Sonata of Darkness X and X Mouth of Calamity

At seven thirty the next morning, after eating the complimentary breakfast, Qi Zhou left his room.

"May I ask what date my room is booked until?" Qi Zhou asked at the front desk.

The staff member was not the same one from the night before. She took his room card and swiped it through the machine, surprise flashing in her eyes. Then she said respectfully, "It's booked until the end of this opening period. Enjoy your stay!"

"Oh," Qi Zhou said, taking back his room card.

Starting in the yellow-green rest area, Qi Zhou spent four hours listening to all the remaining chapters, then returned to the hotel.

Lunch was free, so he might as well eat it!

Qi Zhou popped a heaping spoonful of seafood rice from the set meal into his mouth as he opened his book and examined it carefully. Nen books were great-even if he flipped through one with greasy hands, no oil would get on the pages.

He discovered that, even after listening to every section, the six movements he had collected were still each missing a passage at the end, preventing them from being joined together.

"Hmm..." Qi Zhou ran his fingers over the pages. The more complete his collection became, the stronger that ominous feeling grew, but he could sense that it was still within his control.

He went to the piano room on the second floor and sat down at the piano.

The sheet music recorded in Imaginary Musician was as clear as if it had been etched into his soul. He placed his fingers on the keys and gently closed his eyes.

This was the first time in either of his two lives that he had played a "real" piano, yet it was as though he had practiced thousands upon thousands of times. Even when he stumbled slightly, he could immediately adjust.

Qi Zhou's fingertips moved skillfully across the keys, striking one note after another to form the dreamlike Song of the Four Seasons.

When the final note sounded, Qi Zhou's fingers remained on the keys. He did not even notice the tear that slid down his cheek.

He breathed gently and calmed himself. Next came that ominous piece, Sonata of Darkness (Piano).

When the first note sounded, everything in the room seemed to freeze.

If Qi Zhou had used Gyo, he would have seen streams of black Nen, seemingly made solid, winding around the piano like snakes of the void poised to devour someone.

Qi Zhou sensed it, but it was as though he were being controlled. His hands could not stop playing, and they even seemed to have slipped from his brain's control, willing to part from his body rather than leave the piece unfinished.

"Ding-!"

The music broke off just before the final missing passage. The jarring melody echoed through the air like a snapped string, filling the heart with a hysterical irritation. Qi Zhou slowly raised his hands. He saw the black mist that filled the entire room clinging to them, only to be forced into quiescence by the abrupt end of the performance. It dispersed with extreme reluctance-so quickly that it all seemed like an illusion.

"-This piece!"

Qi Zhou's eyes flew open, and he gasped for breath. Still shaken, he looked at his hands as though a trace of black aura remained on them.

If the score had not broken off there, he felt he would have done everything in his power to finish playing it, even at the cost of everything he had.

The feeling was so strong that it seemed rooted deep in his soul, as though his existence would be utterly worthless if he did not finish the piece.

"Something is definitely wrong with this piece!"

Qi Zhou closed his eyes and calmed himself. After taking several deep breaths, he opened Imaginary Musician.

Sure enough, the six pages bearing the movements of Sonata of Darkness (Piano), once snow-white, now looked as though they had been stained with black mist and a bloody aura. A line of small text had appeared in the table of contents: Collection: 75%; purification: 1.76%.

"Collection is at 75%... If I count by passages, I've collected 42, so there must be 56 in total."

Qi Zhou pondered. "Just as I thought, inside Whale Manor there should be a complete seventh section, along with the one passage missing from each of the first six."

"Purification is at 1.76%. I only played the first section, so working backward, I probably have to play all 56 passages..."

Qi Zhou placed his hands on the piano and closed his eyes. "...If playing it without completing it keeps me from being affected, then even if it's frightening, I have to continue."

"Chrollo and the others are keeping information from me. He won't tell me why he wants me to go inside. And the manor also seems to be deliberately looking for musicians. If I have to come into contact with this piece once I'm inside, all I can do is first find out whether my Nen can be of use."

With that thought, he began playing again.

Each section took six minutes to play, so six took nearly forty minutes. Forty minutes later, Qi Zhou looked at the words "Collection: 75%; purification: 75%" in the table of contents. In his hand was a strangely shaped badge, a seven-pointed star missing one point. The remaining six points were made of black mist, but when pressed, the mist condensed into a layer of matter so thin it could barely be felt. In the hollow center of the badge, a skull shape made of black mist was faintly visible.

At the same time, Qi Zhou sensed that something new had appeared in his book.

The first page of Imaginary Musician listed the movement titled Song of the Four Seasons, followed by four pages containing four pieces he had composed himself.

Now, after Song of the Four Seasons, there was a new chapter heading: Song of Taboo. Farther on was a subheading for Sonata of Darkness (Piano), followed by six incomplete sections.

"Does this mean Song of Taboo has other versions besides the piano version?"

Qi Zhou turned his attention back to the skull badge that had appeared in his hand.

He could feel that, as he looked at the skull formed from black mist, the skull's black-hole-like eye sockets were looking back at him. Its hollow mouth gaped wide, as though it could hardly wait to devour him.

"Although it looks pretty frightening, once the purification shown in the table of contents reached 50%, the ominous aura the movement gave me and the urge to finish playing it disappeared. Thinking of it that way, the badge might be harmless. Should I try it?"

"...There's no other way, anyway. Either way, I'm dead, but if I try it, I might have a chance to live."

After a moment's thought, Qi Zhou hesitated no longer and pinned the badge to himself. The skull on the badge glimmered with a dim light. Qi Zhou could feel his Nen leaking uncontrollably out of his body and being devoured by the skull badge. The sensation was extremely unpleasant, but Qi Zhou simply sat quietly on the piano bench with his eyes closed until the skull stopped, as though it had eaten its fill.

He placed his fingers on the keys again. Notes flowed, and black mist slowly seeped out along with the melody. Using Gyo, he saw the black aura spread through the room, but whenever it touched him, the skull devoured every bit of it.

"The badge is called the Mouth of Calamity. Its name sounds pretty fierce, but it can swallow the equally fierce black mist. But could it withstand the complete version of Sonata of Darkness?"

Qi Zhou lowered his head and removed the badge. It vanished from his fingertips in an instant.

Qi Zhou was slightly taken aback. He rubbed his fingers together. "And why can the Sonata of Darkness I played create a badge like this, which should still count as a positive status effect?"

Unable to arrive at an answer no matter how he thought about it, Qi Zhou stopped dwelling on the question. He stood up, stretched, and lowered the piano's keyboard cover. "All right, time to get my ticket to the inner grounds."

In the red-yellow rest area, Qi Zhou walked over to the pianist.

The pianist did not look at him until he had finished playing. Then he looked at Qi Zhou and smiled slightly. "Are you interested in the piano too, kid?"

"Mm."

Qi Zhou nodded. "I'd like to try. May I?"

"Of course." The young pianist smiled and stood up. "Go ahead."

The tourists watching grew interested when they saw a ten-year-old child wanting to play the piano and stopped to watch. One tourist shouted mockingly, "Kid, do you even know how to play? Don't embarrass yourself in front of everyone!"

Qi Zhou had no interest in responding to him. Instead, he slowly sat down at the piano.

The notes flowed out smoothly, but no one saw the black aura, laden with despair and darkness, roaring soundlessly as it enveloped everyone. It needed only to wait for the final note to fall before it could feast on the sacrifices chosen by the demon king.

The music carried a mesmerizing magic, tempting everyone to keep listening and then sacrifice themselves.

But the music came to an abrupt halt. As though someone had pressed a stop button, the black mist was forced into quiescence with extreme reluctance for who knew how many times now.

The whole room fell silent. Then a tide of applause erupted.

"Why did you stop?"

"Hey, kid, keep playing!"

Many people around him were shouting for him to continue. If one used Gyo, one could even see the black mist enveloping them, not yet fully dispersed, desperately trying to burrow into their bodies.

Qi Zhou had no intention of paying them any attention. Leaving aside the fact that he really did not know how, even if he did, he would not play such lethal music in public.

He looked at the young pianist, whose expression was no longer as relaxed as before, and smiled slightly, his gaze firm and determined to get what he wanted.

The young pianist looked solemnly at the boy before him. After a while, he slowly took a black whale-shaped badge from his pocket and said respectfully, "Please present this in front of the Whale Hotel at six p.m. on March seventh. A car will be there to take you where you wish to go."

He paused, then continued, "However, if you leave the garden or fail to wait at the appointed time, you will be considered to have forfeited your eligibility. Also, the badge is for your use only. If it is transferred to someone else, you will likewise be considered to have forfeited your eligibility."

"All right, I understand."

Qi Zhou took the whale badge and nodded.

After returning to his room, Qi Zhou lay on the bed, tossing the whale badge into the air and catching it again and again. After repeating this many times, he sighed helplessly.

Shalnark had given him only three days, and tomorrow was the third. But how was he supposed to get the information to them...?

Besides, he had already gone around the sea of flowers two and a half times, but had not seen a path leading to the island in the lake at all.

So, for now, all he had gained were the whale badge and his Mouth of Calamity.

"Hmm..." Qi Zhou let out a long sigh inwardly. "I can only take things one step at a time..."

For the remaining days, apart from sleeping until he woke naturally each day, Qi Zhou quietly practiced "Point" and "Ten."

They had not told him how to contact them anyway, so... he would wait for them to contact him!