The Grand Azathoth Hotel - Chapter 51

Chapter 51

Director Emily Piggot hated Masters.

It wasn’t just the power itself—though it was a disgusting, invasive, unnatural thing—it was the sheer unknowability of it. The way it turned people into things, reshaping their minds and wills like clay, warping what made them human. Some Masters were subtle, whispering into their victims’ thoughts until they mistook the voice for their own. Others were not.

This?

This was not.

She stood behind the reinforced glass, arms crossed, expression tight as she looked into the observation room. Armsmaster stood beside her, silent, visor glowing dimly. The hum of the PRT building’s overhead lights did nothing to mask the sound coming from inside.

The two girls—or what was left of them—sat in the center of the room, backs straight, legs folded neatly beneath them like mannequins posed for display.

They had no hair.

Not just their heads—everything was gone. Brows, lashes, even the faintest trace of stubble. Their skin was smooth, waxy, like polished porcelain, stretched too tight over their skulls. Their eyes—wide, unblinking, glassy as doll’s eyes—stared straight ahead, mouths frozen in identical smiles.

A giggling noise bubbled from Emma’s throat.

Not a real laugh.

Not the way humans laughed.

It was rhythmic, mechanical, more like a tape being played on a loop, the exact same pitch every time. Maddison’s lips twitched, and she joined in, the same hollow, stilted giggle spilling from her lips.

Piggot’s fingers itched to go for her gun.

“Probably a Master,” she muttered. She hated Masters.

“They were Shadow Stalker’s best friends,” Armsmaster said, voice clipped. His helmet tilted slightly. “Since she disappeared, they’ve…” He hesitated, searching for the right word.

“Lost their fucking minds?” Piggot supplied flatly.

Armsmaster didn’t disagree.

A loud thump made Piggot’s shoulders tense. Maddison had slammed her forehead into the floor. Hard. She stayed there, pressed against the tile, breath coming in short, sharp little gasps. Emma tilted her head, then followed, cracking her skull down against the ground with a force that made Piggot wince. Neither of them reacted to the pain. If anything—their grins stretched wider.

“Yeah,” Piggot muttered. “This is fucking great.”

She turned to Armsmaster. “Do you think it’s related?”

“To Shadow Stalker’s disappearance?” Armsmaster didn’t move his gaze from the glass. “I’d say it’s highly probable.”

Piggot exhaled sharply, pinching the bridge of her nose.

HQ had already told them—explicitly—to back off the case. They had called it classified, told her and her team to look the other way.

But as Emma and Maddison began banging their heads into the floor again, faster now, breath hitching, a wet, gleeful noise escaping their throats—

Piggot knew, deep in her gut—

This wasn’t over, she thought, as she activated the foam dispensers. Couldn't let them hurt themselves. 

— — — 

Yamato was pissed.

She kicked the door. Then she kicked it again, harder. The heavy wood barely shuddered, but the impact echoed through her room. A month. A whole damn month! That stupid old ogre locked her up again just because she tried to escape. Like that was going to stop her. Like it ever stopped her.

She growled, pacing back and forth like a caged animal. Because she was a caged animal! How was she supposed to get stronger if she couldn’t train? How was she supposed to be Oden if she was stuck in here like some pampered brat? She needed to move, to run, to fight! Her muscles itched from inactivity. Her fingers twitched, desperate to grip her kanabo and swing it at something—anything—anyone.

Yamato snarled and threw herself onto the floor, arms crossed, tail thumping against the tatami. “Stupid Kaido. Stupid guards. Stupid, stupid, stupid!”

She needed a way to protest. To make a point. If they wanted her to sit here like a prisoner, then fine! She’d be a prisoner. She’d look like one too. Yeah! That’d show them!

With renewed energy, she pounced up and stomped toward her wardrobe, throwing the doors open—

And froze.

No clothes. No armor. No nothing. Just… stairs. Weird, creepy stairs.

Yamato tilted her head. Blinked. Squinted. Poked the stairs. Yup. Real.

Huh.

Well, that wasn’t normal.

Where were her clothes? And why the hell were there stairs in her dresser? That wasn’t supposed to be there. She didn’t remember smashing anything open. Did the castle grow a staircase while she was sleeping? Could castles do that?

She sniffed the air—no weird Kaido stink, no poison, no trap.

Yamato grinned.

Alright! Adventure time!

She took one last glance at her empty room, then without hesitation, bolted down the mysterious stairs, laughing all the way.

Yamato bounded down the stairs, her bare feet barely touching the stone as she went. The air changed as she descended—cooler, carrying a scent unlike anything from Onigashima. It smelled… alive. She grinned wider. This was already shaping up to be way more interesting than another month locked up in her room.

After what felt like only a few minutes of walking, she emerged into a garden. Well, a garden was one way to put it. There were plants, sure, but not the kind she was used to. The trees stretched too tall, their trunks twisting like they were trying to escape the ground. Some had bark that pulsed like a heartbeat, others had leaves shaped like eyes that seemed to follow her as she strolled through. Vines slithered across the ground when she wasn’t looking, rearranging themselves just slightly, like lazy snakes shifting in their sleep.

She didn’t notice the way the flowers curled toward her as she passed, their petals twitching in the absence of wind. Nor did she react when something with far too many legs scuttled between the roots of an impossibly large tree, its chittering drowned out by the distant, melodic hum of unseen insects. No, what caught her attention were the bright, strange flowers dotting the landscape. Some glowed faintly, like little lanterns, others changed colors when she leaned in close. She plucked one, marveling at the way it shifted from red to blue in her hand. Weird, but cool.

“Oh! Hi!”

She turned at the voice, blinking as she spotted the man standing nearby. He was little—well, everyone was little to Yamato—but he was probably normal-sized by other people’s standards. He had brown, slightly messy hair, and wore a neat vest and tie, like some kind of important person. But there was something relaxed about him, like a bartender at the end of a long shift.

“You’re the first guest in my garden,” the man continued, smiling like this was completely normal. “Welcome. I’m James. What’s your name?”

Huh. He didn’t recognize her. That meant he wasn’t one of her father’s men. That was a good start.

“I’m Oden!” she declared proudly, puffing out her chest.

“Hi, Oden,” he said easily, like it was the most natural thing in the world.

Yamato beamed. Finally! Someone who called her by her name! She liked this guy already. Overcome with joy, she did what any proper samurai would do when greeting a new friend—she grabbed him, lifted him effortlessly into her arms, and spun him around in a delighted hug.

James made a startled noise, but she barely noticed, too busy laughing. He was so small! He weighed practically nothing!

Far, far away, at the entrance of the garden, a certain red-haired dragon choked on his drink. His golden eyes widened, sharp vision locking onto the impossible sight of a giant feral woman swinging James around like a ragdoll. Ddraig, Doorman of the Azathoth Hotel, one-time scourge of the heavens, let out a strangled, horrified noise. “What the—?!”

— — — 

James couldn’t remember the last time someone handled him like this. Spun around, weightless, caught in the iron grip of someone who clearly didn’t understand the concept of restraint. And yet—he laughed. A full, free laugh, the kind that bubbled up from deep in his chest, loud and genuine.

It had been a long time since anyone had treated him like this. No fear, no reverence, no careful tiptoeing around his existence. Just pure, unfiltered joy. It was refreshing. He instantly liked this woman.

When she finally stopped spinning him, still grinning like she’d just won a prize, James let his feet touch the ground, taking a moment to steady himself. “That was fun,” he admitted, still chuckling. “I think I’ll keep you around.”

Oden, apparently, beamed at him like he’d just declared her the ruler of the universe.

“So, Oden,” James continued, “what brings you here?”

“The stairs!” she declared, looking entirely too pleased with herself.

James blinked. “The… stairs?”

“Yeah!” She nodded enthusiastically, planting her hands on her hips like she had just shared a profound truth. “I was in my room, right? Locked in. Again. My dad’s all ‘No, Yamato, you can’t be Oden, you have to stay here!’ and I was like ‘Tch, whatever, old man, I’m doing what I want!’ but then I thought, wait, what if I made a point by dressing like a prisoner, y’know? Rebel against the system!”

James nodded along, mostly entertained by how wildly expressive she was.

“So I go to my closet,” she continued, gesturing wildly as she spoke, “but there were no clothes. Just stairs. Right there. Where my stuff should be. Which is weird, right? But also, super cool. So I figured, hey, mystery stairs, why not? And I came down here. And now I’m here.”

She spread her arms wide, like this explanation was completely reasonable and should answer all possible questions. James processed this for a moment. Then he grinned.

“I see,” he said, not seeing at all.

Yamato beamed at him again, grinning wide enough to outshine the sun. There was something utterly infectious about it—like staring directly into a gale-force wind made of pure enthusiasm. Her joy was unrestrained, the kind that belonged to children and lunatics. James wasn’t sure which one she was yet. Probably both.

Now that she had stopped treating him like a human-sized spinning top, he got a proper look at her. And what a look it was.

She was huge. Not just tall—huge. Towering. Gigantic in the way mountains were. Eight, maybe nine or ten feet tall, with the kind of muscular frame that sculptors dedicated entire lifetimes to trying and failing to recreate. Her arms alone looked like they could tear trees out by the roots, and yet, despite all that strength, her waist was absurdly narrow, making her chest stand out even more. And that chest—James had to force himself to blink. They were… gravity-defying. Not just in size but in sheer structural integrity. Like some cosmic joke had granted her the most ridiculous pair possible and then enhanced them further out of sheer spite for physics. They bounced with every excited movement, but somehow, they also stayed perfectly, impossibly perky. It made no sense. It shouldn’t have been possible. It violated every natural law he understood. 

It was, frankly, inspiring.

She shifted her weight, hands on her hips, causing an entirely different set of impossible jiggles. James almost heard Ddraig wheeze in the background.

“So, little man,” she said, with all the confidence of someone who had absolutely no idea she had just shattered his brain, “is this your garden?”

James twitched. “I’m not little.”

She ignored him entirely, looking around, taking in the surreal beauty of the garden—flowers that glowed with internal starlight, trees that whispered in forgotten tongues, vines that slithered just slightly when they thought no one was looking. None of it fazed her. She just nodded approvingly, as if this was a perfectly normal thing to stumble across after breaking out of her room-turned-prison.

“Where are we?” she continued, crossing her arms, which, incidentally, only emphasized how her chest continued to be an affront to God and science. “Are we on Onigashima?” She frowned, tapping her chin. “And if not, how far away is it?”

James considered. In truth, they were at the Hotel, but where was the Hotel? That was a question that changed moment to moment. Before he could answer, Yamato clapped a massive hand onto his head, ruffling his hair like he was some particularly small child.

“You’re so tiny!” she laughed, absolutely delighted.

James pouted, resisting the urge to cross his arms like an actual child. “I told you, I’m not little.”

She just cooed at him, still ruffling his hair.

Several hundred meters away, Ddraig made a strangled noise and passed out.