It was too early in the morning for time to count, yet the light hit beautifully at the edge of the pillow and half of Ren's face. He slowly opened his eyes, and for a moment, he just stared at that light, like it was the first time he'd ever seen sunrise.
From the top of the wardrobe came a familiar voice, annoyingly casual. "You're awake."
Ren made a point not to answer.
Suddenly, reality kicked in. He stirred beneath the blanket, and his muscles started to ache immediately, as his body still remembered the pain Kagami had shown him just a few hours ago. He hated how helpless he'd felt, and more than that, he knew he couldn't let himself face something like that unprepared again.
"That wasn't personal, you know," she said, curling her tail down the wardrobe door. "And it was just a small taste of the real pain the pact can inflict upon a living being. It knows when a promise is being broken."
Ren turned towards the ceiling and stared at it. He found no comfort in how she was saying it was nothing personal. What the hell was that? Everything was personal since the moment he'd entered that goddamn tunnel.
"But hey," Kagami added cheerfully, "pacts don't always have to be unpleasant. Some are… useful to both parties involved."
That remark made him shoot a sharp look in her direction. He sat up slowly, not losing eye contact. "Useful..." he said. "Is that what this is?"
"It could be," she said, stretching lazily. "If you stopped fighting it so much."
"Why do you even need me?" Ren asked with a slightly exasperated tone. " You seem like you're powerful enough, so why can't you just find what you need by yourself?"
"I'm not allowed to interfere," she said as her eyes moved toward him, shining golden.
"Not allowed to?"
"You wouldn't understand."
He scoffed and turned away. Of course, another cryptic riddle. She kept talking down to him like he was some child stumbling around in a dark room.
"Every witch has something that distinguishes them from the rest," Kagami continued, ignoring his mood. "For me, it was my eyes."
Kagami leapt down from her throne-like sanctuary above the wardrobe and sat quietly next to Ren.
"Without them, I'm not a witch," she added, and Ren swore he could catch a little bit of melancholy in her voice. "I'm nothing, just a drifting thing. Even less than a ghost."
"So you need me to bring them back," Ren added, rubbing his forehead and trying to adjust to the new information. "And if I don't, I get that... experience... again, until I die."
Kagami lay down, elegant and distant, and started grooming herself, like she had given too much already.
Ren exhaled, defeated. "Fine." If he had to do this, he had to think it through properly. "You said they were stolen?" he asked.
She nodded. "Long ago. Don't ask, though. I was… careless."
"And you also said that you're not looking for anything... dead."
"Who would?" Kagami replied, playing her disgusted part well.
Ren got out of bed and dressed quickly as his thoughts raced with trying to piece together what to do next. "If they're real, they've gotta be somewhere, right?" he said mostly to himself. "I've heard stories about collectors of witch artifacts..."
"Yes, there are many of them…" Kagami said in a low voice. "I only wish I could drive my claws into the one who took what's mine."
The only place to even begin such a search was the one he had sworn never to come back to again. "Then I guess I go to the underworld."
Kagami's ears perked up. "Oh, are you now?"
He ignored her, grabbing his shoes from one of the corners of the room.
"It's entertaining watching you try to plan like a real witch," she purred softly.
"I'm not a witch."
But the purring only increased, ignoring his remark.
----
Ren stepped outside with his coat drawn close. He moved quickly through the streets, following a path he hadn't taken in years. A few turns in several distinct places, and the city around him began to change. The deeper he went, the more cluttered, messier, and broken it all became.
The underworld. This was where shady deals and debts got settled if one wanted to keep them quiet. A place where everyone knew how to look the other way.
Kagami followed at a small distance, hopping from ledge to ledge and pausing every once in a while to dry her fur.
"Maybe you should give me a tour of the place," she said as they moved past a row of closed shops and neon-lit signs. "You are my eyes now, after all."
It was true that this was all familiar to him, but only in the bad sense of it. There were a lot of bad memories here. A lot of places and names he knew were best left forgotten. As he passed by them, he recognized hidden doors and windows that had served different purposes once. But he didn't look back at them.
Eventually, he reached a worn shop made out of dark wood. A small curtain kept fluttering above the counter, and two paper lanterns hung on either side of it. The man behind the counter was old now, but Ren recognized him instantly.
"Well, well," the man said. "Little Ren. I thought you were dead."
"Not yet," Ren replied, smiling slightly at the corner of his mouth.
The man laughed.
It seemed as though there were stories to be told about both of their pasts together, but neither of them wanted to touch the subject directly. They accommodated by simply throwing away cryptic phrases with double meanings that only they were able to understand.
A few minutes in, Ren placed a few coins on the counter. In return, the old trader gave him a slim talisman, an 'ofuda'-like object with symbols drawn in ink and its corners embedded with something that looked mechanical.
"There's a place down in Nezumi Hollow," the man said. "There's a bunch of buildings there that used to be sealed, but now there's some sort of disturbances people keep reporting."
"What kind of disturbances?" Ren asked.
The trader scratched his cheek and glanced left and right like he was already regretting saying too much. "People go in looking for lost witch relics, and don't come out. That kind of thing."
He leaned in a little, lowering his voice. "Some say a Vault was open."
That caught Ren's attention. Vaults. He used to hear about them as a kid. His brother always told him to stay away, that Vaults were witch business, and nothing good ever came from getting involved with that. And at that age, he always listened.
Kagami said nothing. She knew enough about Vaults to recognize them for what they were. Prisons. Torture chambers. All neatly dressed up in corporate gowns. But she didn't bring it up. Instead, she watched quietly as Ren slipped the talisman into his pocket and walked off without a word.
----
Ren didn't speak for a long while. Kagami walked silently beside him with her tail curling softly behind.
"That was awkward," she said eventually.
"I didn't think I'd ever come back here."
"Why not?"
"Because this place destroys people. And I promised myself I would never look back once out," Ren replied, still not wanting to dive into the details of it.
They passed a set of bridges, where all sorts of paper amulets fluttered beside improvised tech. Ren stopped in front of a food shop that had a "noodles" sign on top. It was a good excuse to let his mind drift away from all of the mess stirring inside him. Food never failed him on that matter.
The man behind the counter handed Ren a warm bowl, then he turned to Kagami, who had jumped onto the empty stool beside. "Will the cat be having anything?"
Ren opened his mouth to say "no", but stopped mid-way as he noticed Kagami's eyes narrowing slightly.
"…a glass of milk," he mumbled, annoyed.
She purred in approval of his choice. "What? You thought witches don't eat?"
They ate in awkward silence for a while, as steam rose softly from their bowls. Ren pretended not to pay attention to Kagami beside him, an actual witch, drinking milk next to him at a cheap noodle shop in the lower parts of the city. You didn't hear something like that every day. Her ears twitched at every sound, but her eyes stayed half-lidded, like she was enjoying the moment.
"You don't talk much about the underworld. What did you do here?" Kagami asked.
"I survived."
"I know you can be more specific than that."
He sighed at the intrusiveness, although he was starting to get used to Kagami being like that. "My brother and I were sold here as kids. Later on, he managed to get us both out. We got a job out there and got on with our lives."
"Doing what?"
"Fixing things mostly."
Kagami grinned a little. "Good. It means you can maybe fix me, too," she said playfully.
"Right..."