Canticle: Code Caligula

Chapter 37: Wishes of an Ant, Part 4

Charon Mortuary, Gakidō — Two minutes before detonation. Naraka held his breath as the armored men exited through the broken doorway. After their departure, he slowly exhaled. Their footsteps grew faint as they walked down the lightless hallway. Once regrouped, Superintendent Larsa sneered with an expression as cold as the icy corpses locked away.

"Set up the spells then, let us be done with this place."

Naraka dropped the spatial wall he had constructed, causing reality around himself to warp and contort as it shifted back to normal. Still, he didn't dare unmask his presence.

—They aren't actually going to destroy this place are they?

The demon's thoughts were answered as he heard a spell being cast from the other room.

"Jigadō Number Ninety Eight: Solaris," a soldier declared, his voice somewhat muffled through the walls.

Almost instantly, Naraka felt a chunk of raw magical energy radiating within the building as the last soldier left. His sense of urgency spiked. This was a Solaris spell; a powerful explosion magic that remained exclusive to secretive military personal designated for wetwork. It was a spell that existed with one purpose: obliterate anything it comes into contact with.

—This is insanity! A spell like that is illegal to unleash within public settings! It'll take down everything within a three block radius!

He had to act fast. The orb lingered in the lobby of the mortuary, like a balloon slowly becoming overinflated. Once it popped, that'd be it for Naraka. Even a magical shield wouldn't perfectly protect from such a blast. To make everything worse, his Thrall Yatagarasu was still lingering outside.

Naraka patted his chest, confirming the contents he pilfered still remained within his coat pocket. He was lucky to grab it when he did, else it might have been destroyed by the passing soldiers from earlier.

They were the autopsy reports of Sierro, the sole existing evidence he had.

Reaffirming their security inside his coat, Naraka bolted from the freezer room. Streaking across the hallway like lightning, he turned and approached a wall painted the color of strained peas. On it were several pin-ups of scantily clad women in lingerie, clearly a hobby the now-deceased mortician likely indulged in.

Naraka ripped the already peeling posters off the wall in a hurry, placing his bare hands on the cold drywall.

"That seems thin enough," he mumbled to himself.

Parting his arms in opposite directions, as if opening a set of curtains, Naraka used his Tamashi Genkai to bend the space in front of him. The solid walls stretched and parted with the elasticity of rubber, highlighted with a neon glow.

A new path stood before him. Naraka had parted the space of the mortuary's wall, but also the brick wall on the opposite side; allowing him free passage into the neighboring complex.

Not one to waste time, Naraka jumped through the makeshift portal into the new building. As he did, the walls that had been unnaturally stretched apart snapped back into their original form. With the exit now sealed, the demon scanned around the room to identify his new environment.

There was a dining table near to his right, with a few pictures hanging from the walls and a television in the next room. All of the lights were off.

"An apartment? Hmm... I don't sense any lifeforms in here. Must be out at work."

Naraka pulled a thin whistle out from underneath his fastened collar. It was originally a bone from some ancient beast, whittled away into a convenient tool. He blew into it, producing no noise that the average demon could detect. Yatagarasu, however was trained to always respond when the whistle was blown.