“The suzumebachi. I once had a dream that I ate a s’more the size of a house. I don’t know. I wouldn’t mind a dream like that being deep as an ocean. What about you? What do you dream about?” Before Zaniel can answer, she places a hand on his chest. “‘Being free?’ What does that mean?”

Ever so gently, Zaniel removes her hand by her sleeve with his right hand. He notices for the first time that his ruby bracelet is glowing, but unlike every other time, it does not hurt him. “Are … are you doing this? How?” he asks her. He finds himself asking two bewildered-looking Zaniels, two solid reflections in the pitch-dark of the Yokai’s eyes that grow bigger and bigger. No, they are not growing; it is her, leaning forward, coming closer and closer. “What are you?” he whispers against her mouth.

“Gotcha!”

A hand reaches out and snatches Zaniel by the back of his shirt, ripping him from the Yokai’s embrace. “Hang on, kid,” says the gruff, familiar voice. “I gotcha.”

Zaniel dangles precariously off the tenth floor until he is swung over the railing to safely stand on his own two feet. His saviour: a giant creature in gold samurai armour from forehead to foot. He recognizes the voice immediately. “Akki … sama?”

“That’s my name, don’t wear it out.” The yokai removes his facial armour and helmet and shakes his dark, angry-looking mane. “Geez, kid. What the hell’re you wearin’?”

“This is what I sleep in. And I could ask you the same thing.”

“I …” Akki looks down at himself. “Huh. Well, ain’t this new.” Being honest with himself, he has no idea where any of this came from, but Akki does not dwell on it. He simply chuckles as he removes each piece of the golden suit. “How the hell’d you get here, anyway?”

Now it is Zaniel’s turn to be at a loss for words. “I …” Any semblance of an explanation he might have given is interrupted by a watery splash. He takes advantage of Akki’s distracted process of undress to look over his shoulder down below. The pit on the first floor has transformed into a literal sea of demons. Even ten storeys up, Zaniel can read the mystified, puzzled looks on various yokai faces at how the floor suddenly turned into water. They do not think about it for too long, however. Once the aquatic species revel in the transition, other creatures start to paddle and wade, then dive and roll, and very quickly, the yokai are splashing each other playfully and spewing water from their mouths and trunks like cartoonish fountains.

“I don’t know,” Zaniel finally answers. It is not a complete lie. “What about you?”

“You summoned me, kid. Figured you needed rescuin’ — again.”