"Drop Toraichi!"
Hisako tried to locate the source of Nanae's voice. The world was graduating to little smearing smudges below. In the frothing mass of the dark Sano colors, she could make out the shapes of her friends.
"I can't see!"
"Just drop it," Nanae called. "I'll catch it."
Hisako dropped the sword and heard it stick into the floor below, taking a puppet down with it. She felt the deep discomfort as someone, surely Nanae, drew it from the stage.
"It's heavy," Nanae puffed.
Hisako perked up at the sound of Toraichi biting through the air, taking out a swathe of puppets.
"What's happening down there?" she asked.
The occasional flashes of light made her head ache and the colors swim all the more intensely.
"Follow my voice!" Eiji cried.
She located him, hearing the whir of Stinger as he flung it about. She crouched, then jumped, flipping as her "down" righted.
She landed quicker than she thought, tumbling onto one of the rock props.
She flinched at the feeling of warmth against her face, then a hand gently touched her shoulder.
"It's me," Eiji said. "Sorry."
"What is it? It blinded me so fast, then it blasted me."
Hisako's vision restored, and she answered her own question.
Behind Eiji's concerned face, a blast of light scattered across Yasu's staff in a brief blinding flash. The heat of the rays blackened parts of the surrounding puppets that caught the stray beams.
"A sun?" she breathed.
The puppet smashed against Yasu, palms exploding with light. It lived up to the Sano reputation—each flare blackened its own dark armor as much as it did Yasu. Its gloves were pitch, and they flaked off in ashen bits of leather from the heavy gauntlets.
She wondered if maybe the person the puppet was based on was a reason the Sano colors were so dark.
"Something like," Eiji replied.
He paused his healing to fling Stinger in a wide arc, knocking back a line of climbing puppets, one of which had lost half a leg to the mini-boss puppet's blast. It hobbled on what remained, spear wavering recklessly by the heads of its allies.
Hisako shuddered. It looked human but was so far from it.
Mindless, numb desperation drove the puppets over one another, the lack of nerves or fear letting their attacks slide over and around each other. They moved like one flowing unit, possessed and legion. When the mini-boss's reflected attacks struck them, they didn't so much as flinch, even as some collapsed under their burns.
Once healed, Hisako slid down the rock, crushing a pair of attacking puppets underfoot.
"Can I have some chain?" she asked.
Eiji choked up on Stinger, offering her part of its infinite length. She wound it around her knuckles and even snagged a puppet between them, snapping it in two with the chain.
Eiji raised a brow, and Hisako grinned.
"Hold on tight," she teased.
He frowned, but before he could make any returning remarks, another wave of puppets rushed them. She whirled on two, smashing with chain-laden knuckles, and he whipped Stinger's kunai around in a tight aerial maneuver.
Hisako took the moment to make distance, snagging more puppets between them and sliding around with his ability as a boost. She lashed the chain in coordination with Eiji, and they trapped countless puppets.
Hisako slid under a swath of puppets to end up next to Nanae, who was keeping the minion puppets clear of Yasu and his boss battle.
When an eye-burning beam missed Yasu, Nanae redirected the blast onto the puppets using Toraichi's flat, weakening whole units of them.
Their side of the battle was almost easy. In such a condensed crush that the advanced maneuvers they'd encountered on the mountain were impossible. The plain puppets were chaff—slowly damaging, relentless chaff, but chaff nonetheless.
It was Yasu's battle that mattered, and he was struggling. Like them, he was holding his own, but also like them, he was being worn down, and his enemy wasn't.
He dodged the major blasts and scattered the smaller ones with the head of his staff. When he did, he did so strategically—he twisted his weapon to reflect sharp rays at the puppet, searing the thick armor.
With his strategy, he'd weakened several plates and had knocked a few off with his attacks. Still, the puppet raged on, all while he was left huffing and puffing, throwing himself into reckless rolls to dodge.
Hisako didn't see him gaining an advantage with his current strategy, but she also didn't see another way.
"Yasu!" she cried. "What are you going to do?"
She saw him set his jaw and parry a sun-empowered punch. The staff struck a padded shoulder uselessly. The puppet struck with the force of a star, and all he had was a shiny stick.
"Do you have a plan?" she asked over the clamor of the fight. "Do you have your ability?"
Yasu slammed through a series of spinning attacks. The puppet ate them, undamaged, then flicked a narrow arrow of light through Yasu's flapping yukata, narrowly missing the meat of his stomach.
"You're distracting him," Nanae murmured.
"It won't matter if he keeps going like he is," Hisako replied.
Nanae agreed; the solemn set of her face gave it away.
"He knows he's not worth the blood in his veins," the fox-woman purred.
Her voice echoed through the theater chillingly. Hisako spared a glance and saw her mechanically batting her fan again, head tilted alluringly but face hauntingly blank.
Hisako twisted heavily on a heel, winding up and throwing Toraichi. The fox-woman puppet was static and unaware. Toraichi bit into her torso with a loud thunk, and she toppled over wordlessly into the thrashing battle near Eiji. She didn't surface.
She turned back to Yasu and saw him looking, eyes wide, and face shattered. He mindlessly dodged a smaller sun-burst, staff shaking in his clammy hands.
"Fight!" Hisako howled. "Fight for yourself!"
Yasu, instead of brightening, faded even more.
The sun-warrior reared back, gauntlets building a horrible light for a deadly attack. Hisako grabbed her power by the reins and flew.
She slammed into Yasu, and the puppet's fists put a burning crater in the stage where he'd been standing. They tumbled into a heavy curtain, Hisako's hands gripping Yasu's collar. She lifted him back to his feet, though his legs didn't make any effort to stand.
"Get up," she demanded. "Get up and fight."
"It's no use," he said, a sad smile on his face.
"Don't smile!" she barked. "Don't make that face."
"It's just my face."
"Fight!" she screamed. "Fight because Kohaku is waiting for you to come back. Because the people who care are waiting for you to come back. At the very least, fight because there's nothing else to do."
"I could always fail," he countered. "Call it a day."
She fought the urge to shake him like a malfunctioning piece of machinery. "What about tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow?" she asked, anger cooling into something just as stern but equally gentle.
He shrugged.
"This is just today, Yasu," she told him. "If today is bad, forget about today. Live in the 'tomorrow.'"
"Mm…"
"Tomorrow is always better," she told him. "A few days ago, you had fewer friends, no? What could tomorrow bring, do you think?"
He cast his eyes downward, then he met her gaze again, and she saw the spark of a light.
"Who knows," he replied.
"Exactly. Isn't that exciting enough?"
"I suppose," he quietly conceded.
She clapped his back, and he stood up on his own again. "Alright then. Let's find out."
He closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. He held his staff out, and it rattled; the rings on the finial rang loudly but clearly, like chimes.
She stared in awe. The sound was like home—home before home. Yasu looked similarly peaceful.
His hair puffed out, and dark markings grew around his eyes and up his arms. He looked wild, but when his eyes opened, Hisako knew there was no cause for worry.
His dark eyes were clear and alive.
He spun the staff, the rings whistling pleasantly, and attacked. He threw the staff like a javelin, and it struck true—stronger than it ought to, as well. The spear went through one of the puppet's shoulders, pinning it to the ground.
Before it could pull the shaft through and free itself, Yasu flung a hand out. From his closed fingers sprouted a paper fan, as large as a sledgehammer. It hit like one too, knocking the helmet clean off the puppet's head when it struck.
The sound was astounding, like clapping wood with an open palm. The follow-up hit was just as surprising; the blow made the puppet's head spin comically.
"What's happening?" Eiji breathed, catching up to Hisako and Nanae.
"He's winning, I think," Nanae replied, just as befuddled.
"It's a comic," Hisako realized. "His ability—it's a comic show."
The puppet snapped free, hand flying out with an empowered swipe. Yasu was suddenly face-down on the stage, hands out to brace himself. From the ground, he spun, legs kicking out.
The puppet's legs flew out from under it, equally comical. It even got coyote time before slamming into a heap on the ground.
As soon as it did, arms flying out uselessly, a stack of washtubs fell on the puppet, further crushing it into the ground. It got up slowly, the stack dissipating into small leaves as it rose.
It powered up a strike, and Yasu stood his ground.
Hisako's body tensed as the light reached a climax, then a deluge of water poured from the ceiling, extinguishing the puppet and drenching it.
Yasu didn't relent while the puppet mechanically recovered. He attacked with his staff, but the puppet smacked it aside with a powerful backhand. It followed by blitzing Yasu.
Yasu dodged, blackened hands swatting aside a few strikes before the puppet charged up its gauntlets. Hisako gripped Stinger's chain tightly, heart racing.
The puppet swung, burning light following, and Yasu sprang up over the attack, then landed on the puppet's broad shoulders. Before the puppet could reach up and throw him off, another stack of washtubs fell on the puppet's head.
It would've seriously wounded a human, but it only cracked the unflinching puppet's pate. It's whole body began to glow, quickly becoming too bright to look at.
Nanae jumped in front of Hisako, and Hisako twisted around to pull Eiji into the line behind Toraichi.
"Yasu!" she cried.
The explosion was soundless but blinding, even with her hands over her shut eyes. The air felt like it had burst into flames; it was only for a moment, but it was enough to remind Hisako of the relentless sun on summer worksites.
Nanae dropped Toraichi with a hiss, hands red and metal hot. It cleared the way to see the battlefield in its entirety.
Long sooty stains emanated from the sun-warrior puppet. It had destroyed all the other puppets, which lay in half-charred sprawls on the ground. Some were still sizzling.
Yasu stood, shaking but upright. He had his hands clasped in a meditative pose. His entire front was burned, his clothes were singed and darkened, and his skin was bright red. Even some of his hair looked a little crispy.
Hisako's breath caught before she saw his chest slowly rising and falling.
His eyes opened, but she could tell they weren't quite seeing yet—they didn't focus on the puppet before him, already preparing to strike Yasu down again.
"Yasu!" Hisako's throat was parched, so dry her voice sounded like rough bark rather than a cry.
The puppet moved, but so did Yasu.
His hand snapped out to point at the puppet with two fingers, and he let out a battle cry, finally.
"Transform!"
The puppet was gone in a blink. A carved rock, like one might see at a souvenir shop or in an old movie, thunked to the ground. A warrior of stone lay face-down on the stage.
Yasu collapsed to his knees. Hisako tripped to run to his side.
"Yasu! Yasu, are you okay?"
He let out a shuddering exhale, letting himself slump into her arms. "It worked?"
Nanae skirted the small stone statue. "What was the goal?"
"I see a little garden statue," Eiji narrated. "Does that count as winning?"
Eiji knelt before Yasu and raised his hands to heal him.
"It does," Yasu whispered. He turned back, eyes starting to focus, toward where his aunt-puppet lay unmoving. "It's quiet…"
Just past the puppet was the Door. It didn't open itself or beckon hauntingly. It just stood.
"You did it," Hisako said. "How do you feel?"
"It… feels good," he breathed. "I feel… better than before."
Hisako smiled. "I'm glad."
He took a deep breath and sighed, lying back on the stage. He stared into the shadows of the theater above.
"I imagine Kohaku is waiting to try out ice creams now," Nanae thought aloud. "Would you want to join us?"
Yasu perked up. "I'm quite familiar with the selection by now."
"Then you'll have good recommendations," Eiji replied. "We plan on ranking each one—maybe you can help us decide."
"Ehh, I'm told I have bad taste."
"Oh, then you'll definitely have to join us. We have debates to settle," Hisako replied.