I was unaware of the segregation between traditional humans and metahumans within this Occidental-styled hotel, nor that this was a precaution for the safety of both traditional humans and metahumans alike. So there was no way I could have known that the staff simply assumed I was a metahuman based on my appearance and what the transporters told them about my powers.

Waking up, I opened my eyes, and I saw that the two other women I was rooming with were terrified and standing in front of me. There was a subtle aggression in their poses.

The older woman had short hair and wore pants, a t-shirt, and black socks. She stood there while leaning her back and left foot against the wall.

The younger girl, dressed in a middle school uniform with waist-length hair, was crouched halfway between us.

I realized that, in my total exhaustion, my glamouring failed, and they could see my face: red skin with blue hair, green eyes, and vampiric fangs. Then, horrified, I noticed that while I could breathe, I could not move or speak.

I panicked, immobilized, and desperately tried to move. Even attempting to disintegrate my body into smoke to regain my freedom, but this paralysis was so pervasive that I couldn’t even move my gaze or control my facial expression.

I felt like I couldn’t breathe, like my life was in the hands of some unperceived ventilator that barely allowed me the air I needed. I felt like I needed to cry, but I couldn’t even manage that.

The schoolgirl, wearing a necklace with the Tenrikyō crest (天理教紋), confessed, “My friend will keep you immobilized until I decide it is safe to release you.”

The older woman, in her late twenties, asked me, “What are you, and what are you doing here?”

My mouth moved on its own. “I am a yōkai. I am here because helping with the rescue efforts and saving human lives exhausted me.”

The woman inquired, “A yōkai? By chance, do you know anything about the kaijū (怪獣) that attacked us yesterday?”

I answered, “No. I know nothing about a kaijū attack yesterday.”

The middle schooler apprehensively asked me, “If I release you from your hold, can I trust you won’t harm us?”

Their power compelled to say, “Of course.”

The woman asked, “Why?”

They again compelled me to answer, “Because I love humanity…”

They looked at me, confused, and the woman queried, “Why?”

My voice cracked as I explained, “Because I am an adopted child of human parents who adored me as if I were their own.”

The woman asked, “Then what’s with the armaments?”

I divulged, “Devils (悪魔) have been breaching the veil between Earth and Otherworld for years, so I’ve been protecting the people and country I love.”

The younger one enquired, “And how do you protect us humans?”

I admitted, “I hunt and kill devils…”

This caught them off guard, and the older woman probed, “Have you ever killed a human being before?”

I willingly told them, “No. I have not.”

The younger woman glanced at her elder and then, turning back to me, explained, “I am going to release you now.”

A thought crossed her mind before she released me, so she warned me. “Remember to control your breathing.”

She didn’t seem to do anything, but suddenly, I could jump to my feet, unintentionally startling them both. I began hyperventilating, so I grabbed at my chest, feeling as if I could barely breathe while my mind raced in trembling terror. Oh my God, I’m having a panic attack. I’ve never had one before.

I collapsed to my knees over the arm of the couch, quickly taking off my breastplate, gambeson, and undershirt as fast as I could because I was desperate to feel as if I could breathe.

The younger one kneeled to my level and calmly coached me, “Follow my lead. Close your eyes and match my breathing.”

In desperation, I focused on following her instructions. Slowly inhaling as deep as I could through my nose, then slowly exhaling through my mouth. I could hear the use of her fingers to keep time. Either counting down from or up to five. After a few minutes of calming down, I felt emotionally exhausted.

The girl told me, “I didn’t expect you to freak out as much as you did.”

I told her, “I’ve… never… been that powerless… before…”

Wracked with guilt, she stepped in front of me, prostrated herself, and begged for forgiveness, while the older woman simply left with, “I’m going to take a shower.”

Despite the shower room being attached to our room, I did not hear her close the door.

I told the girl, “No… I completely understand… I must seem totally monstrous and alien to you… I mean, I am literally a monster out of your mythology and folklore.”

We heard the shower turned on, and the sound proved that she really did not close the door.

The young girl looked up at me, clearly distraught at what she had just done, and a thought crossed my mind. Something she mentioned earlier.

I asked, “Did you say a kaijū did this? Do you mean the one that was all over the news yesterday?”

The older woman confirmed this intuition from within the shower. “Yes, well... Maybe. It’s unclear if it was the same kaijū. Regardless, a kaijū walked into a city and exploded, then continued to rampage until it returned to the sea. We do not know why, and it has yet to be destroyed...”

The girl asked, “So, you know nothing about kaijū?”

I revealed, “I’ve seen nothing like that kaijū prior to the news.”

“I see.” She said before a momentary pause.

The girl asked me, “What were you doing before the attack?”

I explained, “I was hunting the Ama-uma.”

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The older woman petitioned, “Wait, that’s real?”

I told them, “I believe a nuckelavee (ナックラヴィー) made its way through the veil to our humble island.”

The girl said, “I mean, Ama-uma is just a Japanization of Hói Yàhn Máh.”

While she said nothing, it was obvious that this caught both of our ears.

I asked her, “Wait… that sounded like Cantonese?”

The girl simply said, “That’s because it is. Hói Yàhn Máh is simply the Cantonese name for the Nuckelavee.”

I asked her, “Where did you learn Cantonese?”

The girl admitted, “My maternal ancestors are from Hong Kong.”

I admitted, “To be honest, you don’t look like it. I assume you are a Hāfu?”

She said, “Yes, I am.”

I smiled at her, and she asked me, “What are you?”

I paused for a moment, but figuring that the cat’s already out of the bag, decided this couldn’t hurt my situation any more than it already had. “My biological father was half-vampire and half-incubus, while my biological mother was half-vampire and half-djinn.”

She asked me, “So, you’re not a hanyō (半妖)?”

I told her, “No. I’m a full-blooded yōkai.”

The woman got out of the shower, quickly dried off, wrapped her torso and hair in a towel and said, “All yours…”

I told the younger girl, “You can go first.”

She tried to protest, but I adamantly refused, so she deigned to take her shower next.

I sat outside the shower room and inquired about another thing said. “You said your friend was the one keeping me bound in position, so is the other woman duopotent?”

The girl explained, “I don’t know about that, but I was the one keeping you secured. I don’t know why, but I’m the only one who can see and hear my little fiend. They’re almost liked an imaginary friend, but with the power to interact with the real world.”

I bluntly told her, “That makes little sense.”

She explained, “I named them Nenia (念以安), and they are my superpower: a bird with five eyes and the ability to paralyze anyone it touches or who is within its field of vision—humans, ghosts, robots, and apparently yōkai as well.”

I asked her, “You paralyzed a ghost before?”

She admitted, “Yes. It was not on purpose, but I paralyzed a ghost before.”

The very idea disturbed me, but I deigned to keep my concerns to myself. I have seen abilities like this before, but they usually appear in some corporeal form. That said, there was a lot that I, and the metahuman community, simply do not know about our own powers because of the lack of serious scientific examination of these abilities. Though, I guess with the revelation to the wider world about the existence of these superpowers, that was likely to change.

We talked for a bit until she finished her shower.

As we traded places, she, apparently curious, asked, “Would you mind if I looked?”

I asked her, “What?”

She explained, “I’m just curious.”

I understood that she likely never had much contact with people of other races (or species in my case), and she was just curious about how I differed from her people. It was the same anthropological curiosity that underlies the desire to touch hair of novel textures, but tempered with the politeness to ask for permission first.

This didn’t bother me, so I deigned to allow her request, “I don’t see the problem.”

She peeked around the corner and visually scanned me as I got undressed and hopped into the shower. Her eyes lingered on the elements that seemed foreign to her. What stood out to her was, aside from my coloration, horns, fangs, and claws, that I appeared to be human.

She looked at my breasts and asked, “So, your nipples are a deeper red?”

I explained, “Ma’am, nipples are always darker than the surrounding skin. It does not matter your race.”

She asked, “Does that apply to humans too?”

I reaffirmed, “Yes. This applies to human beings.”

She left the room, and I could hear her use her phone to access a search engine. After which, she mumbled to herself in a manner that showed she thought whatever she was seeing was beautiful. The only reason I knew this factoid is because my father was a physical anthropologist. He taught me a lot about the evolution and differentiation of the various human lineages, as well as the environmental and cultural factors which led to these adaptations.

I revealed, “My father is a Yamato-American who worked with the Khoisan for a time in South Africa.”

I heard the girl ask the woman, “Wait, you are a JSSDF soldier, right?”

The woman explained, “Former JSSDF soldier.”

The girl asked, “Did you hear any stories from your peers about the South African Genocide?”

The woman admitted, “I served under superior officers who were involved in peacekeeping operations during that period, but I never asked them. So, the only thing I know about that event is what I’ve read online or seen in a documentary.”

The girl asked, “I’d be interested in hearing you both talk about any stories you have.”

To that, I thought to myself that she really doesn’t know what she’s asking for. It was at that moment, while I was still in the shower, we heard a knock at the door. The woman, dressed in casual formal wear now, opened the door.

The moment she cracked open the door, I could tell that the ones at the door only wore the guise of humanity. It radiated from their presence..

The stranger tried to barge into the room while demanding, “Where is the girl in armor?”

But the ex-JSDF soldier immediately shoved the stranger out of the room, saying, “She’s not here, and even if she was, I would not let her go anywhere with you.”

The audacity of the would-be intruder was stunning.

I heard a second stranger’s voice chide the first with, “What are you thinking? Do you have no sense of propriety, Yōshin? Hallvarðr said to not cause a scene.”

I recognized that foreign name.

The first stranger cut them off, “Poppycock. I can feel her presence.”

Both voices belonged to women, with the second voice trying to deescalate the situation. “I’m sorry, ma’am. My friend here can be a little abrasive. My name is Hakutenga (白天鵞). We’d just like to speak with the armored young woman we believe was sleeping here yesterday.”

I could smell their heritage. The first one was another yōkai, specifically a Shinigami, or death deva. The other one seemed to be a foreign lineage I have never encountered before. My two roommates and I seemed to find these names to be rather incredulous.

The girl forcefully warned, “I think you need to leave.”

The more abrasive stranger snidely challenged, “Oh, really?”

The more aggregable stranger clarified, “She is free to decline if she so desires.”

I heard an annoyed grunt from the more aggressive stranger.

I covered myself and walked to within view of the door.

Making no effort to conceal my monstrous features, I clearly though subtly present my fangs as I aggressively asked, “What do you want?”

The moment they figured out I was part-Vampire, the Shinigami smirked and said, “I know a Korean barbeque which sells sŏnji-guk (선지국). My treat.”

I salivated at the suggestion because, while I did not need it to survive, blood was my favorite food: be it the blood soup offered, blodplättar, or even the delicious crunchiness of hematogens. Plus, after the blinding panic of yesterday and today, I was starving, so I accepted the offer.

I told them, “Alright, since you are offering, I’ll take you up on the offer on the condition that she,” referring to the ex-JSDF soldier, “accompanies me. If she won’t go, then neither will I.”

The more agreeable one happily told her partner, “I can pay for the other two.”

The Shinigami smiled and told her more agreeable friend, “See? Everything worked out.”

The polite stranger pulled out a small notepad from her back pocket, scribbled something down, and handed it to the ex-JSDF soldier.

She said, “This is the address and our phone number. Please call us if you decide to decline.”

They bid us farewell and left, so the woman closed the door, breathing a sigh of relief.

The girl asked, “Do you know them?”

I explained, “I’ve never met them before. I have met the person the smaller woman mentioned by name, though. After killing a gashadokuro.”

The woman asked, “Do you have any idea what they might want from you?”

I confessed, “I believe they want me to help them track down and kill a devil.”

The woman probed, “Is he trustworthy?”

I confessed, “I do not know, but my initial impression is that he means humans no harm.”

The girl reminded us, “Didn’t the smaller woman castigate her colleague about being too abrasive because her behavior violated their directive?”

I told them, “The troll seemed adamant about not desiring harm to come to humans, and those two were yōkai… So, I assume their relationship with him should provide some regulatory effect on their behavior.”

The woman asked me, “Do you plan to go?”

I explained, “I think I must. They may have information regarding a devil that presents a clear and present danger to the people of this nation.”

The woman sighed, “Alright. I’ll go along with you. I can at least ensure they won’t lie to you.”

The girl also volunteered, “I’ll go as well. If need be, Nenia can help to prevent them from making a scene.”

After what had just happened to me, that name terrified me.

The woman ordered, “Alright. Get dressed. We have things to do.”

The girl, realizing that we never properly introduced ourselves, rectified that mistake. “My name is Sakurai Nadeshiko, and our friend here is Chiba Chie. What is yours?”

I paused for a moment, but considering that, as far as I understood it, the lady could simply compel me to tell the truth, I decided to simply be honest.

“My name is Setagaya Momo…”