My Scourge Wife can't be this Cute

Chapter 8: Darkness

"Don't look!"

Hikaru's voice dropped an instant.

His hand pressed Hashira's head firmly against his chest, not allowing her to lift it even a fraction.

Hashira went still.

She did not know what he had just seen.

And precisely because she did not know, the fear inside her spread faster. Against her ear was the sound of Hikaru's heartbeat, rapid and heavy, but steady in a way that made no sense. The smell of living warmth, of fabric, of the faint salt of a man's exertion mingled with the freezing air of her own breath, and in that moment Hashira's thoughts dissolved into something she could not organize.

The room was completely dark.

Not the darkness of a light going out.

Not ordinary night.

It was as though the entire room had been pulled out of the real world and thrown into a lightless space with no exit. The window, the door, the ceiling, the walls: all of it had been swallowed. The blackness did not hold still. It moved slowly across every surface like a layer of rotten oil, cold, viscous, and intent on harm.

The only light remaining came from the white cloth wound around Hikaru's right fist.

The gold and black Talisman Script on its surface emitted a thin, wavering glow, brightening and dimming, like a small lamp dropped to the bottom of a deep shaft.

And inside that faint light...

There were eyes.

The first one opened on the wall directly across from the bed. The pupil was black. The iris was a dull, cloudy yellow. Dark red veins ran through it like the roots of a dead tree. It did not blink. It simply stared at them without moving.

Then a second.

A third.

A tenth.

A hundredth.

In the span of a few breaths, eyes opened throughout the darkness in every direction.

Some as large as a fist.

Some no bigger than a bean.

Some long and narrow as a snake's. Some round and distended as though about to burst. Some clustered along the ceiling like insect eggs. Some pushed up through the floor, dripping something thick and black. Some had no eyelids, no surrounding skin or tissue: bare eyeballs floating in the dark, rotating slowly to keep both of them in sight.

All of them watching.

Not with curiosity.

Not with hunger.

With hatred.

A hatred so dense it was almost physically painful against the skin.

Hashira, pressed against Hikaru's chest, could still feel the weight of all those eyes passing through her back. The sensation was unmistakable, like hundreds of cold fingers moving slowly across her nape, her shoulders, her waist, her spine.

Her body shook without stopping.

"Hikaru..." Her voice was caught in her throat, barely audible, trembling. "What... is there something there?"

"Nothing worth looking at." Hikaru answered, so composed he almost sounded cold. "Think of it as me holding you while we enjoy the evening scenery."

Under any other circumstances, Hashira would have laughed.

She might even have found something cutting to say in return.

But right now, she only tightened both arms around his waist.

Because even a remark that flat could not conceal the truth: Hikaru was straining.

A man who had looked at a Wraith standing behind her in broad daylight without flinching was now using that tone of voice to hold himself steady.

Whatever was in the darkness: how frightening was it, really?

The answer came quickly.

From within the dark, countless arms reached out.

No clear bones.

No complete skin.

They looked as though they had been shaped from black smoke and mud, long and warped, alternately dense and thin. The fingertips were sharp, some ending in nails like blades, some splitting into loose tendrils of dark sinew. They reached toward Hikaru and Hashira together, slow but relentless and numerous, like a forest of dead seaweed rising from the bottom of the ocean.

Hikaru closed his right fist hard.

The Talisman Script on the cloth flared.

One arm lunged forward first, aimed directly at Hashira's throat.

CRACK!

Hikaru twisted and punched straight into it. The fist wrapped in white cloth connected. At the moment of impact, gold and black light detonated in the dark. The arm of black smoke snapped in half and released a shriek like metal being dragged across bone.

But immediately, three more arms reached in from below.

Hikaru set his teeth. One arm still held Hashira against him. The other drove downward in rapid succession.

Crack!

Crack!

Crack!

Each strike destroyed a portion of the darkness.

But the Wraiths were too many.

And Hashira was holding him too tightly.

She was not trying to hinder him. Hikaru understood that. This was only the survival instinct of someone frightened past any rational limit. When everything around her had become a nightmare, the only thing left to hold onto was the one thing still warm, the one thing still capable of protecting her.

The problem was that the one thing happened to be him.

Fine.

Next time someone offers thirty million, I am definitely asking whether the contract includes a Wraith army.

An arm coiled around his ankle.

Hikaru stomped down immediately.

Crack!

The floorboard split. The dark arm was crushed beneath his foot and broke apart into a cloud of foul smoke. But in the same moment he bent forward, another shadow dropped from the ceiling, its hair like rope, swinging toward Hashira's shoulder.

Hashira felt something ice-cold graze the back of her neck and made a small, broken sound.

Hikaru turned his shoulder and took the black hair across his own back.

Thud.

A sharp pain arrived from his left shoulder.

He narrowed his eyes but did not stop. His right fist swept sideways and hit the shadow from the ceiling directly.

A wretched shriek rang out.

It shattered like a bag of ink struck hard, the dark liquid spraying outward and evaporating instantly in the light of the Talisman Script.

"Hikaru!" Hashira heard the short sound he drew in and lifted her head in alarm.

"I told you not to look."

Hikaru pressed her head back down.

His voice was firmer this time.

Hashira pressed her lips together.

She was tall, significantly more so than most women. Her height, her bearing, and her position had always meant she was accustomed to looking downward at others. But right now, despite standing at nearly one meter eighty-seven, she was being held against Hikaru's chest without difficulty, as though every layer of pride and cold composure she had ever worn had been stripped away by the surrounding dark.

She was no longer the shipping magnate of northern Japonia.

No longer Lady Hashira Maruhi before whom so many people fell careful.

She was only a woman who was shaking.

And Hikaru was the last wall standing in front of her.

But even that wall was being worn down.

The shrieking in the darkness grew louder.

The eyes began to blink.

Each time they did, the room grew darker by a degree.

Nakamoto stood across from the bed. The torn black opening of its mouth spread slowly. Its hoarse and broken voice rose above the layered whispering.

"Hashira..."

"Liar..."

"Kill..."

"Must... kill..."

At the same time, the other Wraiths began to moan.

Not one voice.

Many voices layered on top of one another.

Male, female, old, young.

Weeping among them.

Laughter among them.

Curses.

Voices calling Hashira's name.

Voices murmuring things without clear meaning.

The luxurious bedroom had become a sealed box filled entirely with nightmare. The walls, the ceiling, the floor, the glass, the door: all of it sounded as though it was being clawed apart from inside by countless starving souls.

Hikaru destroyed two more arms, but his breathing had grown heavier.

This was not sustainable.

If they stayed in this room any longer, he would be ground down.

Not because Nakamoto was too powerful to fight.

But because there were simply too many of them.

And they moved like they had been directed here.

An army.

That was it. Not a handful of Wraiths drawn together by accumulated Yin Energy.

An army that had been waiting for this moment.

Hikaru set his jaw.

This has gotten significantly worse than I planned for.

He pulled a talisman from his inner pocket without hesitation.

It was white-silver, the surface written with cinnabar Talisman Script that had deepened over time to a dark, dried red. The moment it cleared the fabric, every eye in the darkness contracted simultaneously.

Hikaru held it between two fingers. His voice dropped low.

"Pure light breaks corruption, seal the dark, restore the clarity."

The script on the talisman ignited.

A burst of clean white radiance detonated in the center of the room.

Not blazing like fire.

Not scorching like sun.

Cold. Clear. Precise. Like a sword of light drawn from its sheath.

Every eye in the room shut at once.

The dark arms that the light swept across recoiled immediately, burning, releasing sharp cries. The blackness filling the room was pushed back inch by inch, and through the retreating dark, the right window became visible: covered entirely in fracture lines like a broken web.

He had a few seconds. No more.

Hikaru did not hesitate.

He turned, reached back, and pulled Hashira onto his back.

"Arms around my neck."

Hashira barely had time to process it. She looped her arms around him purely by instinct, her body pressing against his back, the thin sleeping robe catching the cold air in the room and drawing flat against her. Her long legs locked around his sides in alarm, and her hands gripped hard enough that her nails nearly broke the skin at his shoulder.

"What are you... what are you going to do?"

"Get out."

"The door is on the other side!"

"Too crowded over there."

He said it, and ran directly at the window.

Hashira did not have time to make a sound before he turned his right shoulder and drove it straight through the glass.

CRASH!

The sound of breaking glass split the night open.

Hundreds of sharp fragments erupted outward like scattered rain. Hikaru held Hashira's body tight against his back and used himself to absorb most of the impact. His shoulder, arm, and back registered the pain immediately. Several smaller pieces embedded in his skin, and fresh blood soaked through the dark shirt rapidly.

Hashira felt something warm and wet spreading across the back of her hand.

She looked down.

Blood.

Hikaru's blood.

In that moment, something inside her chest closed like a fist.

"Hikaru, you're hurt!"

"Not dead yet."

He answered without slowing.

Since reaching Senior Onmyoji, his physical constitution had moved well beyond the ordinary. The glass hurt. But it was not enough to stop him.

He hit the grass outside, rolled once to absorb the drop, and was on his feet immediately, carrying Hashira as he ran straight for the mountain path.

Hashira looked back toward the villa's outer gate, her voice still shaking. "The guards... there are many guards outside. Why not run to them?"

Hikaru answered without breaking stride. "Useless."

"But they have weapons!"

"Weapons made for the living cannot kill the dead." He said through his teeth. "Bringing them in only means they die faster."

Hashira went quiet.

The night wind hit her face, biting cold.

Behind them, the bedroom on the second floor went completely dark. Then one by one, warped black shapes poured out through the shattered window, climbing the exterior walls of the villa like insects. Some dropped straight to the ground and moved on all four limbs. Some wrapped their long black hair around the railing and swung themselves forward. Some had no legs at all and skimmed just above the grass, leaving a trail of dark smoke behind them.

Hashira saw it and her breath seized.

"They're... they're coming outside..."

"I know."

"Then why are you running up the mountain?"

"The Heavenly Seven-Star Dipper Sealing Formation is up there." Hikaru's breathing had grown labored, but his pace did not fall. "Those seven pillars have been absorbing Yang energy, lightning force, and celestial power for over a hundred years. I don't know every secret of that formation yet, but if I can use even a portion of the suppressive force that's accumulated in it, we have a chance to hold until sunrise."

"Hold until... morning?"

"Yes."

Hashira tightened her hold around his neck.

She could not have explained why. There were countless nightmares closing in behind them. The man carrying her was bleeding. His breathing was becoming harder with every step. But when she heard him say "until morning," something genuine stirred inside her. A small warmth.

Very small.

But warm enough that the corners of her eyes grew wet without her choosing it.

She had always bought loyalty with money.

Pressed others to submission through power.

Hidden the blade beneath the smile.

But this was the first time anyone had asked her nothing further, taken no advantage of the opening, and not left her behind in the danger.

He was simply carrying her.

Cutting through the dark with his own blood.

"Hikaru..." She called softly.

"Don't talk." He answered at once. "If you want to thank me, survive until morning and say it then."

Under any other circumstances, that might have made her laugh.

Right now, she only tightened her grip.

The mountain path grew steeper with every step.

Hikaru's physical conditioning far exceeded any ordinary person's, but he was carrying a woman who stood nearly one hundred and eighty-seven centimeters, running at a pace that bordered on reckless up a mountain trail in the dark. His reserves were being consumed rapidly.

His breathing turned heavy.

Blood from the wounds across his back and shoulder soaked through in greater quantity.

Cold sweat tracked down his temple.

Behind them, the sounds of the Wraiths crawling upward grew closer.

Some swung through the tree branches the way a primate would, limbs bent backward at angles that did not belong on anything living. Some clung to trunks with their necks stretched out several meters, jaws hanging open past where a jaw should reach. Some dragged themselves forward on the upper half of their bodies alone, black entrails trailing behind like rotted rope. They did not follow the path. They moved through trees, across rock, through dense grass, a tide of death rolling in from every direction at once.

Hashira stopped looking.

She pressed her face into Hikaru's shoulder, her lips trembling, hot tears soaking into the fabric of his shirt.

Hikaru felt it.

He said nothing.

He only bit down and kept running.

Ten steps.

Twenty.

Fifty.

When his chest felt like it was being burned from the inside, when both legs had gone to something close to lead, the bare stretch of earth at the summit finally appeared ahead.

Hikaru took the last few steps at a lunge.

Then stopped.

His entire body went rigid.

Hashira felt the change in him and slowly raised her head.

Before them, the seven steel pillars of the Heavenly Seven-Star Dipper Sealing Formation still stood in the bare earth.

But they did not look the same as before.

A layer of black smoke was coiling around the entire formation.

Dense Yin Energy wound around each pillar, climbing through the gold dust Talisman Script like the roots of something poisonous. The old lightning-strike marks along the pillars were seeping something dark, as though the formation that had held for more than a century was being eroded from within.

The wind on the summit was gone.

The space around them was so quiet that nothing remained but the sound of Hikaru's own labored breathing.

Behind them, the Wraiths were climbing up the slope.

In front of them, the only shelter had been consumed by darkness.

Hikaru's face had gone white.

For the first time that night, Hashira heard his voice waver.

"The Yin Energy is..."

He tightened his fist.

The light on the white cloth dimmed by one degree.

"Covering the entire Sealing Formation..."