42. How Am I Like You?
「Katsumi」
Finally a hunt.
Finally something to do.
I’m itching to kill a demon, to get one step closer to my goal.
No more stagnation!
I’m going to talk to Hotaru. Now that I’m a caster, same as her, I want to know how one goes about getting recognized by the Guild. Being able to rank-up to C would be great, then I can immediately focus on getting to B-rank.
I jog the short distance from the subway station to our agreed meeting place. It’s a last minute job Haruki got us. There are still a lot of salarymen around this early into the night, clogging up the streets, and I once again feel the discomfort welling up inside of me.
I hope they’re not staring.
I ditched the wig, I’m out and about all natural.
Make-up is light too, putting on a full face in this humidity is less than ideal.
Also I went out without putting on my black thighs and opted to use the short-sleeved yukata top of the 'summer uniform' Ouha gifted me—only the top. The whole get-up is far too risqué and eye-catching to wear.
I have no inclination inviting some lecherous ass to feel me up and discover that I’m not actually a girl but a crossdresser.
Don't even want to think about how much trouble that would land me in.
I ease up a bit as I make it off the main thoroughfare and the crowd thankfully thins out. The moment I turn the corner I see Mayumi and Hotaru already waiting on me.
The street is empty.
Good.
I relax.
Both girls embrace me warmly—tight hugs and all.
“Think I need a new nickname for you Katsu-chan. Your miko-ness has taken a nose dive.”
I give Mayumi a wry smile before steading myself to present the standard temple greeting in the most innocent and heartfelt tone. A flawless performance of demure grace.
Mayumi pretends to puke.
“On second thought you’re the same weirdo as before. My deepest apologies for ever questioning your position, miko.”
“I'll have you know Mayumi, I’m being professionally trained these days.”
“Uh-hu.”
“Yes. Look.”
I try to cast my little palm flame.
Nothing.
Typical.
“Wait, are you casting a spell?” Mayumi asks with wide eyes.
Even Hotaru looks shocked, “Katsumi since when…”
Second try.
Nothing again.
“Yes, I just mastered it.”
This is going to be so cool. I just need to make it work.
Third time's the charm, right?
With Mayumi and Hotaru looking at me in bewildered anticipation, I give it another try.
A small greenish flame unfolds in the palm of my hand like a flower.
IT WORKED!!!
⸜(｡˃ ᵕ ˂)⸝
I'm the best!
I glance up to see Mayumi completely mesmerized by the flickering light.
This so cool. I beam at her, a grin splitting my face.
Suddenly Hotaru’s hand shoots out and clamps around my arm. It hurts.
She yanks me away, extinguishing the spell.
“Hey ouch! Hotaru what the fuck?” She drags me off with full force.
Her grip is surprisingly strong.
She snaps around to look past me back at Mayumi and yells, “Mayumi!”
“Hu? Wha…?”
“Mayumi, if she ever casts that again, never look at her flame directly. It’s fox-fire.”
“Wha…?”
Not letting go of my arm, Hotaru pulls me into a narrow alley between two multi-story buildings and throws me against the wall.
“Ouch! Hotaru! What’s wrong with you!?”
I watch her flick her hand and to my utter confusion, see a translucent barrier close off the way we just entered, locking out Mayumi who is coming after us.
I hear her muffled screams and curse words from beyond the translucent mana barrier.
Hotaru, who in this moment has me against the cold concrete, sings a single line of an unknown song, high and ethereal and yet I know the language.
It’s the secret language every incantation is in.
A glowing dagger manifests in her hand, one she directly points at me.
“Si-si-since when do you have a weapon?”
"Do you think the Onmyōji of old had a Hunter’s Mark?”
"So there are spells to summon weapons?”
"Yes.”
I stare at the woman in front of me, with her brown hair, the nice if simple summer dress and the handbag slung across her chest, but I don’t find her ever present warmth. There is no friendly expression to be found.
Her eyes are hard and cold, same as her face.
She reminds me of that night the river princess captured me, but now this demeanor is directed squarely at me, not a demon.
“Hotaru what’s going on?”
Her blade remains trained on me.
“How long have you been able to cast?”
“Uhm… like two days?”
“Have you shown anyone else?”
“No.”
She exhales.
Best guess; besides whatever has gotten into her at least, the last answer was to her liking.
Her cold mask and the clear threat don’t subside.
“How long have you been practicing?”
“Dunno, a bit over a month?”
“DON’T LIE TO ME!!!”
“I’m not! I’m… my teacher showed me and then I trained like, every moment I had, ask Haruki. I was doing it during our patrols and at work and at home and then I spent hours training with my teacher in the spirit realm and then she taught me how to feel my own mana and then I loaded the brush and made my fingers dance.”
“That makes no sense! That’s impossible!” she rages.
“I’m not lying! I’m not.”
I notice that I've sunken low from her barrage.
Her eyes still burn with anger.
“You must not ever tell anyone that you can do this!”
“What, why?”
“Because they cannot know! Because they need to think that what we do is arduous, inefficient and passive. That spellcasting is a stubborn tradition of the past, useful for hunting demons and not much more. Katsumi, they need to think that my barriers defend against demon attacks and that’s it. But I think you know by now that’s not the whole picture. They’re not the one-use trinkets they sell at the Guild. They’re full physical barriers. I can stop bullets. They could unload one rifle magazines after another at me and I’d walk away unscathed. I can place a barrier beneath my feet and lift myself up into the sky. I can put a barrier under a car and fling it at an adversary like an oversized cannon ball.”
My blood freezes.
The shock settles deep.
“You can do what!?”
I imagine Hotaru crushing someone to a fine paste. The picture is too unbelievable were it not for her current unsettling expression.
It’s eerie.
“Katsumi, you saw me stop a giant fist that had the energy of a speeding freight train! What do you think I am? I am a true witch, same as you! And we must not let them know the extent of our power. They’d hunt us and dissect us to pry out our secrets to use them for ill! We must not let that happen, and what was easy to hide a century ago no longer is. So we must pretend to be passive and weak, to never show our hand. We hide in plain sight, using their prejudice to our benefit.”
“How am I… like you?”
“You can cast a powerful offensive spell! One human aren’t even supposed to know. You shouldn’t know this spell. It shouldn't be yours to cast. I don't know how you do it. It belongs to the foxes. A bewitching flame that can lead others astray, a flame beholden only to its master that burns every impurity it comes across. You don’t even know the gravity of your capabilities do you?”
“So I can’t show this to the Guild for a rank-up?”
“What do you not understand about a spell humans are not supposed to know? An offensive spell nonetheless. Offensive spells are the domain of spirits and demons!”
“You just said you can launch cars at people! How is that not an offensive spell?”
“I also made clear I hide that fact didn’t I?”
“But…”
Fuck, this is important! I can't stand being a guy!
It’s my ticket to advance. I need to become A-rank so I can turn myself into a girl. Doesn’t she understand that?
“Katsumi you can’t be this dense! Are you desperate to get snatched up by the Ministry of the Interior or one of the Big Four and become their newest prized possession? Get coerced and experimented on until you spill how you’re able to cast a spell like this? A spell they will surely use in ways any one of us would find abhorrent.”
“But…”
“KATSUMI!!!”
I duck.
But I wanted to…
Fuck!
I sink even lower and Hotaru lets her dagger rest beside her in a less threatening manner.
A small pause fills the tension in the air.
I try to readjust my understanding of this world.
That’s not how it was portrayed in the light novel at all. Not. At. All!
Casting spells was supposed to be this small little side thing and not make my friend some terrifying entity that could kill others with a flick of her wrist.
Or make me a possible target for abduction.
“So this spellcasting thing is a bit more than meets the eye?”
“Obviously! Katsumi I need you to swear that you’ll obfuscate the true magnitude of your abilities, to not reveal it to others and to never ever teach a man spellcraft!”
Eh?
“What’s with the weird gender exclusion?”
“It's our gift, not theirs, and because during the Restoration when the Emperor asserted control over the temples they threw out all the women who possessed the ability to cast spells. All the women they deemed detrimental to their control, and they declared them witches! And because men will use magic for warfare.”
I really need to read up on the history of this place, this similar-but-not-the-same continues to create gaps in my understanding.
“I don’t like men either, but isn’t that a rather unfavorable generalization?”
“Is it!?”
“I mean technically speaking I’m-“
The tip of her glowing dagger goes up again pointing straight at my face.
“Don’t even think about finishing that sentence.”
“Okay…”
“If your spirit thought of you as a man she would’ve never taught you.”
HEY!
That stings.
I mean I don’t want to be a man. I actively despise it, but that's still what I'm supposed to be. That’s what my former parents and friends expected of me and that’s what my new parents do too. I’m supposed to be their son and to have it laid out so openly how much of an utter failure I am does kinda hurt. Nothing but a disappointment.
I’m not the exception to the no-men rule, no I’m such a failure it doesn’t even apply to me.
I’m the worst aren’t I?
I need to become a girl.
I won’t disappoint anyone as a girl.
I’m going to be really good at it and put in all my effort so that everyone can be proud!
“Katsumi?”
“Uh… yes?”
“I need you to swear that you won’t share your gift with men, and that you'll hide the true power of your talent.”
“Okay. Yes, yes I swear.”
Hotaru nods and finally dispels her dagger and the barrier.
Her trademark smile blooms soon after, if a bit weary.
Wait… would she have stabbed me if I hadn’t sworn that I keep quiet?
■ ■ ■
「Hotaru」
I catch the glimmer of fear and confusion in Katsumi's eyes which only begins to melt with hesitation. I’m not proud of this. It wasn’t something that had come easy and yet was necessary nonetheless.
This continued naivety of hers is chilling the more that I think about it. She genuinely doesn't grasp it. She is an innate spirit medium. By birthright or chance it doesn’t matter. Such a gift comes with certain responsibilities, ones that can’t be neglected.
The discovery Chie made about Katsumi possibly having a mana recovery far exceeding anything typical is one thing. Extraordinary but without risks.
And it's not unheard of. The people on the demon-hunter forums might chafe at the idea that your recovery is linked to your emotions in complex and hidden ways and that old techniques like writing poems work. They’re too busy talking about cultivation and how they increased their mana a thousand fold by way of refraining to relieve themselves or whatever the latest nonsense is.
Chie keeps sending me these links and I have no idea why. She knows same as me that everything on there is insufferable garbage.
One can only hope Katsumi never finds those forums despite their prominence.
The other thing is tonight's revelations.
Katsumi shouldn’t have been able to learn a spell in this short amount of time, and the way she described it makes little sense.
Grandma drilled it into me, it was the spirits who originally taught humanity magic during the time of the great shaman queen. As the ages passed, there were infrequent occasions of certain spirit mediums learning additional spells, but that was exceptionally rare.
The important part however, the thread binding everything together is: Magic is a gift borrowed from the spirits. One doesn’t cast a spell directly with one’s mana. The spell is cast in a sense by the original spirit who taught it to humanity. One’s mana is the offering made to this spirit, a sign of gratitude towards it for lending you its aid.
The thing Katsumi described as 'loading the brush' sounded as if she were able to cast directly.
And yet the truly frightening words of hers were that she could 'feel' her mana, something that shouldn’t be possible at all. Countless mystics tried and all failed.
As much as I loathe the idea, I need to have a very serious talk with grandma. She’ll probably insist on bringing Katsumi in, but it's better to have her prepared before we reach that particular threshold.
I take a few conscious breaths, reestablishing my center and face the barrage.
Having interposed herself between me and Katsumi, Mayumi has yet to stop raging at me.
I hold up my hand in defense.
“I know you might find that hard to believe, Mayumi, but I’m trying to keep her safe.”
“Yeah!? By pulling a fucking knife and going all psycho-bitch on her?”
“This is serious! She knows a spell that if word got out, she’d be hunted for.”
“What, that little party trick!?”
“It doesn’t merely mesmerize people. It’s a flame that burns without kindling, beholden only to its master. It's the fire of the foxes. With a simple touch she could burn a person or whole forest down to nothing but ashes.”
Mayumi has her next retort ready, I can see it, but chokes as the meaning of my words catch up with her passion. Faltering, she instead turns around to ask Katsumi, “Katsu-chan you can do what?”
“Don’t look at me. It’s news to me too. Kinda. I mean… I could’ve guessed? Ouha said it’s mine to control and she did say it burns impurities.”
I implore Mayumi, “We need to keep her safe. We have to keep this a secret.”
Flicking her gaze back momentarily, Mayumi mumbles reluctantly, "Fine, I get it.” She faces Katsumi, “So who is Ouha!?”
“My teacher, you know the fox-spirit?”
Mayumi adopts a look like she smelled rotten milk, but she swallows whatever is on her tongue. She has changed. Past Mayumi surely would've had choice words for this.
Growth reaches everyone.
Her focus returns to me.
“So〜 the scary witch stereotype holds a lot more water? If our little Katsu-chan is now some kind of terrifying fire starter.”
“You were never naive Mayumi…”
There is a glint of realization in her eyes.
“Oh fuck, you’re proper scary aren’t you, Sunshine? Bet you can crush people like knats. Oh that's too good. Fuck! Keep that energy for tonight's hunt.”
All she gets from me is my thin lip.
Mayumi’s voice turns icy once more, “But if you pull a stunt like that again I’ll be the one crushing those magic fingers of yours.”
She takes Katsumi’s hand, “Are you okay?”
“Wha… yeah… I’m… fine. I’m fine.”
Katsumi gets shepherd out onto the sidewalk while I receive a well deserved glare.
The question sprouts in my head if I should’ve reacted calmer, but these are matters of life and death. Remaining calm seemed hardly appropriate… or possible.