It was April 12th. For the next week I was discombobulated because I was knocked out and I'm not sure if it's 'cause they knocked my long-time memory loose, so sorry if my recall is a little bit shaky here. School was just let out and I was standing across the street after getting yet another lecture from a well-meaning—certainly well-meaning—faculty.

  Short memories would flash from the dream that I had the night before, the night after I had slept through class and then got my ear chewed off by Sojiro, when I gave my introduction to a classroom strangely looking at me like I came with a bomb threat and Kawakami dismissed me contritely back to my seat, flashes like I was reliving the experience bodily. Though I could remember the whole dream with perfect clarity, it was only certain parts that stuck out from the blurry velvet. My clothes were so breathable that it seemed they weren't even there. Interchanging black and white bars had been forced onto me. Past the long metal rods that trapped me in the room were two little kids who were yelling at me. Light came from nowhere, gleaming through each piece of iron and rippling inside of my cell.

  There was a man sitting behind a desk. I was reminded of the questioning from the worst night of my life (so far). His long fingers folded against each other, though that perfect geometry didn't compare with the gigantic smirk that stretched across his face like a dog's.

  "Welcome to my Velvet Room."

  A breath of warmth made me shudder. Outside of the school didn't have much shade provided midday, leaving me standing at the mouth of an alleyway like a weirdo.

  My finger brushed across the app that had forced itself onto my phone. During the walk to school, I had to assume that it opened when I'd been nervously tapping it. 'Begin Navigation' the screen pleaded. Being hidden in the darkness, most students were walking by without noticing me. Only a few more astute ones managed a glance before hurrying along. The puddles from yesterday's rain were still lying around, at this point definitely being infected with a whole host of parasites and bacteria.

  Eventually I pressed down.

  Going to the strange world intentionally was an entire different beast than accidentally wandering in. I could see my vision distorting, feel the floor beneath me turn into jelly. Some strange buzzing overtook the world as the sky turned into magma. Those few students walked by flickering as their figures started wobbling, morphing into streamers then layers of sediment stretching across the street. Eventually even the colors started losing their vibrancy as red started spreading like a piece of film burning. How this happened accidentally the previous day was an unsolved mystery.

  The castle expanded until it overtook the school. Just like last time, I was just outside the drawbridge. Unlike the last time, guards were wandering around the perimeter. All of the defenses were lowered again though so how serious they took security is debatable.

  I tightened my gloves and got to work.

  'Work' meant immediately turning around and walking outside.

  Included in Sojiro's long rant where I was no-good, an idiot, and all sorts of insults that were one step below cursing me out (and where I was starting to learn that keeping absolutely silent when somebody was berating me did not make them lose steam) was insisting that I had to come back within three hours after school was let out so I wouldn't be toppling gangs, or whatever he was afraid of. Normally it wouldn't be a problem if I had my belongings or didn't have an unscored vendetta against the man that made me awaken my Persona. Since I did have a vendetta, I needed to carefully plan through my week; and since I didn't have my stuff, I spent all of my freetime on my phone. The curfew stifled my time, yet I wasn't going to let this go so easily.

  That night I went back and gathered materials at multiple different department stores. A notepad for notes, an external timer to keep track of the time, chalk to make sure I was keeping track of where I was going, energy bars in case I got hungry, a tiny thermos in case I got thirsty, stickers to make doubly sure I was keeping track of where I was going, duct tape for all sorts of uses, and walkie talkies in case I needed to do something cheeky. Buying a knapsack to keep all of these things in made me really feel like I was walking in prepared like a survivalist on TV.

  Most of school was kind of boring. I started taking the overcrowded metro, and I've heard this experience was supposed to be super nostalgic yet the only experience I got was suddenly having my shoulders shoved around whenever the guy next to me sneezed. For the next month I'd entertain myself by remembering there was a girl from my school who had given up her seat for an old lady during my second day, only to have it taken by some businessman who fell asleep so he wouldn't hear her complaining. I laughed when it happened. Come on! It was so callous that it's shocking!

  We had some stupid rally for a sport that I don't care about that day. I got to see some guy get hit in the face from a spiked volleyball from the coach of all people. It was nearly enough to make up for earlier. Watching the coach get away with something that, as an example, I'd get in trouble for, and the only consequence being a few people cheering him on for the performance was comically corrupt. 'Corrupt'. Should that word even be used when describing school politics? Should there even be school politics? My first instinct was to decisively say, "no!" but apparently others disagreed with how many were praising his performance. Kissassing without the person around to hear you being a kissass was bizarre behavior that reinforced my feeling that this school wasn't normal.

  During lunchtime I finally started approaching the people in my class. We were supposed to be cleaning in groups, which is the system that they used back in my old school too, and maybe all of Japan? I'm not an expert in this kind of stuff. Kawakami, perhaps more than a bit annoyed at my lateness that was weakly excused by "getting distracted by some other kids playing sports", told me to ask around to find out what group I was set to clean with. I asked. Nobody had an answer. Apparently there was a wave of amnesia that spread through the classroom because poor Nagatoro dropped off the face of the earth, alongside Kenshi, Jimi, and Wada.

  It was so petty. I stood in front of the classroom, wondering if a single black eye after arriving at school late really was enough to make me a pariah. Slipping from my cleaning duties would've been cool otherwise.

  There was somebody who approached me. Within the few days the yellow sweater and stout height became recognizable among the crowd. She looked contrite, an emphasized version like she was putting on a show. Another recognizable feature: her eyebrow would soar if she found you irritating her. "Kurusu-kun. Shouldn't you be cleaning?"

  I should've also hidden once my classmates had stonewalled me. Better when you're caught in wrongdoing to shrug off the culpability to anything else which could be guilty. "Nobody is telling me who my cleaning group is. It's kind of frustrating."

  "Ugh. So it really did spread around. This is a nightmare," my teacher said. Kawakami's frankness was both refreshing and taught me why teachers were meant to keep their teacherly distance. It was a little disorientating that this woman's word could get me sat in a juvenile detention center.

  Meeting so many new people also made me talk way more than I was used to. My teachers back home knew I was the type who'd listen even without giving vocal confirmations. Kawakami didn't seem like she was going to explain though.

  "...spread around? Is something happening?" I asked.

  She sighed, rubbed her forehead, and generally did every gesture that tried emphasizing how annoyed she was. "Your record. Somebody leaked it."

  "My record?"

  "Yes, your record."

  Record. K/D. Academic. "My grades?"

  "Your criminal record and how you're on probation. I would love to say that we have it handled, but as you can see by your classmates avoiding you, it'd be a lie." Her irritation bounced back to exasperation, some play-like pitying where she was thinking out loud. "Why me? Is this really what I deserve on top of everything else?"

  A hot flash of irritation kindled in my chest. Now that I'd been touched by otherworldly anger, it became way easier to notice the different convulsions in my chest.

  "Why are you talking about yourself? What about me!? I'm the one who has a—"

  My teeth clicked together. Students were poking out from the classrooms. The unimpressed look that she was giving me felt unearned considering that they were the ones who had my record leaked, as if this was a whistleblower saying that the nutrition facts on my cookies were incorrect rather than straight up ruining my reputation. She didn't say anything, and I took that as more 'mercy'. It felt unfair. I walked around suddenly more aware. Rumors slid past my attention because my name had been replaced with 'that guy', 'that criminal', or stupid attempts at making a capitalized 'The' name; the only one that resonated with me was The Backwater Stabber.

  It's around then that I started feeling like befriending these people would've been a waste of time, leaked record or not.

  When I was let free for the day, I went back to the castle. All of my materials had been waiting in my school bag since none of them were too incriminating, even if casually carrying around a roll of stickers would raise eyebrows.

  Like before I came with my outfit already summoned. My bag had disappeared. When lamenting about the walkie-talkies that had eaten up most of the budget, an urge to dig through my pocket rose. Viola, there it was. It was this that finally made me recognize this was supernatural, dug in the fact, and if that sounds strange then I'd recommend encountering something like this yourself. You deny, deny, deny, until there was irrevocable evidence. This mundane change enraptured me. I kept pulling stuff out and having it disappear until I remembered that I was on a two hour and thirty minute timer.

  Believe it or not, actually exploring the castle was pretty boring. Fighting wasn't going to become a common thing if I could help it. Though it was thrilling, I knew that it'd be a matter of time before a group of knights would get the better of me. So instead of ambushing the unaware patrols that would stomp around a pillar, I'd carefully wait until memorizing their route and slide by. It was much easier than it sounds, considering that the grandiosity of the castle gave plenty of space and way too much furniture. It was extremely slow yet I took that in exchange for not getting my head popped like a grape.

  Eventually I was caught though. A knight had noticed me crouching behind a suit of armor and exploded into a few of those evil guys. Two green maids with flowing orange dresses were floating in front of me, their hands clasped in front of them demurely. I assumed no matter how the white rag covering their hair made them seem harmless, those sly eyes spoke of their actual intentions.

  The environment was stripped down to what would be useful. A suit of armor, a low-hanging chandelier, and a vent (castles had vents?) near the ceiling that some sixth sense insisted were important. I leapt right when little glittering snowflakes coalesced into an angular pillar right where I was standing. Both raised up their arms when I approached. Two confused pairs of eyes tracked me as I jumped again. The armor tilted slightly, finally toppling when I leapt upwards greater than the height of any professional basketball player. The chandelier swung when I grabbed the edge. Coldness seeped through my red gloves, even with the flames seeming just a little more active than normal fire. The bad guys below gasped when I kicked my legs out and in, finally letting go once I had enough momentum, feet coiled inwards ready for impact.

  I slid inside the vent just as I kicked out my legs. My momentum carried me halfway down. That felt awesome.

  That mistake came with another fact: the castle had object permanence. Maybe that's the wrong word, but the idea was the same. Just because it was a magic world didn't mean that the inhabitants were stupid. Getting caught made the guard patrols a little more snappy, more frequently bundled together, and had them sometimes glance around. It was inevitable that I'd get caught. Then it was inevitable that I got caught again. By the time that I decided to call it a day, there was practically a parade of guards walking shoulder to shoulder in the front area, forcing me back home.

  Trying to enter through that same vent gave me a treat though. An impossible puzzle—guards lined up all throughout the hallway while the king was berating the guard who probably let me get away in the first place. Since I'm not suicidal, I did not try assassinating him in the center of a crowd. Instead I enjoyed the show before nudging out, now armed with knowledge that justified the whole day: there were vents. I didn't have to enter through the front.

  Once home, five minutes remaining of my new curfew, I greeted a stoic Sojiro and ran upstairs. My notepad was thrown onto the desk that had been there when I first arrived, still not cleared of all the junk that had been stacked on it. During those slow moments when I was waiting for the guards to turn around I jotted down notes, lines that gave a primitive blueprint along with notes of the surroundings. Since I covered quite a bit of ground and misjudged how many details I needed to jot down, the three hour exploration had culminated in thirteen pages. Sweeping an arm to clear the dust allowed me to lay out a gigantic white sheet that nearly took up the whole surface. Connecting the disparate pieces together and making new notes took a whole hour. Memorizing that was prioritized over my homework. Then watching videos was prioritized over sleep.

  The school day was becoming my new normal; students shittalking, immensely boring lectures, a feeling that I wasn't meant to be there. I was so disconnected from the real world that I was only thinking about the castle during school the next day, an improvement over listening to my peers that made sure I was within listening distance when they were gossiping.

  I nearly bumped straight into a girl who was standing on a doorway; on, because she was leaning on the glass door while looking like she was having an early onset heart attack, while students nearby were happily chatting about a recent episode of a shit show. She looked at me blearily when I approached. It reminded me of late nights browsing, not caring about the consequences the next day—like I just did! Here's a tip: care about the consequences. Some of my most embarrassing memories were from doing that too many nights in a row.

  "...huh?" she asked. I was still standing there, waiting for her to move. "Oh, I'm in the way, aren't I? Sorry."

  There was a bruise that was right on the ridge of her eyelid. Sports injury. That's the excuse that I gave to Sojiro when he asked about mine. Sounded better that I skipped school to play ball rather than letting his imagination run wild. We matched. Bruises were in season. Haha. That's not funny.

  Her pupils expanded, taking in the whole of the universe, before refocusing on me. "Are you that transfer student? The one who—well, take care of yourself. Rumors are nasty, but they aren't true. My friend is made fun of just because of her looks. They say such cruel things about her. She says—oh. I'm rambling, aren't I?"

  The whole speech was somewhat stunted, with the wrong emphasis on the wrong words. Slurring would've fit right in there. Either lack of sleep (definitely) or some sort of drug. I chose to believe the former. Nice people didn't take drugs, or so the ads said. The strangeness of the situation made her stand out: delicate, made more so by the marring above her eye. A white turtleneck seemed to be choking her thin neck. Twirling locks were so vibrant that it looked like a wig stuck on top of her.

  "It's fine," I said.

  Her pupils contracted. Back to the real world. "I have to go to practice. I'll see you around."

  She moved aside, letting me pass. With only a bemused shake of my head, I continued on with my day. At least she seemed nice.

  The next infiltration began with aplomb. The security had dialed back to a much more manageable level since I hadn't been tripping the alarm like a dummy. Nothing interesting happened except that I found a piece of paper guarded by yet another puzzle.

  It was a map. Not a complete map, but a map. The edges crinkled under my tight grip. It's not like I would've done something productive since I was forced to wait for the guards to pass. Still, this being the 'reward' for solving a puzzle felt like the king had personally spat on me.

  "At least I got practice sketching," I forced out.

  Soon after that I got caught when slipping underneath a table. The guard pointed its sword at me as an unearthly screech slid between the grates on its mouth, taking a moment to scare the shit out of me as I started running. There weren't any visible escape routes. I blindly ran inside a room that I didn't have the opportunity to scope out.

  The door shut behind me, though I could only curse when observing the room—no exits. Either I had to hope that the guard was stupid enough to not look up or take my chances slipping right back out. A deep breath was held. One. Two. Three. I started counting the seconds. When a full minute passed, I opened an eye and glanced around. Unmolested, the door firm with the weight of my body. They hadn't even attempted breaking it open. Just to make sure, I poked my head outside to see that an ambush hadn't been set.

  The wood shimmered around my hand. Quickly leaping back let me see that the whole room was shuddering, a sound as if the room were the center of a stomach rumbling past the walls. Segments of time would pass and then there'd be another mirage-like shake. Eventually through the cracks I could see a classroom staring back at me. The blinds would slide, and the castle was whole again.

  With a flourish, I marked on my notepad that some rooms were blindspots for the guards. Why? No idea. The room briefly forgetting what it was could've been a clue, but I had so little information that I just chalked it up to more weird magic stuff. Deciding that was enough excitement for the day, I went home.

  All in all, I considered my first days at Shujin to be very mediocre. Is it surprising that I didn't think that it was the worst time? Let's go over the negatives: stupid kids and stupid rumors. That already happened all the time back home. These were more negative but I already had the thickened skin to live against them. It's not as if my friends over the internet cared. Most of them had said some variant of "fuck cops" or "fuck the system" when I told the story. With their supportive voices that were bitcrushed over a crappy speaker on crappy internet, because no man is an island, I had coped through the initial tumultuous days of being banished to foreign lands pretty well.

  Then there was obviously getting the crap beaten out of me by the king after being magically kidnapped—which wasn't actual kidnapping since I'd been the one to accidentally stumble into it, though you'd never hear me admit this otherwise. Not fun. But it was leading to a satisfying revenge and had made me awaken to my persona, which let me do a bunch of awesome stunts.

  Then there was getting grounded by Sojiro and having a stink eye directed towards me whenever I was in his proximity. Uncomfortable, but understandable. No matter the excuse, and the excuse was not very good at all, I was totally late that day with a conspicuous injury. It didn't endear him at all, but I understood. Most of my hobbies were indoors anyways so I just spent that time browsing through my phone while lamenting over my belongings that were sold for piddling amounts of cash. That was an old computer, damn it. Not using it for his personal use was my dad trying to needle in the punishment.

  It was a cloudy day, the next day of school. Ushimaru-san was a thick man, head like a jar with a rigid haircut and voice severe as if every bit of information would save our lives. I liked him. Earnest teachers were the best, even if I treated them like every other one; that meant using a miniature version of the map that I sketched out to create notes to make escape routes instead of listening to the lecture. It was because of their earnest nature that they assumed the people writing were making notes. The person behind me wasn't a snitch either, so I was in the clear to underline in the margins, "reflective enough to reflect, not reflective enough to make light shine," to find an object that could let me peek around corners without rounding them blindly.

  Clammy air had leaked even into the school. Each breath felt heavy. If I closed my eyes I could imagine myself somewhere more exotic. Images of the Amazon broke through. Vines hung from the ceiling like cables and bugs brazenly buzzed next to your head. The soil clung to my feet as they seeped through my shoes. It was like having a fever dream and I considered taking a day off from plotting my revenge if my imagination was becoming that vivid. Another vision seeped through, just as vivid as the first one: velvety water flooded through the boring browns of the classroom. I wrapped my hands around the bars and stuck my head through to get a better look at the man on the other side. There was a spotlight from the infinite ceiling which shined down on the balding head of my jailer.

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  "I do not make it a habit of rewarding obstinance. Take this, and know that you must come. My patience has limits."

  "Hey! She's going to jump!'

  Half-asleep, the words hardly registered. Then, breaking the dam, a name spread around. From mouth to mouth it spread until the morose girl in front of me stood up.

  "Shiho?"

  She ran with wild abandon, arms flinging gracelessly as she tore through the shocked students getting out of their seats. I barely got out of the seat to wander towards the windows just because everybody else was doing it.

  That girl had torn down the hallway, quickly leaving my sight as students started crowding. A beautiful red had spread across Ushimaru's sagging cheeks as he vainly tried directing the panicking students back to their desks. I could hear the reactions. Ushimaru himself went silent. The window beckoned me. I was no better than the people around me. I wanted a peek.

  Hordes of students had gathered. Seconds ago she was teetering on the edge as if debating if she was going to do it, letting the wind carry on as the sole orator—a brush on her shoulder forwards, a brush backwards. Inches of the sky budged off so the sun wouldn't catch on the reflection of any of the phones held in the courtyard. Left behind was a line of students too afraid to pretend they cared.

  My thumb worked along the edge of my chilly phone. It had read the atmosphere and turned Antarctic. They say that hypothermia makes it so you don't even feel the cold, or that your body doesn't have the energy to even manage that anymore. I thought about that as she was lifted onto the stretcher with the vultures making just enough room for the paramedics to budge through. Somebody had been kind enough to call the authorities when they first saw her. I couldn't imagine that it was the teachers, considering not a single one was on the front lines battling back the gawkers taking pictures. What did they do with those? Did they delete them years later when going through their gallery? Or are the pictures of a person near death on them to this day?

  "Animals," said a boy next to me. I wondered what kind of rumors he'd partaken in, how much of my daily school life was ruined because of this particular person. His phone was out too. It didn't make him any more noble that it was hanging down.

  After school I went back into the castle. Going through the motions occupied my mind. I'm sure there were healthier ways to cope, but I found the process of sneaking by the guards almost soothing. It was repetitive and intensive work. No matter how long you had to wait, the entire time you had to be alert for a moment to slip by, otherwise that might've been your chance for the next ten minutes. Each day I was getting better at sliding underneath furniture quietly and keeping alert.

  It happened when I was focused on the guard through a wall that was between us. I was thinking about his body, tracking it through the room in my mental map, when the world cooled. Specifics became blurred. The edges of my vision wrapped around like a mask, lines elongating slightly as if little fish eye lenses were capped over my pupils. Significantly, the guard in front of me became more obvious as the colors turned muted. The very second his hand poked around the pillar came forth a red, an outline that started as nearly cherry-like that faded into a blood red at the center.

  Shifting around the hallways while using it proved that it had more uses than making the guards look even more eerie. Glitters flew off vases that looked expensive, though I wasn't about to lug those around when sneaking, and places that could hide me seemed to have spotlights pointing at them. Magic eyes—exactly what I needed. That sounds sarcastic, but tiny details that I'd been glancing over became apparent in a lazy man's way of having perception. Checking around once in a while revealed things that may have been useful; for example, a series of books that were placed around the castle that emitted a ghostly white off their covers. These disappeared into my infinity pockets when I picked them up.

  It's only because of the hints that I suspected something when I made it to the library. It was a single room, bookshelves on each wall. Conspicuous holes were around the fully utilized shelves. Double-checking with the vision confirmed that this was—you guessed it—yet another puzzle like this stupid place was some kind of escape room. Placing them in random orders eventually made one of the shelves open up, secret room revealed. Satisfied with the little bit of Conan'ing that I did, I sauntered into the room without care of what could be hiding in there.

  The first step into the periphery made me shudder. Something in the back of my head must've put the clues together before I was willing to. Details trickled into my perception with no meaning. Some kind of statue stood at the center of candles arranged in a half-circle. The torches that were hanging off the wall tried giving the place a romantic light, glowing pink, yet only made the hidden room more sinister. Pinned around to clutter the ugly wallpaper were pictures. Getting closer to those scattered to the floor, I picked each up to confirm that the same girl was in every single one.

  Yes, every single one. The same girl. She was so familiar because she wore the same thing when I met her and during her greatest act. A white turtle-neck, a not-quite smile that was uncomfortable stuck in a room like this.

  A bookshelf inside had a medallion holding down a map. My brand new magic vision declared I needed to take both.

  Some sort of silent alarm must've existed. While I was still making the connections inside that room, the doors barged open. The knight smashed his sword against the thick wall of steel he carried.

  "What are you doing here?"

  This was a bit more precarious than the other times I'd been cornered. There was only a single exit to the room which was quickly blocked when three dark blue horses with horns like a ram's exploded out of the suit of armor. They came like a bad omen, slick black tendons prying free when they leapt out of the disintegrating metal plates. With no visible vents or high ground, I was forced to deal with three bad guys trying to have me dead or distract them long enough to break through the exit. They brayed softly, lowering their heads in preparation to charge.

  But I welcomed this distraction. Unlike the other times, I freely brandished my blade. Blame it on the stressful day. Blame it on the room. I was ready to do violence.

  Three sets of horns charged together, lowered at the height of my head. It was as simple as using my acrobatic skills to leap on the center's back, taking a few free slashes against the rippling muscle before jumping off. Tables and books were upended into shreds from their violent charge, sending debris flying that knocked down books and made a mat of a tree's legacy (varnished wood, scraps of paper) that crunched underneath my feet. All three skidded on the floor and turned around ready for another charge.

  I almost laughed as they started running. Once more I leapt onto the center with my knife poised for his shoulder blade. Landing, my weapon was mid-swing when he came to a sudden stop. I was thrown off bodily, barely keeping hold of my knife as I transitioned into a roll.

  Both the other horses had split off from their charges. Only when I was between them did I realize that it was to readjust to intercept me.

  Standing up quickly let me pretend that I had a handle on the situation. The first one rocketed by as I pivoted on my heel. The other slammed straight into my back. Instead of flying away, I stuck to their horns, letting him brandish me in the air like a trophy. A violent shake of his head sent me into a bookshelf, a few hardcovers raining onto my head. The distraction made me complacent, barely conscious enough to realize that the horse was still running. Its horns jutted against me. Conveniently, they were the perfect distance to pin me against my biceps.

  For a moment we were staring into each other's eyes. It gave me the perfect view of its ally snorting behind, revving up for another charge.

  They moved with eerie coordination. Without speaking, the one pinning me leapt backwards just before his friend was going to ram him. No time for any other option, I did the most stupid one. The thundering hooves became miniature thunderclaps as I put my ears next to them. Each movement sent its muscles, thick as the steel for bridge cables, rippling in great flexes. My shoulder hit the floor as shredded paper rained onto me. With barely a moment to readjust, I tilted myself where I assumed the largest gap between its hooves would be and prayed—prayed, meaning ripping off my mask. Whether I got trampled or not, it was better to prepare for the next step.

  Arsene grabbed the back of my collar. I was yanked out right when hammers started pounding against tile.

  A tail of black flew out from Arsene's other hand. The horse let out a confused whinny when its flank was smacked by a black projectile. It's there, with the scruff of my collar getting abused by Arsene's sharp claws, where I could clearly see the horse's backs and impact site of eiha. These guys weren't the pumpkins during my awakening; they were hardier and quicker. They were smarter and stronger. Much more aggressive, forcing Arsene to throw me backwards as he faded away when the third horse had started charging towards us. I learned from the last time and cartwheeled away from the first horned missile that slammed into the bookshelf, then continued my spinning as the second one just barely missed shearing my side off.

  This impact was way more violent. Its horns cleaved through the bookshelf's wood cleanly, neck taking a few tugs to yank itself out. Arsene and I exploited the opportunity by wailing against its side.

  This time we saw results. Thick red lines grew along its side as we carved open the live steak. Only when its horns flicked, sending splinters bouncing off my mask, in a desperate attempt to fend us off did I leap up, holding onto one of the highest shelves to observe my handiwork. It was the first visible damage that I had managed to inflict, and the shuddering legs made the schadenfreude within me very happy.

  Unfortunately, the magic horses didn't care nearly as much as I did when they got injured. A single jerk rammed those weapons, longer than my knife, into the furniture. The shaking was violent as an earthquake, making my hands slide off the smooth wood. The fall was very short. The landing was very rough. Those sinewy muscles were just as hard as they looked, providing no plushness when I landed on them. Looking up at the other braying enemies circling around us at least proved that these things had some sort of empathy, not hurting their friend just to score a shot against me.

  That relief was short-lived with the first buck. I was nearly knocked off, only saved by my thighs clenching down. Then the second one came. By that time I had full confidence that my outfit had provided the sense of balance as a Shaolin master, the horse was whinnying in irritation as it started varying up its approaches. Ideas that I'd never think of in real life popped into my head: when it had calmed down from the first few attempts, I lifted myself with my hands and extended my legs nearly perpendicular from my body. Pushing off with a twist had me land sitting forwards. The horse must've taken offense with how casually I just righted myself as it immediately worked towards dismounting me with a furious energy. Backwards kicks, forwards kicks, rearing, everything that it could try.

  The others could only watch in awe as I used the energy from its recent buck to lift me up. My soles fitted perfectly into niches between the muscles like they were made for me. As if shocked by my increasing audacity, my ride just stayed still for a moment waiting. But I was having the time of my life. I waved to its friends who were still spectating. I was riding a horse like a skateboard. Why would I want that to end?

  When I continued doing nothing, it finally reared once again. The majestic legs reached into the air, swiping like a boxer. I leapt up onto its snout. Both feet planted on the nose as my knife plunged into its eye.

  Finally I fell down into a crouch with the mask already halfway pulled off my face. Arsene manifested underneath it, slicing straight through the tendons of its ankles. It collapsed on its side, struggling to get up.

  I was forced into a roll as one of the horses wasn't stupid enough to give me a chance to regain my breath. The other almost seemed afraid as it backed up until its flank bumped into the wall. Its hesitance gave me an opportunity. Now knowing its literal Achilles heel, Arsene was called once again to slash through the back legs of the horse who attacked. Black spotlights spurted over the red carpet as that horse fell into a kneel.

  Finally given leeway, I decided that now was the best time to prove if Miyazaki was a genius. My knife plunged through its midsection. Ripping it out let an arc of black blood flick from my weapon. A final stab through the heart, or where I imagined the heart was, made it collapse. The green flesh started segmenting into cubes, orbs, and irregular shapes, all quickly melting into fuzzy black motes that skittered from the dying body.

  Critical attacks were more satisfying in Dark Souls, if you're wondering. There's a sound effect and, yeah.

  Its friend had regained its confidence at some point and lowered its head for the predictable charge. With the battlefield now firmly tilted into my favor, I felt like it was the perfect opportunity to experiment. Silent words between me and Arsene passed. He approved. At the last second, those sharp claws dug underneath my armpits and flung me towards the horse that was still regaining his footing. The afterimage of Arsene dissipated into a flush of blue that was fully parted when the horse ran through it.

  The collapsed horse was still struggling to get back up. Landing, I felt like rubbing in my victory by transitioning from a roll to eat the momentum to a casual walk. I imagined there was a nasty glower from my knife as I stalked over. One slice had it braying, kicking out its hooves in a last attempt to hit me. Without feeling very threatened, a new hole was poked straight through as it started disappearing.

  The last horse was cowering when I turned to it. Convenient if nothing else. Despite winning, I could feel the exact points of impact where they had tried goring me.

  "Wait!"

  I blinked. My knife pointed at it. "You can talk?"

  "What do you mean? Of course I can talk!" Its mouth was certainly moving like it was saying words, but a horse's mouth wasn't made to properly enunciate all the same vowels. "Please spare me! I promise I won't alert the other guards or King Kamoshida! Just let me go! I'll give you anything you want!"

  "What could a horse give me?" I asked rhetorically. It was meant to be a joke but looking back, it wasn't that funny. "What, you gonna give me a ride?"

  It kneeled down with its front legs. "If that's what you want! I'll be your servant in any way you want!"

  The blue flickering that started searing across its flesh made me pause.

  "Wait, serve? Serve. Serve. Serve!" Each repetition became more violent, more vitriolic, making me nervously lower the knife. Pointing a blade didn't make it more deadly, people. If you wanted to be threatening, always be ready to make a full swing. "I don't serve Kamoshida. How could I forget? How could I forget?"

  It was the same maddened, guttural voice that I've only heard in shows. Carefully, I broached, "what did you forget?"

  A full bonfire surrounded it. I nearly fell onto my butt as it floated above me.

  "I don't serve Kamoshida; I serve humanity. You're the one who reminded me so let me help you! I'm Bicorn! I'll take all your negative emotions and make you stronger!"

  Blue flashed in my vision so brightly that I couldn't actually see. Intellectually, or some other method, I knew exactly the process that was happening: the physical body of Bicorn had been shorn for the true image of it, a flickering blue will o' wisp that smashed straight into my mask. Heat flushed over my face as a flash of fire bursted around me. No warmth came through my glove as I ran it across the ridges of my mask.

  Before I could really take in the tough battle, I noticed something glinting off the light on the floor. Hundreds of little presents rained down with impunity. Hidden behind each explosion of darkness that came with killing one of those enemies, there was an equal reaction of merrymaking that clattered to the floor. My hands came away with my palms filled to the brim with coins. Yen slipped between my fingers like sand. From the tips of my knees to the back of my biceps was a carpet of money that had come from the body of the horses. Shuffling knees started scooping up fistfuls and shoving them into my pockets. This amount of money wasn't the most that I'd ever seen in my life and it certainly wasn't the most that I'd ever earned, as it would've been sad if a measly 900 yen was the most I'd had to my name.

  You had to understand that thus far it was almost like a hobby diving into this dangerous place, if that hobby was somehow more visceral and personal than hunting. I never expected to regain the funds I spent on my supplies. Taking hold of a sweeter fruit than revenge had awoken the ravenous hunger in me. The money was stuffed into wherever it could fit as I desperately swept the debris aside to find the hidden coins that slid under the table's remnants.

  Money could only distract me so much. I wasn't dumb, despite my grades, despite the way that I talk, and despite the fact that I wasn't too interested in getting my graduate degree and all that my parents kept pestering me about; what I'm saying is that what would be obvious for other people eventually became obvious for me too. It's even less of an indictment against me considering that those hearing me have the benefit of foresight and me going over what was significant. Plenty of little things happened, like a knight talking about he really needed to scratch his ass, another time a conversation between knights talking about how a Lady Ann's bosom wasn't impressive enough that the king should focus his attention only on her, some knight who had been arguing with the wall about the exact origins of humanity, with plenty of more examples of seemingly mundane hints that I'm sifting through. Also, if you haven't clued in yet, I'm not too good at recognizing people's faces, so it's really a miracle that I saw the girl close up instead of a distant figure cutting against the sky.

  So understand that there's a reason why only then that I started to clue in.

  "It's all real," I muttered.

  Some were a bit too coincidental for my tastes, though I never would've recognized the girl who had fallen if she didn't become, y'know, the girl who fell, the girl who stood in the door. The classroom that the safe places (as I'd begun calling them) would transmogrify into for brief, breathing moments were familiar in the wrong way. All of it was real. Not that I was hallucinating the whole experience, but that the castle was connected to reality in some way; and considering that the person who had attempted suicide had some secret shrine in the castle, I was unwilling to give 'the king' any pure role in this tragedy.

  Don't get me wrong. I won't insult her by saying that this became a story of justice. It would be downright disrespectful to say that I had grown a hunger for justice. I wasn't innocent either. I wasn't returning to the castle to catch a criminal. Revenge had been on my mind since the beginning. By getting revenge, I was getting reimbursed from the amount of time that it took through cash that came from the monster's pockets, because apparently even yokai needed to buy food. Vindicating me was the person who had tried beating me to death was evil enough to make a nice girl feel like she did.

  I wasn't sure how the castle connected with reality, or what the girl's role in this was, or what the king had done, or anything that could help me really. All that I knew was the king was evil, somehow, and now my revenge was slightly less personal, somehow.

  That night when I was walking out of the castle, there was a tiny annoying girl standing outside a blue door. There was no wall it was a part of. The frame floated freely, uncaring of the ominous mist that floated out of it.

  "Inmate! The master wants to see you! You keep digging in your heels when you're sleeping! You don't want to make him have to drag you inside again!"

  I nodded, waved, and went back to the real world where kids weren't trying to threaten me with a baton.