Only half a week later and with Jeremiah it looked like they would have a working way to bring Hato back from the place she was trapped in! The only trouble was that they didn’t have enough spirit energy to get it to work. Of course they might be able to ask the exorcists, if they didn’t steal from them in the first place… Which meant that this would require outside help.

Oku had quite a bit of power, but using only one powerhouse would be dangerous, according to the book they lifted the information from. Normally there was a square or a triangle of pretty powerful people who came together to perform this ritual. It could also only be done with the mask string and words required to create one. Thankfully they had the string, and Lawrence had received the words from Shuryo. Now all that remained was finding two or three people to help…

It would be rough, but they decided to go ask Doro and Gorgo for advice. Mark was on the courier job today. When he approached the small cave they were living out of for the time being Gorgo waved to Mark happily.

“Friend!”

“Hey Gorgo! Is Doro around?”

The large furry bear pointed around back of the cave, where the small salamander seemed to be looking at a map. He pointed back and forth, but red arrows appeared each time he did so. Mark decided to see if anything was up.

“Something wrong?”

“Jeez don’t scare me like that! What you need human?”

“Actually I do need something, how did you know?”

“If it was a friendly visit wouldn’t everyone else come too?”

“Oh that’s a good point. Well we were wondering if you were possibly powerful enough to power a ritual actually. Along with one or two others.”

“Me? I suppose that depends on what the ritual is for.”

“Bringing back Hato.”

At this the salamander furrowed his brow.

“So you’re trying to bring her back then.”

“We will bring her back. This will work.”

“Eh, if you say so. I’m sure if me and Gorgo work together we can account for one of the people you need but where do you expect to find another? You got connections?”

“Well you see…”

“You want me to find someone don’t you…”

“No no! I have an idea but this person is very, how should I put it, reckless? Arrogant? He’s going to be hard to use for this particular thing. I’m definitely not going to mooch off of you for another person after you decided to help us out.”

“Well when is this going to take place then?”

“I’ll come back out here and get you, but it’ll be this weekend hopefully.”

“Well, I’ll be seeing you soon then.”

He went back to his map reading, and Mark left their cave after waving to Gorgo one last time. The hard part would be getting the other person he had in mind to agree to all this…

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As he was pondering, Doro walked in front of him again.

“Hello human, you were looking for me?”

“Doro? I just got done talking to you.”

“Y-you did? There’s no way, I just came back from the stream!”

“But you were with Gorgo, right over there!”

He looked and pointed back towards the cave that Gorgo could still vaguely be seen sitting at, but when his vision came back to Doro he was gone. Dumbfounded, he looked around the area one more time. Had he just hallucinated or something? He had to… Doro was right over there. Confused, he began walking again, but heard a branch crack and something heavy fall to the ground right behind him. He whipped around and caught vision of a person lying in front of him in a heap.

“Who are you!”

“Shit… hey man can you give me a second?”

“You just looked like Doro didn’t you?”

The man sighed and looked back toward Mark with a stoic expression.

“Hey hey, you got me. Damn I’ve been found out. Darn…”

He yawned and scratched his stomach, but didn’t seem to be nervous at all.

“Who are you and what are you doing here?”

“I was probably told not to tell you that information… but I can at least say I’m not here for you. Not directly at least, though you’re on the list too I guess.”

“The list?”

“See ya.”

He turned to run, but Mark slammed his head with a tree branch and hefted the robed man over his shoulder. There would be no more stupid unnecessary secrecy than there already was, nope. The guy was fairly tall, but didn’t weigh all that much, and Mark was able to make it all the way back to the inn before the guy woke up. By then he had everyone surrounding him and ready to pounce however.

The guy lazily leaned up and looked around.

“Shit.”

“Who are you.”

“I-I can’t really.”

“Excuse me I didn’t really mean that as an option. It isn’t a question, it’s a demand.”

“Fine jeez! My name is Koichi Kurusawa. Detective Kurusawa.”

“Detective?”

“Yes, I work for the government.”

This was quite successful in riling up Oku, and she leaned forward towards this detective man.

“And what exactly are you doing here?”

“Well you see, I’ve actually been here for a while.”

At once, he spinned and was suddenly a dumpy looking younger man.

“You! You were my roommate!!!”

“Yep, the whole time. I was honestly surprised that the fox and the bird never realized who I was. Or at least what I was.”

“Lawrence you never knew your roommate was a Youkai?”

“Listen Mark, I-”

“Actually I think I’ve dreamt about him. I just had no idea who he was…”

“Hold on hold on, who was this guy watching then? If he’s a detective then there had to be someone he was keeping a close eye on.”

At Oku’s comment the Youkai’s eyes went from side to side and a bead of sweat appeared at his forehead.

“Well?”

“I… I was here to watch Lawrence! A human that was suddenly imbued with a lot of spiritual energy was interesting to the folks above me, so I got sent here.”

“Well he’s lost that power, so why are you here now?”

“Well he hasn’t lost all that much power. If anyone’s lost a little bit of power it’s the fox over there. All that stuff is inside of you Lawrence.”

“Wha- it is? Oku did you know you left spirit energy over in me?”

“Please don’t say it like that… but yes I did. It wasn’t all that much so I thought it would be easy enough to get along without it.”

While their conversation kept along, Elaine entered the room with a feather duster. She attempted to get their attention, but they were all totally focused on talking to each other, so she knocked them on the head with the thing.

“Excuse me I said dinner is ready!”

“What? You’ll feed us?”

“Of course Mark, what parents would we be if we didn’t feed those that live with us! That includes you “Mr. Detective”.”

“I'm a Youkai though...”

“No matter, come on everyone!”