No One Can Take My Place
Chomp. Chomp. They chewed. They tore. They drank.
The masks were eating something. Hand wove through hand as they took up the food. It looked like pure disorder, and yet there was an order in it.
They packed flesh into places that were not mouths. They drank blood through eyeholes. They rammed bones down their throats still whole, sucked their fingers, and savored every trace. They left not even hide or hair.
Dozens swelled into hundreds. Masks on their faces, they ate. They had grown no teeth. They had never taken the masks off. Even so, they ate, and they drank.
Smack. Smack.
When they seemed to be finished, the masks drew back. Not a stain of blood remained on the plates. They looked at one another.
"There's entirely too much."
"Yes. Far too much."
A stomach growled.
"I am still hungry, however."
"Whatever shall we do?"
It growled again. And again.
"Hmm. Let us simply eat ourselves."
"Shall we?"
They seized one another.
"We shall eat well."
Crunch. Crunch. They ate one another as if nothing in the world were more natural. One ate the hand of the person beside him. One chewed the head of a diner who was still eating. One ate his own entrails. One traded hearts.
"A rare delicacy."
"Yes. Quite acceptable."
Talk flowered around the table. They laughed and chattered, shook their stress loose, and looked happily toward the future. It was a gathering, and it was a party. The guests were themselves. The hosts were themselves. The food was themselves. A party made of nothing but them.
Was it not delightful?
The party did not end until night. Beneath the night sky, a single figure remained standing. He dabbed his mouth with a handkerchief.
"I have eaten well."
Like a dream at midday, the party was over.
Dan Miryu vomited.
"Hueeeegh!!!"
What was that? A person? A living thing? Had it even been alive to begin with?
It had been a festival. A festival of things he could not understand.
Phantom did that...!
This was wrong. Rationalize it, deny it, look away from it, even affirm it—none of that mattered. This was not right.
It was not a fight between humans. It was not an animal's hunt. It was not mere cruelty. It was evil. An infinite evil.
Evil had been there as naturally as breathing. One gesture gave birth to pain. A single word tore a mind apart. And once the act was complete, it could not be understood. The brain melted. The five senses came undone. Even if you lived through it, you were not alive.
Focus... Hold on...
He shoved the evil aside and raised Life. Little by little, his sight cleared.
"Hah. Hah."
Blood would not stop running from his mouth. He had overcome it by a thread. If he had failed...
Dan Miryu dragged in a breath and looked at him.
"You might at least tidy up after yourself..."
He shook his head at the wildly stained table and the fragments scattered all around it. A clap. At that single clap, all of it vanished, as if it had been a mirage. Nothing remained but the man.
"Mr. Dan Miryu, are you all right?"
He came toward him.
"Ah— ah. I... thank you. You went to a great deal of trouble."
Dan Miryu flinched.
"Not at all. It was a simple disposal. You were the one who suffered, Mr. Dan."
"Ah. Th-thank you."
Dan Miryu fought, desperately, not to look away. He had the feeling he must not be caught showing fear.
The outward appearance was right for a phantom thief. But why? Why did it feel wrong?
This was different from Sword. That had chilled him too, but this was different.
He had to run. It was not the instinct to survive. It was a signal: if you want to die as a human being, then flee. Throat cut, heart pierced, drowned—any death would do. Do not die at the hands of the thing in front of you. Die that way, and it would not be death.
Get a grip. Get a grip.
He must not tremble. The man was a benefactor. What had just happened was abnormal, yes, but the result was good, wasn't it? He must not indulge a prejudice. The man was their comrade. They had crossed the brink of death together. To shake here would be an insult. It would be to look down on him.
Without thinking, he clenched the necklace tight.
No. I was only startled for a moment.
Dan Miryu stood.
"You've saved my life yet again."
"By rights, it ought to have been the other way around..."
The man—no, the phantom thief—said it bitterly.
"If I had handled it properly, it would never have come to this."
So it was a misunderstanding after all.
A person who could say a thing like that could not be evil. His mind had been shaken, and his judgment had slipped with it. That feeling from before was not worth another thought.
"We were unlucky. It is no one's fault."
"Even so..."
Dan Miryu moved to comfort him.
"If we are assigning blame, it is mine. I was the one who should have protected Korea."
That the Dan clan's strength had waned, and that he had let a villain organization run wild—both were his own fault.
It will not happen again.
He knew now that a monster called the Devil's Tree existed. He could not sit still. He would make certain that no one could invade Korea.
"Nnngh."
"Elder, are you all right?"
"Mr. Hwang Seokgu, are you all right?"
Hwang Seokgu pushed himself up, a hand pressed to his head.
"...What happened. Seeing the both of you here—is this hell?"
"No. All of us survived."
Hwang Seokgu's eyes opened.
"The hell? Was there a Captain Earth just passing through?"
"Mr. Phantom brought the monster down."
The phantom thief scratched his head.
"...I was lucky."
"Ha... Lucky enough to fell a thing like that..."
Hwang Seokgu stopped. The color drained from his face.
"Elder? Is something wrong...?"
"...Who are you."
The tiger eyes lit. They were eyes that saw what could not be seen.
"Elder...?"
"Who are you..."
Hwang Seokgu's body shook and shook. His eyes were soaked in terror. The tiger who did not fear death was nowhere to be found. Only a coward of a cat remained.
"Mr. Hwang Seokgu. I am Phantom, the phantom thief."
"Mr. Phantom...?"
Dan Miryu felt the wrongness of it. The unease he had ignored climbed until it was under his jaw.
"No. You..."
Hwang Seokgu growled.
Dan Miryu swallowed.
"...This is troublesome, Mr. Hwang."
The phantom thief shook his head.
Dan Miryu felt his body begin to tremble of its own accord. His breath grew rough. Thought stopped. Evil rose.
"In this world there is only one phantom thief. Myself."
The phantom thief's mask drank itself dark.
"Who else could there be?"
The mask smiled.
"Or else—"
The clouds scattered.
"am I some monster putting on the act of a man?"
The moon kindled a light of its own.
The stars overcame the lights of the earth.
"I am a phantom thief, and a phantom thief I shall remain."
Moon and stars gathered to bear him up.
"Do remember it."
It defined itself as a phantom thief.
He collapsed.
"Ph-Phantom?! Get a hold of yourself!"
A Guardian stared, aghast, at the phantom thief where he had fallen.
"Hoo. Hoo."
The tiger wiped his sweat and drove the fear out of himself.
The moon looked down on them. The stars hid their bodies once more. The sky was clear, and perfectly ordinary.
"..."
"...sir?"
"Ah— ah? What is it."
Anastasia looked at the man, who seemed somehow vacant.
"The updated report, sir."
"...Leave it there."
"Yes."
Anastasia stole a glance at him. It was strange that, until a moment ago, he had been unable to take his eyes off the map. She had never seen him like this. She had thought him a man without feelings.
So even he had a human side.
He still looked dazed. What could he have seen, to look like that?
"...Anastasia."
"You called."
"How goes the withdrawal from Korea?"
"Half have pulled out as of now."
"Too slow. Make it faster."
"...Sir?"
Anastasia asked it again. The man had never been like this.
"Is there a problem?"
"No. I'll see it done at once."
Her eyes went wide at the words that followed.
"Korea is hereby designated a Special-Grade Danger Zone."
"...Understood."
A Special-Grade Danger Zone. A classification so formal it existed only in the manual. The man had put it in his mouth.
"Tell the people under you: if they lay a hand on Korea as they please, I will dispose of them myself."
"...I'll relay it at once."
This was an emergency.
What in the world happened in Korea?
Anastasia pushed the question back. An order had been given. Carrying the order out was what mattered.
"I'll be out for a while."
"Yes."
The man went outside. Anastasia, who had been gazing toward Korea, turned her back.
The Darkness opened the door.
A corridor dressed in clusters of stars welcomed him. He set his foot upon it, and the foot seemed to tread not on a floor but on empty air. An ordinary person could not have walked that corridor at all. The Darkness ignored the fact and walked.
Beneath the sensation of floating, the Darkness thought. Something that should not have happened had happened.
The tree acting on its own? Nothing more than coquetry.
D-1 slipping into some wretch? Not worth remembering.
He had never even seen it. If a thing like that had existed, he would have noticed long ago.
Come from space? No. Entering from outside the Earth was no easy matter. Somewhere, a trace would show.
Come from another dimension? No. If a dimension warped, there was already someone who would deal with it first.
Hidden itself completely? No. This was not a thing that could be hidden.
At the end of an aimless walk, the Darkness arrived before a great gate.
Carvings were cut into the gate. At its center a white crystal sat pouring out light, and around the crystal five somethings drifted.
The Darkness looked at the gate for a long time.
"...Hmm."
He turned his steps. To come scurrying here over a trifle like this—he had been arrogant. It was a pleasant matter, if anything.
"I dearly hope I have not seen you."
The Darkness turned his steps.
The crystal in the gate glittered. It kept glittering until the Darkness was gone.
When the Darkness vanished, only the clusters of stars remained in the corridor.