The day quickly came, and even Oku seemed ready for it. Not excited, but more like she was mentally prepared. She’d definitely dealt with exorcists before, good and bad, and needed a chance to judge if the modern ones were as pure as the uncle had described them.

The meeting was in a small community hall downtown, but the bus system would be able to pull them right up next to it. Once they arrived they noticed something strange. There was a sign, but it looked like it said something about a veterans meeting. In fact, there was an old man in military getup standing right outside the door!

“Uncle…”

“Hey you kids! Are you the Lieberman party?”

“W-well that’s my last name but…”

“Oh good you came! Your uncle is waiting inside Mr. Lieberman. Nice to meet you all.”

The older man opened the door, and what was inside was definitely not a modest community hall. No. Not at all.

The walls were ornate, with a chandelier above, and the room seemed to be bigger on the inside than on the outside. It looked as if gold plated a large stage in the back center as well, and round tables and chairs were scattered about next to a large buffet style area. Youkai were scattered here and there, and men and women in more traditional dress were all around visiting. Near the bar Mark was able to find his uncle, and he gestured them over with a smile. In his hand was a mug filled with beer, and on his plate was almost half a rotisserie chicken.

“I was beginning to think you wouldn’t even come Mark! Come on everyone sit down! And who’s this? Didn’t see you from before!”

“Just another friend of mine.”

“Well, we welcome you!”

“So Mr. Lieberman, this is what the exorcists are like? Pretty ornate if you ask me.”

“They just have the ability to get some things regular humans can’t get as easily. Almost every Youkai realm has more than enough gold in it, so for them it’s barely a currency! We don’t take it, they give it to us, it's so abundant.”

“Do you cooperate with Youkai often, or is it for normal humans?”

“A lot of the tips we get are from some of the Youkai governorates.”

“Governorate?”

“Yeah, over in the Youkai realm they’ve got their own country and everything, quite impressive! But enough about that, the shows about to begin!”

That most certainly was not enough for Lawrence, Mark, or Inari, but they turned their attention to the stage anyways. They’d never heard anything about some sort of Youkai government before. How would that work anyways? Most powerful is the king?

“Welcome ladies, gentlemen, Youkai. Today marks the nine hundredth year since the Pyua exorcist group began, and boy it’s been a solid ride for nine centuries so far huh?”

Some of the Youkai laughed and the man continued.

“Few announcements today, but today we have the great Seph with us! An exorcist able to not only fight Hachiman, but seal him? Amazing!”

A round of applause and the man geared up for a final announcement.

“Of course as you all know, we like to announce the biggest jobs at our get togethers, and today is no different! Today at the traveling Pyua hall we announce that Krazat the insane has been sensed by some of our leading exorcists in only the next town over! The reward on that behemoth’s head is upwards of fifty thousand! If any of you would like to take a crack at Krazat beware, he has killed many a good exorcist, so please don’t do anything foolish. Enjoy the meal!”

A last round of applause and the thin man walked off stage. To Oku he’d said a few interesting names. She knew about Krazat and Hachiman, not that she’d known of his sealing, but she knew about his having turned. This Seph must be crazy powerful to seal the war god.

“Lawrence I’m going to take a look around for a few minutes.”

“Alright be careful.”

“Of course.”

Though that wasn’t reassuring, Oku was at least powerful. To be honest, Lawrence was more interested in hearing about the Youkai capital from Reinhardt than anything else right now. He turned back toward the large smiling man.

“Oho, fifty thousand! But Krazat is INSANEly powerful so I don’t know if I’ll be trying that job out.”

“Sir what is the Youkai capital?”

“Well there’s a portal which all the residents can create to travel between worlds, and it’s let by the spirit king. Besides that the buildings are just eastern, Asian you know, got shops everywhere. Lovely place! I personally like the governorates more though, they’re ruled by a governor. Most of them have a capital, then a lot of the room around it is farmland. I love wide open spaces you know. That’s why there’s so many Youkai in this world. Either they came to be here, or they hate the Youkai country and want to live with a little less going on in their lives. Or they’re evil bahaha!”

So there was a king of Youkai. Lawrence didn’t expect that. He’d thought that almost all of them refused to be ruled by any one Youkai, after having known Oku for a while at least. He could see why many of them chose to live here. Then Inari spoke up.

“So he mentioned that this was the traveling Pyua hall. What does that mean?”

“Oh it’s wonderful, a Youkai made this temporal whatsit for us, and this is a building outside of reality. You can’t leave the room unless it’s connected to somewhere in the mortal or Youkai world. You can connect it to any doorway too! That’s why it’s called the traveling hall.”

“Well that’s pretty impressive.”

“Oh but enough talking, the food is delicious!”

With that he dug in, rotisserie at his mercy. Lawrence and Mark soon followed, joined by Inari a few moments later. If the exorcists knew one thing it was how to make a spectacle.

Oku had always known that exorcists had advanced knowledge of very dangerous things, and was out to find just that. If there was any way of helping Hato out you could bet that this building’s library would be the place to look. The only problem was trying to find it. She dodged a few Youkai guards and entered every room till she found a slightly musty one on the second floor.

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

Jackpot.

Inside were hundreds of books on different styles used by different exorcists. She took a couple and opened up portal to a tiny disconnected space for later. It was rough trying to read the covers, but she had started learning on her own.

“Mask re… regen… regeneration.”

Her eyes shone at the book in front of her and she bagged that as well. After she was satisfied she left the library and whistled back down to the eating hall, but she wasn’t done yet. Before she returned to Lawrence and crew she needed to get some insight on this Seph. And the crowd around one of the corners couldn’t be more telling of his location.

In the middle of the crowd was an extremely arrogant man in a suit. He was probably in his late twenties or early thirties, but he already had silver hair and strikingly dark blue eyes.

“Hachiman was easy, it was like he was begging to be sealed! I just had to make some cuts in his arms and viola, fight was over. Get me a real fight I mean shit haha!”

All the people around him laughed at the same time like it was the funniest thing in the world. He definitely wasn’t someone Oku wanted to get on the wrong side of, and he was definitely an asshole, but she didn’t sense all that much spiritual energy coming off of him.

“How the hell did this weakling take out Hachiman…”

She muttered to herself as she started to walk back towards her group.

“What was that?! You over there! Unsure on how Seph the godslayer took out Hachiman huh? “Let me show you!”

Oh boy.

Seph took out a long blade, which glistened in the perfectly lit room and showed it to Oku.

“One legendary Excalibur coming right up!”

“Well with a legendary sword a normal human could have defeated him… you know that right?”

“Wha- no way, I used skill to defeat that behemoth!”

“You know that when Youkai go rogue their powers are erratic. You probably attacked him when his powers were at their lowest point. Otherwise I can’t see Hachiman losing to someone like you.”

“What?! Listen here girl, you’re pretty but I don’t allow people to trash my name! I’ll take out this Krazat nut and when you hear about it next week then you’ll know about my greatness haha!”

“Yeah yeah, just try and fight him fairly, or it’ll just be another boring story like this one.”

“Tch, we’re outta here, seeya girly!”

His horrified onlookers scuttled after him as he left the building, and as soon as he did the sword turned into a cane. His clothes also changed to something more suitable for the weather. He was an extremely idiotic cocky bastard, enough said.

Oku sighed and rejoined her group, which seemed to be going well. The fat man was still laughing, and everyone was even eating. At least they were getting along. In Oku’s experience, taking their hospitality was the most important step to getting them to trust you. If they trusted you, anything was possible. Even as a Youkai they wouldn’t try to kill you if you gained their trust. She knew how important being friendly to powerful humans was. She knew entirely all too well.

That wasn’t to say that she wasn’t powerful herself, but she didn’t particularly like killing humans, and if you took out a human that came hunting for you odds were there would be another hundred. Living in fear wasn’t something she enjoyed.

So be friendly to the powerful ones, it was easy.

Then you can be rash towards the Lawrences of the world.

Provided they didn’t wish you away…

By now the banquet was nearing it’s end, and the thin man took the stage one last time.

“The Pyua group thanks you all for coming, we hope to see you all again at the next get together!”

After that there was a cheer from most of the exorcists and it quieted down again as people prepared to leave. Reinhardt explained to them that they usually put out a big job in an announcement, then have a board where the lesser jobs stayed. Things like sealing small Youkai, cleansing a house of evil spirits, removing a curse. Things that might not be worth the pay.

“Normally I don’t really go for the big jobs, so I come to the small board. I quite enjoy getting to know people while I remove a curse or a trickster from their house you know.”

“You do a lot of traveling then?”

“A lot yes! So Mark, did it seem all that bad to you?”

Mark sighed and defeatedly looked up at his uncle.

“No uncle it didn’t seem all that bad. But it doesn’t mean that you’ve changed my mind about joining. I’m happy here, and I don’t really want to be an exorcist.”

“Aww well alright, but don’t expect me to stop trying.”

“I never expect you to stop bugging me…”

“Bahaha! Well, I thank you all for your attendance, maybe you can convince Mark to come to the next one too! Even if it’s just for the rotisserie!”

Reinhardt winked at Lawrence and walked them to the door, which was once again opened by the old medal ridden man.

“See you all later!”

The door slammed shut and they were left out in the mortal world once again.

“Well it was definitely strange. What did you think Mark?”

“It seems like they’re good, but corporations always seem like that on the outside, and that is just what I’d call these guys. Just a business.”

“Alright I’ll take it. Lawrence?”

“They had good food and it seems like they’re only sealing dangerous Youkai. As long as they don’t start targeting good Youkai then it’s fine I guess. I’m more interested in the fact that there is a Youkai government. Oku you knew didn’t you?”

“Yes I knew but it didn’t seem important at the time.”

“Not important? You’ve got a king and-”

“He is no king. You know, more Youkai live in their own realms or the mortal one than the Youkai country? I’m not the only one that doesn’t like him.”

“Is that because of the wa-”

Oku shot daggers at Mark as he almost slipped up and talked about the war. If it was going to be talked about then she would be the one to bring it up dammit…

“The what?”

“Nothing! I just meant that it was strange that she’d never brought it up just like you!”

“Anyways, I think we should go have a look at Krazat and see if there’s any way to purify him.”

“Did you know he went insane Oku?”

“Well he was always called Krazat the mad, but he wasn’t a particularly evil Youkai. I’ve been out of the loop for a few hundred years so I was surprised to hear that name change to the insane…”

Inari was wondering about what Krazat looked like as well, but Oku didn’t have much detail on that.

“I heard that he’s some sort of tortoise, but if he’s so tough to defeat I’m not sure…”

“Maybe he’s just a heavy hitter.” Mark put his hands in his pockets, and was surprised to find a scrap of paper. On it there was an address, and a short message which read “You still living in a dorm then? Why not move somewhere nicer! I’ll even help pay for it!”

“Damn old man… Hey guys, look at this.”

Once he’d showed it around Oku’s eyes lit up.

“An actual place to stay?! Away from that terrible prison you call a dorm?!”

“Yeah and it looks like my uncle would help us pay for it. Lawrence?”

“Wouldn’t it be rough to get out of our leases in the middle of semester?”

Suddenly Mark felt something on the scrap of paper and looked again. It was bigger now and on it said, “I’ll also help with leases.”

Mark smiled.

“Don’t eavesdrop you old fart.”

“So it’s settled! Let’s move into this place! At the very least it’ll be better than that stupid dorm!”

“Uh… how many rooms are there?”

“Oh Inari… guess we’ll find out?”

“Really? I uh… well it isn’t like I want to live with you but it would be nicer than the shack I’m in right now.”

“Good enough. It is getting a little late though so how about we visit the place tomorrow?”

Once they’d split up Mark began to think about the place on the note. It looked a little familiar but he couldn’t really put his finger on it…

He’d really have to talk to his family soon.