A pale humanoid figure walked slowly and silently through the thick fog of the Confluence, the vague borderland that separated many connected worlds. It appeared to be wearing a hooded robe, but up close, it was obviously folded sheets of veiny leathery skin. While it felt the coolness of the fog, it could not see it, for it had no eyes on its nearly vacant face. A barely visible narrow vertical slit for a nose and a thin horizontal line for a wide mouth were the only features on it. Other senses allowed it to see through the fog far better than any human, allowing it to even map the space around it to find where to pass through to another world.

  The creature felt none of the disorientation and uneasiness that humans felt when they experienced the warping of space-time caused by the Confluence. It did not possess emotions, having only the cold and calculating intellect of a master predator that fed on intelligent life. Hunger was the only thing it felt at the moment. It had fed poorly on the last world visited, barely staving off starvation by feeding on simple animals.

  This Confluence allowed it to leave in search of a better hunting ground, the last of hundreds of passages. There had been legions of its kind long ago, but their originators had fought them, reducing their numbers at the apocalyptic cost of their civilization. The remnants now wandered alone, feeding where they could, using the Confluences to find fresh food on a myriad of worlds.

  The creature paused for a moment, its feet slightly sinking into a patch of the spongy ground of the borderland. It appeared to be smelling the air when it moved its head around but was mapping the environment around it with other senses. The powerful presence of one of the chittering horrors that roamed the Confluence neared, something to be avoided. It then felt as if it smelled the aroma of glorious animal life. A world nearby had intelligent beings that possessed the most delicious and filling life energy for it to consume. It changed direction to head towards the food source.

  *****

  Ghost padded silently through the forest of spindly and strangely twisted trees that grew within the distorted landscape of the Confluence. When the fog came in, he wandered the slopes of Mount Kumotawa to patrol for any creatures entering this world he currently called home. His grey fur blended into the mist to hide him from creatures that hunted by sight, but he knew this would not hide him from borderland creatures. He was a smart and wise old cat now, far above the level of any normal cat. In addition, his other abilities included being able to wander through many worlds without the Confluence. Ghost could find paths that only he could walk, enabling him to roam widely and often. Sometimes, he just explored; at other times, he travelled at the beck of a shining presence he knew as his god and occasionally at the calling of a wizard.

  A messenger fox from Amaterasu, his god, told him to stay near this world to help it. He met a strangely familiar woman for whom he felt a deep affection as if they had been close before, so he did not mind staying at all. Yuriko did not possess magic, yet she could communicate with him surprisingly well, and he did like how she cuddled and groomed him. When he was with her, he felt the belonging of family. Yuriko made him very happy.

  Ghost’s whiskers vibrated, and his nose twitched like he smelled a new creature in his territory. It wasn’t one of the regular predators who dwelled in the fog, which he easily avoided. It was something new that possessed a powerful magical aura that he sensed at a long distance. The cat realized that its heading took it straight toward Mount Kumotawa, making him want to investigate.

  Ghost cautiously approached the creature, keeping terrain in between it and himself as much as possible. He navigated through the fog easily, not depending on sight, and nimbly padded through the distorted landscape. The creature paused in its advance and changed direction directly toward Ghost. The cat realized it had been detected and backed off to keep his distance.

  *****

  The pale humanoid sensed a strong life presence nearby. Perhaps it could catch it first to satisfy some of its hunger. It changed direction to stalk Ghost. Each time it neared the cat, the cat would move away to keep its distance. The game of cat and monster went on for a time before it realized that Ghost would not be caught. The pursuit of the prey even took it away from the world full of life. It wondered if this was a deliberate attempt at distraction. The creature decided to ignore the cat and turned around to head back towards the mountain. It felt disappointed and looked forward to feeding soon.

  *****

  The transition from the borderland to a world full of life happened slowly. Each step out of the borderland reduced the distortions of space-time, but the thick Confluence fog stayed constant. The creature knew it had arrived when the ground firmed up and distortions could no longer be felt. Life was everywhere around it. Its senses were flooded with the aura of life, an intoxicating feeling. It now felt the auras of small animals hiding high up in the trees and under the ground in dens to ride out the Confluence. Looking around, extending its senses, it detected the rich life energy of intelligent beings further down the mountain. There was a cluster halfway down the mountain, a few more at the base of the mountain, and thousands upon thousands of sentients in a settlement nearby.

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  The creature headed towards the closest source of food. It walked through the pine forest until it reached the edge of the trees that ringed a cleared area around a walled habitation. The wall stood four metres high and was made of tightly fitted stones. Scaling the wall would be easy for it, but the protective wards embedded in the wall around would repel it as they fended off magical creatures and spells. It could also tell some of the humans inside could use magic so they wouldn’t be easy prey. The creature’s hunger would remain unsatiated here. It considered going straight down to the base of the mountain to the smaller group of prey, then decided to head to the settlement. The trek would be longer, but it would feast there.

  *****

  Yuriko stood behind the till, observing the thick fog outside the store. This Confluence had come much earlier in the month than normal. The evening was quiet so far. She saw movement in front of the double doors at the front of the store before they slid open with a musical chime. Ghost dashed inside, skidded to a halt, and leapt up onto the front counter, an action he knew he wasn’t supposed to do. It was obvious that the cat was a little frantic from its puffed-up fur and the rapid swinging of its tail. Yuriko briefly saw two tails again, a familiar sight now.

  “What’s wrong, Ghost?” Yuriko asked. She reached her hand out to rub his head.

  “Mraaewww!” The cat pointed his face and a paw up the mountain. “Mraaewww!”

  Yuriko frowned. Something bad was happening on the mountain.

  “Is there something out in the fog?”

  “Mrrrp.” Ghost trilled in assent.

  “Is it worse than that tree squid or the wolf-lizards?”

  “Mrrrp!”

  “Will I need help to fight it?”

  “Mrrrp.”

  “Is the shrine or the store in danger?”

  “Mrrrw.” Ghost seemed to shake his head in a no.

  “Is anyone else in danger?”

  “Mrrrw.”

  “That’s good,” Yuriko briefed slightly in relief. This Confluence was another bad one, stronger than normal. There was now a unit of imperial ninjas protecting the shrine from further attack, but one could never be too sure.

  Travis came up to the front. He had heard the cat enter. “What’s up, Yuriko? Ghost looks kind of agitated.”

  “It looks like something nasty has come through the Confluence,”

  Travis gave a slight groan. “Not again.”

  “Ghost thinks it’s pretty strong. We’ll need backup.”

  “Good thing we have the JSOF detachment here now. Should I get them on the horn?”

  “Yeah, we’re going to need them. Notify Central first. I’ll notify Goro and warn the shrine.”

  *****

  The JSOF detachment prepared at their warehouse base. They wore full combat gear and performed final checks on their weapons and equipment. A few soldiers attached grenade launchers to their rifles, and a few others pulled single-use AT4 anti-tank weapons out of storage boxes. They took Travis’s warning seriously.

  “Have we picked anything up yet?” Major William Fredericks’s broad shoulders were hunched down as he stooped to look more closely at the widescreen display set up on a long folding table against a wall. At times like this, he still wished he smoked, but he chewed gum instead. He was in his early fifties now, greying at the edges with a bald spot on the top of his head. The bald spot reflected bluish-white light from the glow of the mountain map display.

  The sensor operator next to him, an IMA technician, typed on his keyboard and shook his head. “Nothing positive, sir. We have sparse coverage and the Confluence plays hell with electronics and the radio. We’ve lost eight sensors on the mountain, where a borderland must have emerged, too. I thought we had a hit at grid 3C five minutes ago, but the sensor cut out. It must have malfunctioned.”

  “Show that to me.”

  “There’s not much to see on the visual.”

  The technician clicked his mouse on a sensor point on the screen, and another window opened. He selected the most recent video. The thermal video camera on the sensor began recording and transmitting when the infrared motion sensor detected movement. The video just showed vague outlines of trees and shrubs in a three-second clip. No bright thermal image of an animal appeared on the looped video clip. William was about to give up when he noticed a slightly blurry patch in the background of the video that moved from one edge.

  “What’s that?” He pointed at the patch.

  “I can enhance that,” the technician zoomed in. The image was pixelated, not very clear and barely brighter than the background. It looked vaguely like the side view of a person but with poor contrast.

  “Is that a person?”

  “I thought it was a glitch,” the technician tried enhancing more to no effect. “The thermal signature isn’t bright enough, but it does look like something is there.”

  “It might be cloaked or just not human. Are there any other sensors that cut out like this one?”

  “There was another one at 4D, but that one has nothing on the video.”

  William traced a line from 4D to 3C and beyond. It led right off the map and towards Odewara town. The warehouse was located on the western side of Mount Kumotawa, along with the SuperQuickly further to the south. The road into town curved around the western base of the mountain, right by their building, before turning north to head into Odewara.

  “Abraham!” William called his tall assistant leader over. “We have contact. Whatever this is, it is heading towards town if it continues on this path.” He pointed to a spot on the map. “It will meet the road here. Hopefully, we’ll catch it there, but it has a head start on us.”

  Abraham turned to the rest of the detachment. “Time to saddle up. We got a target! I want Alpha and Bravo Teams up front. Charlie follows as a backup.” He then called Yuriko to meet them at the coordinates.

  *****