THAT NIGHT
While Shin and Tetsu made plans and prepared their moves, somewhere else, a girl was sleeping. No older than twenty, she had a face full of youthful vigor and a supple but soft figure easily visible under thin bed covers.
The beautiful face of the girl was marred with a frown that mirrored the one she had in her dream.
There, she was a man, sitting on a peaceful forest glade under a tree that had a human face and a human voice.
"Stop blaming me for this, Jun. You already know whose fault this entire situation is–even I am just a creation of this man. If you wish to return home, there's only one way to do it. Only one."
The man who was a girl listened with a dark face to the tree's calm, persuasive words.
"I know. I must kill him. Kill the author to kill the story." Quieter, as if convincing himself, the man added, "That's the only way."
***
NEXT MORNING
'Shinkushio Art Gallery,' Shin read the sign on the building's door. 'Be ready, Tetsu. I hope it won't get dangerous, though.'
She nodded to him. 'I will protect you, my friend. Especially from those people. I still can't believe this horned piece of shit insulted you like this! To make you deal with his messes… Make ME do it, too!'
Shin huffed inwardly. This was not the first time Tetsu said something like this since he explained to her the plan for today.
Unlike Tetsu, Shin knew from the start that the Shinkushio Art Gallery was a nest of cultists. The cultists that worshiped a demon they called The Horned King—the same demon who captured Tetsu.
Although Shin had no details, he could guess easily that the summoned person The Horned King sent Shin after was the protagonist of the story about the Shinkushio Art Gallery.
That man was an art journalist who went to make a report about the strange paintings in the gallery and discovered a cult. The cultists captured and tortured him, but he managed to escape and burn the gallery together with himself and all the cursed paintings.
But the gallery was still whole, and Shin was sure that the story had already changed unpredictably. He was about to find how exactly.
Then Shin was going to follow his own plans. He didn't plan on dancing to the horn-crowned demon's fiddle. But the gallery still held some things that would be useful to him and Tetsu.
Shin went inside.
There weren't many people in the gallery today. Only what looked like a group of art students, and a few teenagers that looked like they were skipping school for cheap thrills.
The paintings were more interesting. Each of them depicted a scene that, even if it looked ordinary at the first glance, was growing more and more disturbing the longer you looked at them.
The name of the exhibition was "Loneliness". Most of the paintings were sceneries.
Red in them was especially vivid.
'I smell blood. It feels fresh, but it can't be,' Tetsu muttered. 'Those paintings are as interesting as you described, partner. There's power in them.'
Shin mentally agreed.
He walked further along the halls of the gallery, not paying mind to the paintings. He was looking for the cultists. Not all the gallery workers were a part of the cult, so Shin had to be careful.
Finally, he approached a security guard who looked like he could be a type.
"Excuse me, mister. Can you please tell me how to get to the bathroom?" Shin asked.
The guard pinched his lips, but waved in a hallway. "Right there, then turn left… There are markers on the walls."
As he spoke, Shin stared intently into his mouth. When he saw a glimpse of white on the man's tongue, his eyes widened. His judgment was right.
There was a tattoo of a white crown on the man's tongue—a symbol of the cultists.
"Thank you. Also, mister, do you like sunsets captured in paintings?"
The guard's eyes opened in shock. He stared at Shin up and down, and his eyes narrowed in suspicion. Then he looked around for any onlookers—there weren't.
"No, but I wish I had a cage for the sun," the guard said the other half of the codeword. "Who are you, kid? You are too young to work here."
Shin pressed his lips together. He didn't care much for his present body, but sometimes it was a nuisance.
"I was sent by the master of your master. That's all you need to know."
Inwardly, he added, 'Tetsu, scare him a little, but don't show yourself yet.'
'Just a little? I want to know how terrified he would be to see his guts on the floor…'
'Tetsu! Later. All later. There are too many of them in this building.'
'Yeah… Alright.'
Under Tetsu's power, the metal buckle of the guard's belt moved on its own. When his belt slid out of his pants, the guard gasped, staring at it with wide eyes.
Just when Shin wondered if Tetsu planned to make him drop his pants, the buckle flew into the guard's face like the mouth of an attacking snake.
The needle of the buckle stopped only a few centimeters away from the guard's reflexively shut eye. The man's tanned face was pale as a sheet.
'Huh. Good job, Tetsu. That was enough.'
She let the buckle belt drop with visible reluctance.
The guard's shoulders sagged with relief, but the gaze he turned to Shin was full of fear, curiosity, and wonder.
"Bring me to your boss," Shin said.
The guard obeyed.