The bunker beneath New Delhi was completely silent. The alarms had been disabled during the initial breach. Sakura Watanabe stood in the center of the secure room.
Akshay Malhotra, the Prime Minister, lay slumped over his large desk. He was unconscious. His breathing was slow and steady.
The high ranking ministers and the armed black suit bodyguards were scattered across the floor. Sakura had moved through the room with precise efficiency.
She had knocked them all out before they could draw their weapons or call for backup. None of them were dead.
Sakura's white suit was ruined. It was soaked heavily with rainwater and her own blood. She did not seem to notice the wet fabric sticking to her skin.
Her body had already repaired the fatal damage. The massive hole in her chest from the red sword was gone. The flesh and bone had stitched back together beneath her clothes, leaving her fully functional.
She walked up to the Prime Minister. She stopped right beside his chair. She raised her right hand and positioned her fingers directly over his chest.
She did not pierce his physical skin. Her hand moved through his suit fabric and his ribs as if she were reaching into a deep pool of water.
A dull light flickered around her fingertips. She pushed her hand deeper into the empty space where the Prime Minister's heart rested.
She gripped something unseen in the center of his chest. She pulled her hand back slowly.
A glowing sheet of parchment followed her fingers out of his body. It was a contract. It pulsed with a steady light that matched the beat of the old man's heart.
This document was the source of his future sight. This was his tether to the demon that gave him his political power.
Sakura held the parchment up to the dim light of the bunker. She looked at the signature at the very bottom of the page. It was written in a dark, shimmering ink that seemed to move on the paper.
She placed her thumb over the name of the demon. She applied a small fraction of her own demonic energy to her thumb.
The dark ink began to boil under her touch. It scrubbed away completely. The signature line was left completely blank.
She raised her right hand to her mouth. She bit the tip of her own thumb until a drop of blood welled up. She pressed her bleeding thumb to the parchment. She smeared her blood across the empty line, signing her own identity onto the document.
The contract reacted instantly. It turned from a golden hue to a deep, bruised violet color.
Sakura took the parchment in both hands and pressed it flat against her own chest. The paper did not fold or fall. It sank directly into her skin.
It moved past her ribs and settled into her regenerated heart. She let out a slow breath. The job in India was officially finished.
-
Back in the Minato apartment in Tokyo, the crushing weight finally vanished from the room.
Masaru felt the first spark of heat return to his gut. It was very weak at first. It felt like pins and needles.
It was the exact sensation of blood returning to a numb arm after sleeping on it wrong. He pushed himself off the floor and sat up. He gasped for air, his lungs burning.
Kuzushi was already getting to her feet. She leaned heavily against the kitchen counter. Her face was pale and covered in sweat.
She held up her right hand and tried to spark her kinetic energy. A tiny, pathetic flicker appeared between her fingers before dying out immediately.
"It is back," Kuzushi said. Her voice was thin and raspy. "But my tank is completely empty. I feel like I have not slept in a month."
"It is not just empty," Masaru said. He wiped cold sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. "It was stolen. You felt it. That heavy pressure. That was Sakura taking it from us."
Alex and Yuki were still laying on the floor near the sofa. They were breathing, but they were too weak to sit up.
The energy drain had hit the lower Deviation ranks much harder. They were completely incapacitated.
Masaru stood up. His legs felt like lead weights. He walked over to the coffee table. He remembered the copy of the contract Kuzushi had thrown at him days ago when she first arrived. He had ignored it then.
He had assumed it was just a standard employment agreement for private contractors.
"Kuzushi. Give me your copy of the contract," Masaru said.
Kuzushi did not argue with him. She was too tired to put up her usual arrogant front. She reached into her cargo pants pocket, pulled out the folded paper, and handed it to him.
Masaru unfolded the document. He ignored the standard clauses about insurance payouts. He ignored the mission bonuses and the liability waivers.
He scanned the dense paragraphs, looking for anything that explained what had just happened to their energy.
He found a specific section on the third page. It was buried in a paragraph labeled 'Energy Synchronization and Unit Cohesion'.
He read the text carefully. It stated that the contractor agreed to provide all necessary resources to ensure the success of the unit. That included physical, mental, and spiritual deviations.
Then he saw the final sentence of the paragraph.
He read it aloud. "The contractor hereby grants the private contractor total jurisdiction over the fundamental essence of their being, including the finality of the soul, for the duration of the employment."
Masaru read the line three times to himself. A cold knot formed in his stomach.
"The soul," Masaru whispered. "She was not being poetic. It is literal."
Kuzushi walked over and looked over his shoulder at the paper. "What are you talking about?"
"The contract," Masaru said. He pointed hard at the sentence. "We thought we were just getting paid to hunt demons. We thought Sakura was just a strict boss who gave us free rent. But look at this text. She literally owns our souls."
Kuzushi stared at the paper. "That is not possible. A piece of paper cannot take a soul. That is fairy tale garbage. The Liaison Office would not allow that."
"It is a demonic contract," Masaru said. He looked at her, his eyes wide with realization. "Think about it. The subway mission. The chains she put around our necks. We thought they were leashes to keep us safe from the demon. But they were connections. She was linking us to her."
Masaru felt sick. He realized Sakura was not a hunter. She was a collector. Every person she hired was just another weapon in her arsenal. They were not a team. They were a library of techniques that she could access whenever she wanted.
"I am quitting," Masaru said. He threw the contract on the table. "I do not care about the money anymore. I do not care about the apartment. I am leaving Tokyo today. I will go to the countryside and farm dirt. I am not staying here to be a human battery for that woman."
"You cannot quit," Kuzushi said. She picked up the paper and flipped to the back page. "Look at the termination clause."
Masaru stopped walking toward his room and looked back. "What does it say?"
"There is no termination clause," Kuzushi said. She looked up at him, her brown eyes wide and serious. "There is only a line that says the contract remains in effect until the soul is no longer viable. That means until we are dead."
"Screw that," Masaru said.
He walked back to the table and snatched the paper from her hands. He grabbed the top edge with his left hand and the bottom edge with his right.
He put all his strength into his grip. He tried to rip the paper straight down the middle to destroy the agreement.
He expected it to tear easily. It was just standard printer paper.
Nothing happened.
Masaru gritted his teeth. He braced his feet against the floor and pulled harder. The muscles in his arms strained and shook. The paper did not even crinkle. It felt like he was trying to tear a solid sheet of titanium.
He brought the paper to his mouth and tried to bite the edge. He tried to fold it and snap the crease. He grabbed his combat knife from his belt and slashed at the surface with the sharp steel blade.
The blade slid off the paper without leaving a single scratch.
"It is bound," Kuzushi said. She watched his frantic efforts with a growing sense of dread. "If the soul clause is literal, the paper is literal too."
Masaru threw the contract onto the dining table. He was breathing heavily. "Try it. Use your energy."
Kuzushi did not hesitate. She grabbed the contract and placed it at a distance on the far end of the wooden dining table.
She stepped back several feet. She gathered the tiny amount of demonic energy she had managed to regenerate over the last few minutes. She pointed her palm directly at the paper.
She focused her intent. A small, concentrated wave of kinetic force shot from her hand.
The blast hit the dining table directly where the paper rested. The wood exploded instantly. Splinters of thick mahogany flew across the living room, bouncing off the walls and the sofa.
The heavy legs of the table snapped in half. The entire piece of furniture collapsed onto the floor into a pile of ruined rubble.
Dust floated in the air.
Masaru and Kuzushi walked forward and looked down at the wreckage.
The contract was sitting perfectly intact on top of a broken plank of wood. It had not been damaged.
There was not a single scorch mark on the white surface. It was not even dusty. It looked exactly as it had when Kuzushi first pulled it out of her pocket.
Masaru stared at it. The paper was indestructible.