowly through the crack and curled around the window frame.

Hashira made a small, broken sound and pressed herself tighter against Hikaru's back.

He finished the last wrap and closed his right hand.

The cloth gave a quiet snap, as though something inside it had pulled taut.

Nakamoto stood across from the bed. The distorted black opening of its mouth spread wider. From within that gap, a voice came: hoarse, broken, caught somewhere between a curse and a lament.

"Hashira... liar... kill... must kill..."

Outside the door, groaning sounds layered over one another.

Through the window, the warped shapes of countless figures pressed closer, their faces plastering themselves against the glass like dark mud being crushed flat.

The entire room was encircled now.

Wraiths closing in from every direction, filling every pocket of shadow, as though the whole night, the whole mountain, the whole villa had become their nest.

Hikaru stepped forward by half a pace.

Hashira behind him was nearly pressed against his back, both hands still clutching the hem of his shirt without releasing. Her body was ice-cold, trembling in waves. A woman who commanded the heights of economic power in northern Japonia, who directed the movement of countless people, before whom the business world stepped carefully: she was now frightened to the point where all she could do was shelter behind him like a small bird beaten raw by hail.

But Hikaru did not find it contemptible.

Because when a person truly faces something beyond the limits of reason, every status, every authority, and every layer of pride becomes meaningless.

What remains is only the instinct to survive.

And right now, he was the only thing standing between her and the dark pressing in.

Hikaru tilted his head very slightly. His voice came out cold and low. "Hold on tight."

Hashira tightened her grip immediately.

Outside the door, a crack rang out. The lock rattled violently in its housing.

Outside the second window, the glass began to split.

Nakamoto took another step forward.

The Resentful Energy in the room had thickened to the point where the ceiling light was beginning to flicker.

A cold wind came from somewhere unseen, lifting the heavy curtains like the arms of the dead in the moment before they go still.

Hikaru closed his right fist around the white-wrapped knuckles, and in his jade-colored eyes a coldness surfaced that made even the Wraiths hesitate for one brief instant.

Then he rolled his wrist slowly, producing a single quiet crack.

Abruptly, everything went silent.

The silence was so sudden and complete that Hikaru himself startled. He narrowed his eyes and looked around.

The room was dark. Dark the way a room becomes when someone has drained the color black from everything else and poured it into the walls. The bedside lamp on the vanity table flickered once and died, and the entire space plunged into absolute darkness.

Hashira's body shook violently. She started to lift her head, and Hikaru's hand came down firmly and pressed her face against his chest.

"Don't look." His voice was low and weighted with something she had not heard from him before, because he had already seen what had just entered the room.