It was past time to get moving once the girls had calmed down. Shania had to reapply her makeup, and Aminah had taken the opportunity to put some on as well. Otherwise, I'd have shown them a few balance drills they could add to their nightly routines. Unfortunately, we couldn't skip the movie entirely to train. The teenage overachievers had to watch the historical drama we were heading to for one of their college-level English courses by Monday and were otherwise busy the remainder of the weekend. I was of mixed opinions about that, and had almost made a Charisma check to talk them out of it. James thought it was overly demanding to assign a movie only in theaters over the weekend, but Alan remembered all too well the insane workloads English professors had felt comfortable handing out. Ultimately, I'd decided that it would be fun to have a date that didn't involve any fighting and that I owed it to Marianne to treat the girls to a proper night out.

Harbor Hill was busy in the late afternoon light. The residents of the neighborhood liked to get their tasks finished before dark when the violent crime rate spiked precipitously, but it wasn't like they lived in an open-air prison. People still tried to enjoy their weekends; they just had to be more sensible than those who were more privileged to live elsewhere. Those who were stocking up on groceries and alcohol were moving in small groups, and those who weren't were moving quickly to their destinations.

The locals had acclimated to the state of fear; Shania and Aminah, for example, walking on either side of me, had subconsciously switched their purses to hang between us. They'd been so trained by the threat of purse-snatchers that they'd done it without thinking. As a transplant, it pained me to see all the little behaviors and signs that painted a broader, bloodier picture of the neighborhood. Chinatown Fridays were practically a neighborhood-wide party with a small grill and plastic chairs set up outside of almost every residential building. Here, if people saw a grill outside an apartment, they switched sidewalks and walked faster, avoiding eye contact with whoever was so bold as to claim the territory openly.

Pathetic. Had I not been immersed in the Happy Idiot, I might have found it enraging, but as it was, all I wanted to do was to get Shania and Aminah to the movies and back without trouble, hence the stealth Stance.

It was an odd sensation to be back in the Stance for more than a minute at a go. Maybe I was being hyperaware and paranoid, but I could feel it this time – the clean high, neither euphoric nor psychedelic, but there all the same. My inhibitions weren't affected, not to the same degree as alcohol, at least, and I wasn't dissociating. On the contrary, it was as if I was entirely present, to a perhaps negative degree. The future felt far away, and the past was nothing more than context with no undue weight on what was happening; neither felt particularly important, certainly not more so than the now.

Talking and the reminder that I had two very vulnerable companions was helping though. As long as I had to take care of Shania and Aminah, I couldn't see myself making the same mistakes I had at Denny's repair shop or the Kingfisher.

"How's it work, anyway?" I asked. "If one of you is in the school for veterinary medicine and the other is in the regular school of medicine, do you share any classes? There's got to be some crossover. We're all animals at the end of the day."

"I don't know," said Aminah, tucking a stray strand of black hair under her hijab. "One of the buildings on campus is shared by both schools, though. Anyway, Shania isn't even sure she wants to be a doctor. That's just something she tells Marianne so she doesn't have a panic attack about her potentially having to take out student loans to get a Classics degree."

"Mina," hissed Shania. "They're friends."

"What? I'm sure James can keep a secret."

"Of course!" I exclaimed proudly. "I'm a master martial artist. I've got so many secret techniques, it's crazy. Besides, I'm going to start paying Marianne fat stacks anytime she has to stitch me up after a fight, so she'll probably be less stressed about money in general soon. I get maimed like every other day on average." The girls looked horrified. Whoops. Probably shouldn't have said that. "Haha. Kidding, kidding," I added unconvincingly. "So, you want to do Classics, huh? Speak on that."

Shania shook her head at the audacity of the topic change but obliged me. "Well, I love history, I'm okay with philosophy as long as it isn't German, and I'm really good with Latin and Ancient Greek, so it just makes sense to keep it going in college. Med schools also look positively at people coming in with humanities backgrounds these days. You still need the prerequisite course work in STEM fields, but adding a humanities degree to that immediately sets you apart from the majority of applicants."

"But you don't want to go to med school?"

She frowned. "It's not that I don't want to. I like helping people, and it would be great to be able to support my family. I'm smart, but Darius is an actual genius. He's been helping me with my math homework since he was nine. I want him to be able to go to whatever school he wants to, and I want Shaun to feel okay with choosing to go to art school if that's what he wants. They deserve that, and Mom deserves a chance to enjoy her life and relax for once in her adult life."

"Hell yeah, that's what's up." I nodded approvingly at my soon-to-be student, already glad to know that she was joining the school.

Annie, I found us a responsible student!

"But," I continued, "Marianne and your brothers wouldn't want you to feel boxed in on their behalf either."

She bit her lip. "I guess…"

I slung an arm around her shoulder. "Don't worry! There's a simple solution to this problem."

"There is?"

"Oh!" Aminah excitedly tapped my arm on the other side of me. "I know exactly what you're going to suggest, and it's such a good idea! You're going to say she just has to learn enough martial arts that she can be one of the rare kinds of archeologists and historians who go exploring ancient ruins and trap-infested temples. They make tons of money."

I was stunned, it was like she'd taken the words right out of my mouth. James only had a passing knowledge of various famous archeologists, but there had been enough 'tomb raiding,' 'dungeon diving,' and 'treasure hunter' Feats and archetypes in the book we'd been given at character creation that it could have been the focus of the entire campaign. Outside of meta knowledge, though, I knew for a fact that underneath Black Harbor was an ancient labyrinthine city from prehistory. It was where the Hakkotsu no Ha had been trapped for decades before Funikugami managed to trick Maki's brother into retrieving it. I'd bet every dollar I had that Black Harbor University was one of the few places you could turn to in order to find out more about the place. Or else what were they even doing over there?

"Woah. Holy shit, that's exactly what I was about to suggest. How did you know?"

Aminah smiled kindly and wrapped herself around my left arm. "There's no way to answer that without sounding insulting, so I would like to first say that you're very handsome, and kind, and I'm very grateful to have met you. That said, you are, Master, and I mean this in the nicest way possible, somewhat of a single-minded jock meathead. In a charming way!"

The way she said the word 'master' did something to me. I grinned. "Hey! I'll have you know I've got more layers to me than Shrek!"

Aminah sighed dramatically as though there was nothing more that needed to be said and leaned her head against my shoulder. Shania giggled and pulled my arm around her tighter.

Man, fuck a reverse honeytrap. This was infinitely superior to my date with Jewel and Edith in every way. The Crane seductresses might have been on paper more attractive, but there was more to beauty than the physical. Neither Shania nor Aminah were going to potentially try and assassinate me, and that, as it turned out, instantly elevated a woman in my eyes. Who could have guessed? Looks like all the people who made fun of me for only liking violent tsunderes back in high school were wrong after all.

The good times decided to take a breather though. We were about halfway to the movie theater when Harbor Hill had to remind us that it was not the sort of neighborhood one took romantic strolls through. How silly of me to think I could go ten minutes outside without a random encounter roll.

Nah, that's a shitty and selfish sentiment. We aren't the main character, can't forget that.

I first noticed something was going on by the way everyone started crossing the street. Natural selection had produced in the average Hiller the ability to instantly detect when someone was changing direction because they wanted to go that way versus when someone was changing direction because they didn't want to continue going where they had been. Even though they couldn't see or hear what had caused the tip of the crowd to start switching sidewalks, people trusted the instincts of the person ahead of them and followed along.

I begrudgingly did the same. I had Shania and Aminah to think of in this situation, and I could sense their need not to stand out. They were lifelong residents of the neighborhood and had been trained by survival instincts and common sense to stay within the crowd for safety.

A few blocks later, I saw what had scared everyone away. Up ahead was a small East or Southeast Asian man clearly having a mental breakdown, whirling around and brandishing a kitchen knife at invisible specters as a few of his family or friends tried to talk him down. His wide eyes and fully dilated pupils ignored them, though, focused on demons only he could see.

I slowed down and glanced at Shania and Aminah. "Uh…" I started unsure of how to broach my request or if I should even be doing so. My first responsibility was to ensure their safety after all.

The girls communicated nonverbally in an instant with only a few quick expressions and extricated themselves from my arms.

Aminah took Shania's hand in hers and smiled at me. "It's okay, James. We'll be safe waiting here. It's a knife, not a gun. Go do your hero thing."

Shania nodded in the direction of the nearest alley. "And if we do see a gun come out, we'll go take cover behind that dumpster."

"Thanks," I said, chagrinned to be in this position. "I'll try to be quick about it; maybe just take his knife away."

I fast walked over to the group surrounding the man with the knife. If I had to judge by appearances, this was a family group trying to calm their sick relative. There were two women, one who could have been anywhere from forty to sixty knowing Asian women, and the other much older. Beside them were three men, two in their middle age and one in his twenties. Schizophrenic breaks were a tragic happenstance, but what was unusual here was that I would have expected the person in the middle to be young and disheveled, someone likely to have escaped his caretaker during his psychosis.

Instead, the man with the knife was thick-necked – very thick-necked in fact – clean-shaven, and built in a way that only disciplined daily training could produce. He was also, again knowing Asians, anywhere from forty to sixty, and had been dressed for work in a button-up and slacks before he'd sweat through and torn his clothes. That wasn't to say it was impossible for him to be schizophrenic with those qualities, but something was off here.

Two of the men turned to face me as I approached, instinctively putting themselves between me and the man.

"I can help," I said. "Can you tell me a little about the situation?"

They looked at me as if I was insane, and the younger of them inhaled sharply, visibly weighing his desire to shout me off against his desire to continue trying to keep things as calm as they possibly could be while a man was whirling around with a knife behind him.

Realizing my mistake, I dropped the Happy Idiot. Now that they were physically capable of telling what my intentions and abilities were, I tried again, "I can help." For good measure, I activated my Shining Resolve, starting to glow a faint gold. "Really."

The men paused to check how the others were feeling about this. I couldn't blame them; this wasn't a neighborhood where you could rely on the kindness of strangers. The oldest of the women wasted no time though, immediately shuffling over in her slippers and taking my hands in hers. She began pleading in a language I didn't recognize, though her intent was clear as day. I smiled and squeezed her hands in return, looking to the others to translate.

It was the twenty-something who stepped up. "He's my uncle," he said quickly. "We don't know why he's acting like this, it's totally out of nowhere. Please, we can't take him to a hospital or call the police."

Ah. Immigration status. I was pretty sure they could still utilize health services within city limits without any fear of legal repercussions, but now wasn't the time to have the discussion. It did mean I'd be on my own for this one.

"Gotcha." I whipped off my clean, authentic basketball jersey, and started to edge closer to the man with my hands up and palms facing him. "What languages does he speak?" I called back. "And what's his name?"

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

"Burmese – fuck," he shook his head, the panic setting in, "what am I saying, you obviously don't know Burmese. Thai, if you know any. His name is Pha."

"Burmese or Thai," I muttered to myself. That followed; lethwei would certainly explain Pha's freakish neck. Well, this wasn't going to be the wisest use of Experience either way, but if I had to pick between those two—

Nope, no time to choose either! Pha's eyes suddenly focused on me; I cast all thoughts of buying Skills out of my mind and got ready for the imminent attack. He stopped his wild movements, muscles tightening and bulging unnaturally. His pupils narrowed to pinprick dots before expanding past where they had been until his entire eyes, from lid to lid, were a milky black.

Another goddamned possession, great.

Pha, or more likely, whatever demon had taken control of his body, snarled at me, spitting some vitriol in a harsh and inhuman tongue, and charged in a stutter step.

I beat out the possessed man on Initiative but didn't move, prepping my maneuver instead. This would hurt, but after the fight against the Flesh Puppet, I'd do anything in my power to keep this situation from going the same way. Pha moved in jerks and halts, two steps, stop, one step, stop, as it became clear that his muscles were bulging in counter to whatever his body was being forced to do. The man was pushing back against the spirit; excellent, that meant I wasn't dealing with another puppet. Finally, he lunged forward, knife outstretched, aimed at my chest.

I caught it point first, letting it pierce through my palm. Ignoring the shock of pain and the screams from around me, I grabbed hold of the fist clutching the blade with my injured hand, rolling my Aura + Telekinesis. With nine Successes, the force flowed outward from my bleeding palm with perfect control, wrapping around every inch of Pha and holding him rigidly in place. There would be no explosion of flesh this time.

Harbor Hill began to hum as my Telekinesis shook the world, vibrating the air and the ground into nearby structures. Road signs rattled against their loose screws, and the pipe below the manhole cover in the street began to thrum a haunting harmony. It, the demon, was fighting to get free, attempting to escape my hold in vicious jerks, using Pha's strong, lethwei-hardened body as best as it could, but it had no chance against both my Force and the man's still raging willpower.

Weak, so weak. It was nothing, a gnat, an insect trapped within my merciful palm.

I threw my head back and laughed maniacally. I noticed first that the humans around me had gone quiet save for the gasping of breath, and then second that I had completely lost control over my fighting spirit. Oh well, my onlookers would just have to deal for the moment.

"What a fucking joke you are! And here I was worried you were about to ruin my date night."

Without the appropriate Feats, it would have been extremely difficult to continue my total telekinetic binding and also have sent my Qi through Pha to try and understand what had taken ahold of him. But I wasn't about to waste the Experience on this worm. I could sense it, finally, as a master of Qi ought to be able to. Or rather, I could sense the lack of sensation. There was no sinister, ineffable Divinity of Funikugami, tortuous hunger of the Hungry Ghost, or even the mindless, berserk fury of the anathema I had fought last night. This wasn't a Lesser Evil, it was barely more than one of the sparks of undefined spirit I'd seen floating through the Shinto Shrine. It was a phenomenon at best.

I didn't need to speak Burmese to get my message across. I didn't need to speak at all. What did the vermin think was happening, what did it think it could accomplish? Could it not feel my horrifying fighting spirit bearing down on it, trying to snuff it out like a candle flame? Did it not sense the Mantle of the Carrion King forever chained to my shoulders? Even the simplest of creatures feared death. Was I not its Champion?

I peeled back the curtain for the thing inside Pha with an Aura + Intimidation roll, not calling on the Mantle's power but merely revealing its presence. I did well with five Successes, but I doubted I needed to roll very high to communicate my point.

Wretch, these are the hands that will kill gods.

> [Hidden Quest Complete!]

> Expel the spirit haunting Pha without harming anyone.

> Reward: 10XP, +3 Linguistics (Burmese), Gain Minor Feat Skull Training

>

> [Minor Feat] Skull Training

> Increase your Health Track by 1. Your headbutts deal an additional point of Base Damage.

Pha's pupils snapped back into focus, and his body went limp in my telekinetic hold. I let him down gently to the ground and closed my eyes. It took almost an entire minute of box-breathing meditation to pull back my fighting spirit. Christ, the intensity caught me by surprise. Though, I guess it was no shock to learn that I'd developed a visceral hatred of possession after last night. Still, that was more wrath than what I was comfortable with conjuring for maybe anything, period. Something to explore in the meditation chamber later, I decided.

The youngest of the men was standing by me with my jersey draped over his arm when I opened my eyes. The rest of the family group were checking on his uncle, who was insisting on standing and walking on his own.

The Peregrines jersey reminded me. "Yes!" I shouted, looking down to check myself for blood; only one of my shoes was ruined, and my joggers were untouched. "Let's go! I'm so sick of replacing my wardrobe, man."

"N-nice," said the young man, gulping at the knife still stuck in my hand. "Thanks for your help. Can I, uh, call you someone for that?" He pointed at the knife wound. "My cousin's a physician's assistant. I'm Daniel Thet, by the way."

"What, this? This is nothing, brother." I yanked the knife free, taking another two Damage. Being the Champion of Funikugami wasn't all bleak Devil's Bargains and permanently terrifying fighting spirit; his Mantle also converted the first four points of Murderous Damage of a Scene into the regular boring sort. One Circular Breathing charge later and the wound was closed, otherwise normal save the blood and thin scar left behind. "See? I'm chilling."

I exerted my Qi and commanded the blood outside my body to burn away in a flash of gold flame, making all the Thets save for the eldest female take a panicked step back. Granny just nodded in approval before stepping forward with her palms together.

"What's wrong with you all?" she said angrily in Burmese to her family. "Show this man some respect. Daniel, ask if he's eaten."

I laughed and waved her off, responding in my newest language. Maybe I'd start one of those MeTV polyglot channels after this. "That's alright, really. I have plans for tonight, and I don't want to keep you long." Daniel's jaw dropped, but I continued regardless. Technically, I never established that I didn't speak Burmese. "If it's alright, I have a small request."

"Yes, anything," she said. "You were like an angry Buddha!"

Pha pushed away the two men trying to keep him from falling over, and stepped forward, palms together. "Thank you. I can never repay you. You have my life."

At some point, I needed to figure out how to respond to overt displays of gratitude, but for now, I just smiled and nodded. "It's more important to me that you have your life. But if you'd like to repay me, then please, preferably before you go home to rest, I'd like for you to go to the Shinto Shrine in Little Tokyo. My adopted Clan, the Ishida, are specialists in these matters. I'm very interested in learning how you became possessed. They'll be able to help you stay safe from further incursions as well and make sure that you don't have any lingering effects."

Pha looked pained and guilty, quickly bowing his head to cover his shame from his family. They may not have known how he'd come to be possessed, but he did, or at the very least, believed he did. "Yes, of course. I'll do so immediately."

"Thank you." Switching to English, I turned to Daniel. "And can I get your number to follow up on this?"

We were exchanging socials when the unmistakable tinny sirens and slightly off-color red-and-blues of a Black Harbor Police Department bike cop rolled up behind me. The Thet's froze instantly, but thankfully I was still holding onto the knife and was pretty sure I could handle the heat for them.

"Harbor Hill has bike cops now?" I said, turning around to look.

I couldn't help it; I had intended to enter immediate de-escalation mode, but a harsh bark of laughter escaped my throat the instant I saw her. Then, taking in her ridiculous city-issued bike shorts and slightly too tight, sweatproof polyester uniform, laughed again but harder and longer.

"Jesus Christ, ain't no fucking way do they have you on bike-beat in Harbor Hill by yourself. Ho-ly shit, this is too good." I waved the Thet's away and said to Daniel in English, "You guys are good, I got this covered."

"Excuse me! No," said the cop, glaring daggers at me, "that is not how this works."

"Really? Tell me what crime they've committed, officer."

She gritted her teeth. "We had reports of a man waving a knife around in the street."

"What," I held up the knife in my hand, "I'm not allowed to do sick-ass knife tricks outside anymore? I'm trying to advertise for my martial arts school; it's a classic demonstration of skill."

"A man in a button-up and slacks," she said, looking at Pha.

I waved at them to get a move on. "I'm not allowed to swap outfits with the boys? We're not allowed to be cute now? Show me where in the books that's a crime."

"A short man."

"Jesus, six feet tall is short now? Dating apps have broken people's brains."

Her eye twitched. "You still can't have a sharpened knife of that size out in the open."

"Fair enough." I shrugged and pinched through the steel at the hilt with an Eagle's Talon, kicking the falling blade like a hacky sack into a nearby trash can. "There, happy now? Now it's a fucking stick." I looked back at the Thet family and swapped to Burmese. "Seriously, you guys can go."

"Hey!" she pointed at Daniel, recognizing him as the most likely to speak English. "Do not take one more step!"

"Oh, shut the fuck up, Maria. Would you relax for once in your miserable life?"

"James, I swear to God. Do not make me do something I'll have to apologize to your mother for."

Maria Ramirez, ladies and gentlemen, my ex-girlfriend; god, I'd forgotten how annoying she could be.

"What are you even doing here, Maria? You're on a bicycle, you dumb bitch. What was the plan, were you going to put him on the handlebars and ride him to a clinic?"

"Great, there they go." She put her hands on her hips and shook her head at the Thets as they turned into an alley out of sight. "Maybe I could have talked to him and done a diagnostic if you had let me, you asshole. Did you ever think that there's more to helping people than leaping in fist first? You're a child, James Li."

"Am I being lectured about the use of force by a member of the Black Harbor Police Department? Is that what's really happening? Am I having a stroke!? First of all, Maria, you look like a stripper in that outfit; of course they walked away. They probably thought you were a fancy whore. Secondly, that man spoke Thai and Burmese, and we both know the BHPD doesn't have translators for either of those languages."

"You are such an asshole, James!" Maria started slapping her palm with the back of her hand. "You don't know anything about half the shit that comes out of your mouth and know less about the other half!"

"I don't know what that means, but tell yourself whatever you need to get by. Why are you still caping for the cops, anyway? I get why before you joined, but they've literally got you on a bicycle alone in Harbor Hill right now. Not even your dad and uncles could get you out of what is clearly meant to be a death sentence."

"See, this is exactly what I'm talking about. I'll have you know I volunteered for this, dumbass."

"What? Why? And why does the police department have a volunteer position that involves having no partner, no body cam, no body armor, and no car in Harbor Hill? That's insane. You guys have infinite money in the budget. Do they just need martyrs to cover up for all the corruption stories?"

Maria sucked in a breath to continue the fight before thinking the better of it. "You know what? This is pointless. Enjoy the view of this ass in these shorts, James, because it's the closest you're ever going to get to it again."

I laughed. "Fine, I will do that. Bye, Maria."

"Ugh!"

It is one hell of an ass, I thought, as she biked away at full speed. That went well, though, all things considered.

Shania and Aminah were a mix of shocked and amused when I crossed the street to resume our trip.

"Sorry about that," I said. "It's a good thing we left early enough to catch the previews."

Aminah wrapped herself around my arm. "It's okay. Was that your ex? She's such a bitch."

"Annie's prettier," added Shania, taking the other arm. "Mom, too."

I pulled them in closer. "Ha! Thanks, guys, but I've been over Maria for a few years now."

"Uhuh."

"Sure."