Black smoke rises. Emi inhales the hot steam through her nose, enters a spastic coughing fit that makes it look like she just swept a chimney without a mask at the worst time possible—the slapping feet in the hallway have stopped outside the open door. She lifts her free hand, her left hand, to her mouth in hopes of stopping the escaping black dust and therefore stifling the noise that is currently acting as another giant waypoint hanging directly above her.

  Activate thermal vision.

  “Thermal Vision: On.”

  Shhh. Don’t let them hear you!

  “Why not? They certainly already know we’re in here Masaoka Shiki.”

  Who is Masaoka Shiki?

  “I forgot, you don’t fuck with school.”

  With thermal vision engaged, the heat rising as smoke colors the room deep orange that turns red the closer it is to the ground where the fireballs continue to fall from the flaming saw stuck to the chrome companion wrapped around Emi’s arm.

  At long last, we made it into Jigoku.

  “At last?” The mouth engulfing her right-hand wiggled its sharp tongue as it mumbled the question.

  Queen Bee offers a hastily constructed explanation. “Having to wait is worse than purgatory for her.”

  Emi doesn’t bother explaining her entire backstory, including the search for Jigoku (Hell) that became her father’s only purpose in life. At least, that was his purpose up until the point when her memory goes blank.

  “I’m hungry Stepmother Emi. Invite them in. Need more hair.”

  Let go of my hand and I’ll give you some.

  A hard slap of fast feet. The door to the room closes and locks, sending the smoke swirling chaotically in a gust of wind. Red-to-orange tinted smoke swirls around waist-height where the outline of the inmate moves in colors just a few shades lighter than the smoke.

  Emi freezes, her companions do the same—static pokes out from the ceiling speaker. Her glowing blue eyes focus on the place where the smoke swirls fastest, which happens to be the same location where glass is currently shattering against the ground. Inmate Number 392610 (Henry). Sexual Misconduct. Cyborg. Specialization: Influence. Balance: ￥1,254,739. Personality: Slimy.

  Queen Bee, distract him.

  “I’m confused. Do you want me speaking aloud to the class or not?”

  Yes, speak now.

  The voice in the speakers takes on a swift baritone voice as if masking her identity. “Welcome to Hell, sinner.”

  “Who’s there?”

  “King Enma. Known colloquially as the Devil, in the place from which you came, deviant.”

  Unfortunate choice of words.

  “Gross. Unintentional foreplay…I mean wordplay.”

  The greasy man speaks in Latin, which Emi’s ears automatically translate into Japanese. “Show yourself, Devil. I spent a lifetime training for you.” Glass breaks under his feet as he creeps through the room seemingly darkened by incense.

  Emi takes a deep breath, trying to quiet the baseline being laid by her heart. Big mistake. She launches into a coughing fit that might as well be a solo drumroll.

  The baritone voice overhead is enjoying herself, as always. “There she is now, Death herself, choking where she stands.”

  A handsaw spins to life where the inmate named Henry pivots his bare feet over broken glass.

  Emi uses the cover of his noise to take a long hop away from where he last heard her. Maybe I can flank him.

  Her foot lands on a half-shattered jar. She cries out as she tumbles to the ground, spilled liquid painting her taupe uniform in glowing colors so bright she might as well be pulsing like a strobe light. When the cries of pain continue to spill from her mouth, Futakuchi-onna sticks her tail far enough down Emi’s throat to make her release some of the colorful liquid, along with a loose tooth that does not belong to her, that made its way down her throat somewhere along the way.

  The saw starts inching towards the sound of gagging. Queen Bee tries to stop him. “Then, you should know better than to disturb the Devil while she is expelling demons.”

  Stopping her half-hearted attempt at pulling the long piece of glass from her foot when the pain gives her no other choice, Emi tries to move to her knees. Futakuchi-onna tugs at her hand as if helping her up, dropping its body loose and starting to swing. She tries to stop it, the motion making her already upturned stomach uneasy, but her snake-like companion only swings faster until the momentum is great enough to swing Emi’s arm in a circle overhead. The child extends further than Emi though her body was possible, like an unusually elastic accordion. A loud clang signals success when the metal snake wraps around the rusted rafters. To non-enhanced ears, the sound is too faint to be heard above a screaming sawblade.

  Futakuchi-onna contracts its body, pulling Emi off the ground by her already ceiling pointed arm. Feet in the air, fangs in the roof of the mouth locked onto her hands threatening to dig a trench from her palm through her fingers, Emi soars through space like a weightless child swinging from a rope. The path of the swing starts to circle back; Emi finds herself behind the inmate and heading fast for his back. She lifts a leg, the long piece of glass still inserted in the unwashed foot bathed in blood. Henry senses her wind just in time to turn his head and watch the glass squish through his human eye like an axe through a water balloon—if the water balloon was inflated by blood.

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  He falls backward in horror. The saw falls behind him, the trigger depressed but the blade spinning fast enough to cut through the bones at the base of his ribs and scratch at the fatty surface of his wine-infected liver.

  Swinging above him like a pinata covered in blood, Emi focuses on the inmate’s stats. Status: Coma.

  Above Emi where the rope made of the second-hardest metal in existence is working to slow her swinging, the uniquely wet-yet-dry sound of an egg being broken is followed by the clinking of gears and a hard thud below her.

  What in Jigoku was that?

  The baritone voice returns to an Australian woman’s. “One of her siblings.”

  Siblings!? Emi starts to thrash, thinking the action will somehow make the locked jaws release her.

  Below her, now that the saw lodged in Futakuchi-onna’s body has at least fallen free and the flames gone out, the smoke in the room has thinned to a faded gray fog.

  Deactivate thermal vision.

  “Thermal Vision: Deactivated.”

  On the ground, a snake much smaller than the one holding her up slithers toward the body of the sleeping inmate. Reaching out with its tail, it wraps around the hand of the saw that died in the man’s ribcage and starts to drag the body across the room. As it reaches the locked door, it opens and allows the body to be taken into the hallway where it will be deposited back in its room for attempted rejuvenation.

  The next inmate in line at the door hesitates upon seeing the gruesome body going by. Emi focuses on him; discovers he is a human. He smartly sprints away from the door, not wishing to gamble his one life on some unknown loot. The next contender in line shrugs her blonde hair from her shoulders, takes a confident step inside. The door locks shut while Futakuchi-onna licks Emi’s hand in a failed attempt to lick her own lips.

  Queen Bee announces the newcomer liker a pay-per-view fight announcer…which in this case is exactly what she is. “In the red corner painted by the spilled enzymes of Inmate 392610’s dying liver, standing at five feet four inches and 120 pounds, you feel her before you see her, Inmate 392699, Jasper the Ghostmaker!”

  The sound of an audience roaring plays from the speakers. Jasper holds her hands above her head like a boxer playing to the crowd.

  “And in the rafters, hanging at five feet one inch and a plump 125 pounds, the Devil herself, Inmate 392689, Emi of Clan Shura!”

  Boos rain down from the speaker. Emi throws up her one free hand, saying: What the fuck? I thought you were on my side.

  Futakuchi-onna mumbles, “She is, but she probably bet against you.”

  Seriously? You bet on me to die?

  “Relax, it was before you had the kid. I wish I could take it back.”

  Then why are you booing?

  “I still want to win!”

  The teenage girl looks up at Emi, spotting her in part because of the blood she is dripping down onto the girl. She waves back at Emi’s swinging body. “What are you doing up there?”

  Oh, you know, just hanging out.

  “I am not repeating that.”

  Thank you.

  Suddenly, Futakuchi-onna releases Emi’s hand, sending her to the ground with a soft thud. Jasper is on top of Emi’s shorter but meatier body in a flash of pale light. Then, her hands release Emi’s throat just as fast. The girl shrieks in fright. As she stands and turns, Emi sees the chrome snake nesting within the waves of thick hair and latching on to her scalp like an eel sucking blood.

  Why do I get the feeling I was just used as bait?

  The announcer’s voice is back. “Inmate 392689 unintentionally pulls the Companion Move: Hook & Bait out of thin air and unleashes a blow to Inmate 392699 that seems to have sent her reeling into the ropes.”

  Jasper’s back crashes into the untouched shelves lining the far wall. She somehow screams louder, shutting Emi’s hearing off, her bleached hair shaking as if actively being electrocuted. “Get it off me!” She slaps her head backwards into the shelves on the wall. Glass breaks, enters her own skull instead of the body of Futakuchi-onna.

  Emi rises to her knees, watches the tornado tearing down what shelves still hang in the room in hopes the girl will wear herself out with her desperate and ineffective flailing. She uses the time to inspect the deep wounds in her hands where it appears four nails have been driven through and removed. Then she checks her foot, finds the biggest hole of all where the glass was pulled free by a nonconsenting eyeball.

  After collapsing onto the floor out of exhaustion, terror, and loss of blood, the now glowing girl-tornado finds a long piece of glass and slides it across her own throat. Blood boils into her lap, then she slumps to the ground. Her bleach-blonde hair is soaked in her own blood, turning the golden trophy bronze in Futakuchi-onna’s mouth. She pulls a mouthful free, slithers with it back to her new Stepmother.

  Does she expect me to be proud of her or something?

  Futakuchi-onna does look up at her new companion like a proud dog waiting for a pat on the head with blood-soaked hair hanging from its mouth. Emi tries to scoot away, but the snake is faster at slithering—it slips up inside her loose left pant-leg and latches its teeth onto the base of her left thigh.

  “The new Super Featherweight champion of the world! Futakuchi-onna!” Deafening roars from the speakers.

  Don’t forget her bait, Emi!

  Boos rain down. “Technically, you came in overweight at the weigh ins. Expect a hefty fine.”

  Let me guess, just enough to cover your bet?

  “Plus, interest.”

  As the door reopens, letting the last of the smoke out, the sound of a snake returning from its delivery duty scrapes across the concrete. It doesn’t stop until it reaches the corpse of the paler-than-ever girl at the base of the broken shelves. The wet sound of something entering human flesh ripples through the room.

  At the spot Emi suddenly feels phantom limb pains where her left knee once was, Futakuchi-onna mumbles. “I’d get out of here before her backbone is reinforced by an indestructible spine. There can be only one Futakuchi-onna.”

  Emi stands on one leg.

  Her left leg mumbles as if offended. “Why aren’t you using me?”

  “She’s right. I count three inmates waiting outside this door. And it’s a long way to the top.”

  As Emi moves her left leg towards the ground, Futakuchi-onna curls her back end and mimics the shape of a human foot. Emi tests her weight on it. The pain of teeth digging into her left thigh is almost too much, but she has no choice but to grit her teeth and bear it.

  “Mental Fortitude: +3.”

  Why is does that seem to be the only stat that is going up?

  “It’s the only one you know how to use. You lean too much on your strengths.”

  She walks to the open door, her right foot leaving a trail of blood and her left clunking against the concrete with each step. To those outside the door, it sounds as if someone is banging a hard staff against the ground. They take a step back in fear.

  When the short one-legged woman painted in blood steps out, however, they breathe a sigh of relief and step forward easily.

  Emi turns right, where the ground is almost imperceptibly going uphill as it wraps around in a thick spiral, and sprints. Soon, her right foot is numb, a warning she mistakes for good luck, and she realizes the grip of her left foot is more reliable than even the best of shoes. She darts faster than she has ever run before.