35. The Lone Huntress’ Mark
「Hikari」
Rin can be totes adorable with that pouting face of hers. I know she is trying to be angry and failing.
“Hear ya go.”
Knew it—handing her the bubble tea from our place is melting her scowl away. Yes, that’s what I want to see.
“Thanks Hicchi.”
“You can always count on me.”
It was freaking stuffed today, got there right after work but the place was overrun like crazy, took forever. And then the subway wasn’t any better. After work rush hour and all.
I’m like, so spent. I let myself flop down on Rin’s bed right next to her.
Girl got clipped by a demon and now her college high life is more grandma-core than anything—she totally moves like one. Poor Rin.
But no worries! I’m gonna lift that spirit of hers, even if I have her watch me kick some ass in Eternal Winds. There's a new event and I’m not missing it!
Rin always chides me for the skimpy outfits I put my characters in, but she doesn’t get that that’s like, high level gear—also I’m an admirer of the female form. Gotta look hot while clearing mobs.
Despite the state of her dorm room, it’s as cozy as ever. Like yeah, the mess has gotten messier, but it’s still all white and bright with a ton of decorations.
I sit up to take a sip. “So how long are you outa commish’?”
“Weeks. I’m not supposed to strain it.”
“That so blows… so your boy is out there soloing for the time being?”
“What? No. Tarō isn’t hunting all by his own. That’d be crazy. He needs a partner.” She fidgets for a bit. “Don’t tell this to anyone, but Tarō has like, low mana reserves. He exhausts faster than I do. It’s rare but apparently that’s just how some people are. You can of course train it a bit like a muscle but that only gets you so far. He’ll never have the stamina that most people have.”
"And there's nothing to be done?”
“Tarō looked into it, apparently one of the A-rank hunters has the same issue and he's doing fine. If you use a magical weapon and bind it to your Hunter’s Mark the summoning cost is really low and there is no drain to maintain it and that basically solves the issue.”
“What’s the catch?”
"The prices for magic demon-hunter weapons start at 200 million Yen all the way up to 10 billion for the actual good ones.”
"Fuuuck.”
"Yeah. That’s not happening. But we manage. We take frequent breaks and he tells me beforehand if he’s feeling that his weapons is about to flicker out. He’s so sweet. He always tries to protect me regardless. He visited every day, the past three days. It was really nice." I can see her get stuck on the memory—totes adorable. "He didn’t say it, put on a brave face for me, but I can still see that us coming so close to—you know, that... It has him really rattled. But the only thing he wants to talk about is Katsumi, Katsumi, Katsumi. Fuck, I hate her so much!”
“Yes, she's so terrible. She saved my best friend’s life, what a monster.”
“You don’t know her like I do Hicchi. I can still see his-her, whatever—face, that smug half-grin. You know he-fuck—she really enjoyed it when Tarō got hurt. Like one time Tarō burned his hand because of her, and she just stood there with that condescending triumphant smirk, while Tarō cried.”
“You know, my suspicion is that it’s her family’s fault. Like, Katsumi is clearly scared of them, doesn’t want to talk about them, doesn’t want to have any contact with them. I think they put like a ton of awful shit in her head. But Rin, she no longer lives with them. They threw her out and she isn’t like the monster in your stories anymore. Not a tiny bit. She was a kid for most of it and she feels like, guilty as fuck for what she did, and she did apologize and she did save you and Tarō. So it’s def’ the scary family.”
“Tarō said the same, that her family is scary. That Katsumi was always looking over her shoulder to make sure they were paying attention or something, like some fucked up performance, the whole thing was always for some audience.”
“See.”
“I’m not letting this go Hicchi.”
“But you should ‘cause that’s my future wifey. We like, held hands the romantic way and she basically came out to me.”
“So she finally stopped lying to you about her gender?”
“Wouldn’t put it like that, more alluded to doing so in the future.”
Katsumi has been so bad at hiding that she's a girl as of late. Working as a demon-hunter at night makes her so sleepy she's like, forgetting that she's supposed to pretend to be a man. It’s so freaking adorable.
Like today, I all but burst out laughing because Shiro totes was staring at her, unsure if he should be checking her out or not. Like she's confusing the hell out of the guy. Great entertainment, funniest shit ever. If she keeps that up, she’s so gonna give him a minor identity crisis regarding his sexuality.
She seems to glow now, in these tiny cute moments.
I almost said something, but that felt like trampling on her good mood. She hates pretending to be a man that’s like, so obvious. She's allowed to take a little break from it.
Rin somehow manages to take a sip that goes from delighted at the taste, to remembering that she is fuming. “You’re so lost Hicchi. Can you fall for someone who isn’t insane for a change? First the ten years your senior DJ dude, and then that crazy bitch from the maid cafe with the lip piercings. Who called you at four in the morning because you needed to tell her that you love her.”
“Katsumi's different.”
“Yes she's a lunatic who faked being a boy for all of high school. Oh wait! She's still doing that at work!”
“She’s not going to hold out much longer. I can totally feel it. And then she's so mine.”
Taking a long sip, I crush a few tapioca balls and raise my eyebrows at Rin.
She rolls her eyes and groans.“You’re the worst.”
“Actually I’m the best.” I beam my biggest grin at her and her mood finally falters, Rin smiles back.
There you go.
"Hicchi, why are you always like this?"
"Like what?"
"So annoyingly… upbeat?"
"Dunno, I think everything and everyone always just tears people down. I wanna build people up."
■ ■ ■
「Katsumi」
So the problem with this world being so similar to my old is that at end of the day, it’s not actually the same. Because you think it’s just all the brand names. From chips to the apps being different, and then you sit there with your cup ramen and get the distinct feeling that the ones at home tasted slightly different, not that you can put your finger on it, but like, it’s there.
The iced coffee brand you had in your old life doesn’t exist here, so you go through all the ones they have to find the one that’s similar, but you never quite get there.
Then all the memories begin to slowly dull and you aren’t even sure if you weren’t just imagining things. That, well, it's totally the same, and you were just a home-sick cry-baby and then you remember the holograms at the big intersection, and the magic, and the freaking demons!
And then over the months it slowly settles that the Emperor in this world, has like, actual power, and isn’t merely a glorified figure head. And then… it dawns on you that this whole noble warrior clan thing isn’t just some tradition thing. That the fucking sword-stand in your new father’s office isn’t just for show, and that they all did totally call him Lord Kojou, and that there are actual nobles in this city with old mansions.
And then a maid who works for one of those noble houses tells something to Mama Ikushima, and your demon-hunter friends drag you out in the dead of night to some district where said nobles have their very traditional architecture style mansions while you bite back the fear that well, you are the third son of a Lord and that probably means something.
So, standing next to Hotaru in a deserted street, I play a little bit with my long shrine maiden skirt. Watch it swish left and right. It helps. It’s a nice distraction, thinking about how I look right now, how freeing it feels to exist like this next to the girls. I smile.
Yes, this is nice. I like it.
It lets me push away the thoughts about what a Lord Kojou might do to his son if he were to ever see him like this.
We're out on a hunt, the whole team. A fresh tip from one of Ikushima’s patrons, another C-class and most likely another fear eater from the descriptions. From what we heard, its appearance in this part of town is a very recent phenomenon and follows a rigid ritual.
The demon arrives somewhere on this street between all the big mansions with their equally extensive gardens and high fences and walks towards the small park and enters it to somehow vanish there. It then emerges exactly nine minutes later to walk down the street again to get more or less swallowed by the shadows and disappear.
Every time the maid saw the demon, it had a different human-like appearance. A school girl, a rough looking man, a construction worker, only its odd habit gave it away. Its face always obscured from onlookers.
Chie suspects that something is like, super wrong with it, and that’s how the demon scares people. Like the ones who dare to walk too close to it and look at its hidden face.
Best avoid doing that.
I don't need another nightmare, I have enough.
Our window of opportunity is small, we first have to make sure that whoever we see walking down the street is said demon, and then kill it without it getting the upper hand or fleeing.
Haruki’s plan is that we watch the street and the park entrance and let the demon do it’s little nine minute disappearing act in the park to identify it, and then let it move further down the road for a bit.
My role, with Hotaru as my back-up, is to move behind the demon to cut off any possible retreat. After that, Haruki together with Mayumi and Chie, attack from the front, creating a nice little kill box between the tall garden walls of the surrounding mansions. Mayumi and Chie have been instructed, should the demon try to scramble up the walls, make that a rather painful affair with their ranged attacks while Haruki and I go in for the pinch.
That’s the basic run down.
I give a long exhale to steel my nerves.
Me and Hotaru stand atop one of the garden walls, under the branches of a giant tree, which hopefully obscures us from onlookers with its wide shadow. Below us, the narrow street stretches to the left and right, illuminated sparsely by the spaced out street lamps. The rest of the girls are waiting at the t-intersection to our left. The direction the demon is said to vanish, and right in front of Hotaru and me, opens the dark maw of the unlit park.
So far we watched a well dressed couple and a delivery man walk past us, without paying the shadowy entrance any mind.
I start kneading the fabric of my skirt. There isn’t much space up here. Just enough to stand and a bit more than a two meter drop on either side. Tho crashing into the garden to our backs isn’t really a thing given the dense tree.
I shiver.
My gaze falls all by itself on a nice grandma with a hat slowly shambling down the road.
“That’s the demon,” I whisper to Hotaru.
“How do you know?”
Good question.
Not that I have an answer.
We watch the old lady come closer in silence, her focus straight ahead.
Okay maybe, false alarm.
As she is about to pass us, she snaps to her right and goes for the park entrance.
Darkness swallows her.
Hotaru starts the timer on her smart watch.
Keeping her eyes trained ahead, she whispers, “You can sense them don’t you? That time at the waterpark you knew it was there, and even at the school you had a vague idea where the invisible fear demon was.”
I let her words linger for a bit to mull them over.
“Think so. There's this disgust, as if something isn’t right, like taking a bite out of something ever so slightly rotten.”
“It’s a gift, my grandma has it too. But it’s not a gift you’re born with or one you can earn. No, you pay for it.”
There is a heavy pause.
“When my grandma was very young, they went on a school trip and… she drowned. They pulled her out and brought her back but for a moment she… wasn’t there. You understand?”
The implication is clear.
“I was in a car accident.” I mumble.
It feels surreal to say out loud.
She nods.
“I will tell you what my grandma told me. This gift, it goes both ways, Katsumi. So please be careful. I don’t know how it feels to them, but the spirits and the demons, they will sense you too, in a way. They will know.”
Her ominous warning hangs heavy.
Oh the fun consequences of dying and being reincarnated. Not!
Tho I mean it’s probably not bad for a demon-hunter like me, being able to recognize demons like that.
Kind of a boon, if I think about it.
We wait.
Destroying any doubt the slow little grandma with her hat emerges exactly nine minutes later, continuing her route from before.
Got you.
I let the demon put enough distance between it and the gate that I can reasonably assume it won't be able to dash past me into the darkness.
I drop down, using a bit of mana to cushion my fall as to make as little noise as possible. Over the past months training with Haruki, I slowly learned to control what I had unconsciously done on instinct, augmenting my movement with mana. It’s a costly thing and it doesn’t make you superhuman, but in a pinch it can give you an edge.
I summon my naginata and creep behind the demon. My careful steps thankfully swallowed by the ever present hum of the city.
Hopefully grandma isn’t sensing me, that would be bad.
With the stone and concrete walls to either side and the peaks of the traditional architecture beyond, I take up position, following the demon.
The sparse light makes it hard to make out details.
I strain my eyes.
Not far now.
Soon, Haruki and the rest will close off the path ahead, and then, in that moment of surprise, I’ll launch my first strike.
A good cleave from on high. If I do it right, maybe I can take the demon’s head, or one of its arms.
Yes, I think I can-
『 CLONG!!! 』
The sound of a giant bell being struck echoes over the area.
It happens too fast to react.
A thin streak of bright rainbow light blinks into existence with the deafening bell, hitting the demon in the head, completely evaporating it into ashy dust, to fade into nothing.
Killed in an instant.
The demon slain in the blink of an eye.
What remains starts burning away with the familiar ghostly flame.
I whip around. Trying to pinpoint the origin of the attack.
It’s hard.
Movement.
A catch a silhouette, atop the mansion to my left, there on the roof against the glow of the city and the moon; someone.
The figure moves fast and gracefully across the thin crest of the roof and jumps from great height without hesitation or care. The garden wall obscures the rest, but the trajectory of the figure is clear. They're coming towards me.
I ready my weapon for defense.
A second later, I watch someone vault without effort over the more than two meters wall and land not far.
Tall, a striking black suit, white dress shirt, loosened thin black tie and long silky hair. A familiar ethereal face of pure beauty.
I’m frozen.
With a smirk and a leisurely confidence in her stride she picks the white gemstone off the ground while keeping eye contact. She takes a few steps toward me. There's a swagger to them as she pockets the demon heart that feels otherworldly.
Fine long fingers vanish in her pant pocket to remain there as her eyes flick up and down, clearly taking me in.
A second smirk.
Her voice comes low, sultry and smooth, “As I told your twin brother at the konbini, one shouldn’t poach. You take one of mine, I take one yours. We are even.”
I notice the girls running up to us.
They keep their distance.
“What the fuck is this!?” I hear Mayumi shout, not that I take my eyes off the girl in front of me, I’m incapable of it.
“Ladies please, as I told your miko here; I’m settling a debt.”
“What debt!?”
“You poached my kill, my contract, so I’m taking yours. Fair and square.”
“The hell it is!”
“It is. If you want to fight this out, be my guests.” Her voice is isn’t angry or agitated but disinterested, as if she couldn’t care less.
“You’re not talking our kill!”
“Funny.” She still sounds disinterested, but now there's a hint of condescension bleeding in.
In the low light of the nearby street light I watch the eyes of the mystery girl trail back to me. Her cold expression thaws, giving free a beauty cast in hard shadows.
She closes the distance, her gaze fixed on me.
“You seem displeased.” Her tone stays low, but her callous indifference from earlier has vanished.
“I am.”
My answer is barely more than a whimper.
Something is jamming up my thoughts.
“Let me make it up to you, I can’t have something so gorgeously pretty be mad at me.”
Eh?
Whaaa…
She rises above me as she breaches any and all personal space, her hand reaches out and I bristle at the unexpected touch of delicate fingers catching my jawline. Something in the back of my mind screams at me, but my brain fails to grasp it.
She… she… I’m getting… but I’m… this…
The lone huntress leans closer, the tips of her fingers run past my ear into the hair at the back of my head.
My mind is a vacant room of nothing.
My toes curl and I catch myself mewl.
Since when… did I just…
Her breath ghosts across my skin as she says, “I watched you on the beach, such a beautiful girl and so deadly, yet no desire to show off. You could’ve taken the final blow or even the whole demon on your own, the way you moved, but you didn’t. How curious.”
She tilts her head, her eyes half draped. “Why hold back?”
Whatever answer I could’ve have given evades my grasp same as any other coherent thought. I'm mute.
“Shy? I like that in a girl. And I know just the remedy.”
She leans in, her hand gripping my hair.
My eyes close on their own.
Something incredibly soft and oh so inviting finds my lips. ⋆˙⟡
All the emptiness, all the vacancy, drowns in a million firing nerves. Everything crashes. ✶⋆.˚
Not that I care.
Not now.
A flush of burning heat reaches my cheeks and settles down low in my abdomen.
I give in, as if finding an instinct, following the slow caress of her lips. A back and forth. Short. Fleeting.
I get abandoned.
Not ready to part, I have to catch myself nearly stumbling as my eyes flutter open.
The huntress bites her lips with haughty confidence. “I like your lipgloss, makes me wonder if you taste so sweet everywhere.”
『 ∘ ∘ ∘ 』
She glances to the side. “I think I’ve overstayed my welcome long enough.”
With far too much ease, she somehow parkours up the wall, calling, “Be seeing you ladies,” and vanishes from view.
⠀⠀⠀. . ﾟ . . ✦ that girl… .
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀she thought I was a girl…
* .
. and she kissed me… . ✦⠀ as if…,
⠀ ⠀ ,I were a girl…
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀. ⠀ ⠀.
˚ ⠀ ⠀ , . ⠀too… *