Maki promised to text Huo updates on how I was doing and helped me out of the car. I was already much more together after the ten minutes it had taken to get here, all things considered; I had my energy back and the pain had faded to a dull throb, my Special feat for 6 Dice in Endurance coming through in a big way. But Maki’s body heat was a welcome comfort in the chill late-night air, so I was happy to lean on her.

“You live in Harbor Hill? I suppose you’re less affected than most by the crime rate.”

“Last place a part-time actor can afford a two-bedroom apartment in the city,” I grunted, fumbling with my keys. “I wanted the distance from Chinatown too; new beginnings and all that.”

“I know the feeling. University City was supposed to be that for me, a clean break away from the Shrine to figure out what I wanted to do with my life, but…”

“Life had its own opinions on the matter. Funny how that happens.”

I stuck the Hakkotsu no Ha in the umbrella stand, kicked my shoes off, and peeled down my soggy socks with a contented sigh. It was good to be home again. Maki blushed as I stripped my shirt and undid my sash but paled at the sight of my back. Damn, I kind of wanted to see what it looked like, but it felt rude to ask her to take a picture for me. She seemed traumatized enough as it was.

“Bathroom’s the first door to your right. I’ll go grab you a clean towel and one of my shirts to change into.”

She shook her head. “We should take care of your injuries first.”

“Ten minutes more isn’t going to kill me. I promise I won’t do something stupid like closing my eyes for a nap while I wait. We have time for you to freshen up. Besides, unlike me, you actually need to shower – badly, at the moment, no offense.”

“How is that possible, by the way? From the front, you look like you could have walked off the set of a movie.” She gestured with her head at the small puddle under where I’d hung my wet shirt. “Even the water from your clothing seems relatively clear, and I know there should be more blood, well, all over you realistically.”

“Hey, when you look this good, the universe obliges.”

She sipped her teeth. “We aren’t done talking about this, but fine. I happen to be unenlightened enough to require the facilities anyway. Please don’t exert yourself while you wait.”

I set Maki up in the bathroom and then popped into the utility closet. Using an old wrench I’d hung there for this purpose, I manually cranked the heat up on the old steam heater. It was a relic, left untouched by the fire that had destroyed the floors above, and fully capable of turning my apartment into a sauna on full blast. Getting the basement to an actually comfortable temperature with the heater was a delicate balancing act that I fully ignored for tonight. I just wanted to be warm. Maki could crack a few windows if she needed to.

While in the closet, I closed the door and pulled out the three Base Upgrade Tokens, rectangular plastic-looking charms I’d been given for causing over a million dollars in collateral damage. These were new to me, but I did remember the game having a way for players to spend Experience upgrading bases. The option hadn’t appeared before now though; evidently, I’d needed to unlock it via quest rewards.

I browsed through the menu that had popped up; it was far more detailed than I remembered from the book. At the top was an option to buy more tokens for 50 EXP each, pricey, but worth it considering the sort of things they could do. The cost in tokens for each upgrade was dependent on the existing size, amenities, and defenses of the base in question. My rinky-dink basement apartment, for instance, offered me a huge discount on all options, reducing a number of very strong ones to the minimum cost of one Token.

I went immediately to the defenses tab. The warehouse and distillery equipment I’d destroyed may have cost over a million dollars, but I had to imagine the damage I’d done to the Tigers by destroying their counterfeit liquor operation was far greater. If I didn’t want to get firebombed in my sleep, I would need some deterrents.

The best options were extremely expensive, even with the discount, balanced around a party of players pooling their resources together. These included things like taking the entire base into a pocket dimension, imposing an inviolable Law preventing all violence, and the creation and binding of a literal Guardian Angel to the property. More affordable, but still out of my range, were a pair of Guardian Lion statues, like those outside of Maki’s shrine, except alive, and imbuing the apartment with a young Kami.

Things I could afford but still weren’t options, included a moat, mechanized gun turrets, a minefield, all manner of booby traps, and two living suits of armor, which did momentarily tempt me for use as training dummies. Ultimately, most weren’t very useful for me or would be too hard to explain to others.

I went with two options I thought would combo well with each other. The first, reduced to only one Token, was called ‘Enchantment of Forgetfulness’. The moment someone near, but not on, the base decided to do harm to the residents or property, they would be inflicted by a sudden thought that would draw them away, ‘I left the stove on!’, for example. It could be bested by a strong Wits roll, but it would hopefully handle most thugs.

The second, for two tokens, was called ‘Fortress from the Lost’. Those who were headed to the apartment with malintent would find themselves chronically lost, regardless of technological aid. It could be beat by a high Willpower check, but what I liked about it the most, was that the threshold for Success increased dramatically depending on how large the group was. The Triads, like most gangs, preferred to roll squad deep. For that reason, it seemed like my best option, and in combination with the first would let me sleep easy tonight.

I wistfully scanned through the upgrades from other categories. It took all of my willpower to not drop a hundred Experience on two more tokens. An en suite bathroom with a sauna and a jacuzzi was only one token! Was my continued personal growth really worth going without a personal sauna? Or an invisible servant to help clean? Or an indoor swimming pool?

Yes, unfortunately, to all of those. Actually, a perma-stocked meat freezer…

No, goddamn it, James, get it together, man. I exited out of the menu before I could be further tempted. I’d nearly died like six times or something tonight; no Experience point could go wasted on frivolities.

I plodded through the apartment, trying not to think about how nice it would look with a Zen Garden or an espresso bar, each only a token away. Hopefully, I could get more tokens by doing more property damage, because I could definitely see myself making some less-than-sensible decisions otherwise.

I stripped in my room and absolutely ruined a towel drying off. Blood, while not pouring out of me at a normal human rate, was still oozing out of my wounds and caked all over my back. Painfully, I used the remainder of my gauze on hand to wrap my back and torso up tight like a mummy, making a sort of X across my shoulders to cover the full extent of my wounds. Slipping into some boxers, I returned to the living room and knelt down next to my couch to wait for Maki. I was sure I was still bleeding through the wrappings, and I knew myself well enough to know that if even a drop of blood got onto the upholstery there would be no amount of Willpower Dice that could keep me from spending an upgrade token on new self-repairing, self-cleaning furniture.

Maki exited the bathroom with only one of my button-up shirts on after about forty minutes, blushing shyly when I turned to look. The improvised shirtdress went only to her mid-thighs revealing her long, beautiful legs, and its collar was too big, hanging slightly off her shoulder. I hadn’t meant to do it when I grabbed the shirt, but the white cloth was also thin enough that you could see the shadows of her nipples through it.

Besides looking ravishing, she was also visibly more relaxed, though some of that could be attributed to tiredness. Her eyes were also a little puffy and red, which in combination implied that she’d had a good cathartic cry in the shower. A well-earned one, I should say; we’d avenged her brother tonight, freeing both Ken’s ghost and her future from the Hungry Ghost’s cavernous maw.

Maki was unyoked from revenge, free to live life as she pleased – and for as exhausted as she might have looked, I could tell. Anyone could, probably; the Maki I’d met in the shrine had been a haunted and hollowed woman. She’d been zealous and single-minded, a fanatic deliberately holding herself in a pit of despair to push herself onwards and past her limits. That version of her, regardless of her physical prowess, was no less a warrior than I and had earned her place as a peer, one of my fellow defenders of Black Harbor.

This Maki, however, was a young woman who was unsure of herself. She was hesitant, rudderless without a mission to guide her. My instincts, born from both my Seduction and Leadership Skills, were screaming at me that she was fruit ripe for the picking and that I should seize her and make her mine, give her a vision to fight for. It was wrong, maybe, for me to step in at her most vulnerable and ply her with my insane Social feats and Skills, but I was in no position to take the high road. I needed a woman like Maki to survive in the Underworld, and sexual urges aside, I wanted her too, if not in my bed, then at my side, in my life.

I rolled a Charisma + Seduction – a mostly superfluous action, Hero’s Harem gave me three Guaranteed Successes, but the additional two that I rolled, despite the enormous Injury penalty, would help guide our interactions. For instance, despite how eager I was to feel her skin against mine, it informed me that for the best results I needed to ease her into her first sexual interaction for years, and probably her only with a man.

“That’s a good look for you,” I said. Maki looked down at the button-up and then back at me suspiciously, as though unsure as to whether I was making fun of her. “I’m serious. You’re effortlessly pretty. Grab your purse, by the way.”

She brushed a damp strand of hair behind her ear, cheeks pinkening slightly. “Thank you. But to be clear, whatever we…might do tonight, it’s purely a medical procedure. I don’t want you to misconstrue my assistance as anything more than what it is.”

I bowed my head. “Of course. I’m grateful for your help. But, you do know you don’t have to do this? The house next door is a literal brothel. It’s really no trouble at all.”

“No, it’s—sorry, I think my tone…” She trailed off into a long pause, pursing her lips and frowning as she gathered her thoughts. “I want to help, really, I do. And I’m honored that someone like you would even consider me. It’s just that,” she let out a frustrated sigh, “Ugh, I don’t know. Sorry, I’m not used to this. I’m outside of my comfort zone in a lot of ways right now, but I have to help you.”

“Again,” I said, “you literally don’t.”

I could tell that there was nothing I could say to talk her out of this, nor was I actually trying to. Maki had made up her mind, and no devil or angel could move her now. My protests were meant to help her convince herself into being more comfortable with the idea of being with me. Plus, this was Maki, she was much more open to light confrontation than emotional honesty.

“I do though,” she said, grabbing her purse off a key hook by the door. Her voice was almost pleading. “James, I have to do this for myself, honestly.”

“You get that this isn’t just going to be a kiss, right? I’m not trying to hoodwink you. You’re powering my spell with your orgasms.”

She answered curtly, “I understand how ritualized eroticism works, James. It’s exceedingly common in all forms of magical practice. Unlike you, I had to study for my magic, not all of us can blunder into mystic might. Now, I demand that you stop trying to talk me out of this.”

Ah, there was the Maki I’d come to know. I’d be upset, but I did literally blunder my way into mystic might.

She kneeled in front of me head high and back straight, projecting full certainty in her decisions. My button-up rode up her thighs considerably, making her quickly cover her lap with the purse. I raised an eyebrow at that, but she pointedly refused to acknowledge it.

“You could pay for the prostitute, that would still be helping. A lot, honestly; I uh, kind of ruined my phone earlier. If I didn’t have a gig on Friday, I’d be screwed.”

“Am I ugly, James?”

“What? God, no. Are you kidding?”

She crossed her arms and glared. “I’m not your type then? I did ballet as a child for a few years, if that helps.”

I groaned. “Not you too. There are valid, non-sexual reasons for why I’m following all those ballerinas.”

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

“Uh huh. Then it’s my personality. You think I’m a shrew, don’t you?” she asked, voice cracking a bit.

I threw my hands up. “Woah! Jesus, woman, would you relax? That’s not it at all." I paused – Maki’s voice cracked? That seemed out of character for her… “Wait a minute. Are you trying to reason me into a seduction?”

She ignored me, her cheek twitching slightly. “Well, if it’s not my looks, not your preferences, and not my personality, then what is your problem? Are you trying to make this more uncomfortable for me?”

She was! Maki was doing the in-universe equivalent of trying to roll a Wits + Seduction on me and doing, frankly, a bad job. If I wasn’t in the middle of seducing her already, there was no way this would have worked on me. Probably. Her attempt at acting was pretty cute.

“It’s your preferences, you lunatic! Maki, you’re gay. I’m trying to respect that.”

Maki grew supremely smug, apparently, I’d walked right into her trap. She held up a finger. “Ah. Don’t worry, I gave it some thought in the shower and decided that it’s irrelevant when it comes to you. Put simply, James, if you consider all the evidence, it becomes quite clear that aren’t really a man at all.”

I rubbed my brow. “I – okay. By all means, continue.”

“First of all, you are sublimely beautiful; your face and body possess a perfect symmetry that is eerie. But more than that, they are sexually attractive in a way that defies reason. For example, I quite enjoy women’s breasts. I think we can agree, yes?”

“You phrased that like a serial killer, but yeah. I like a nice pair of tits.”

She cleared her throat, momentarily flustered. “Ehm, yes, quite. What I was really saying is that I am sexually attracted to women’s chests over those of men. Even a relatively flat, but soft woman’s chest can elicit a reaction from me, whereas no traditionally masculine man’s chest can.”

“Yeah, Maki, I get how physical attraction works.”

“So, then you must realize how strange and off-putting it was for me to then suddenly find your hard, distinctly defined male pectorals so…appealing. Especially, considering that in the past I’d associated your body type with that of a thuggish meathead prone to brutish, insecure outbursts should he ever encounter a modicum of rejection.”

“You understand I didn’t choose to be this ridiculously good-looking, right?”

She leaned forward with interest. “That’s fascinating. You mean it’s not a result of your deliberate actions?”

I winced. “It’s complicated. Please go on with your explanation.”

My response seemed to further confirm a suspicion of hers. Some of the wariness sloughed off her shoulders and she sat up a bit straighter. “It’s directly relevant to where I’m going with this, but very well. I was reconciling and coping with my sudden attraction to a male body in the shower, you see. It’s reassuring to know that you don’t have any control over it because I have to say, it’s unpleasant to suddenly have your personal conception of self upturned with a glance.”

“At first, I thought, well, James is clearly fairly far down the Path of the Immortal. His body has reached a level of physical perfection that is forcing a physiological reaction from mine.”

If I could go back in time, I would have done a lot more to obscure how strong I was getting. The same Special feat that had doubled my life expectancy had even warned me about my flesh becoming a sought-after reagent. “It’s that obvious, huh?”

“Yes. Everyone with even rudimentary spiritual senses for tens of miles will have noticed you becoming a thousand-foot-tall cyclone of fire.”

“A thousand-foot—” I gasped and slapped my forehead. I knew exactly what happened; Maki said I’d become the fire tornado, not created one. Shining Resolve made me glow faintly, but my Qi shine like a second sun. When I had circulated my Qi into the flammable vapors in the warehouse, tying the fuel into my network, it must have appeared to her spiritual senses as though I had grown into an immense towering flame. To hers, and to probably everyone’s in Central Jersey. “Oh god, I’m so boned.”

“Don’t worry. You have me now; we’ll navigate the fallout of this together.”

I wagged my eyebrows, unable to resist despite how touching the sentiment was. “I have you now, do I?”

“Of course. You can’t be trusted to keep yourself alive,” she said, ignoring the double-entendre.

“Fair.”

“Anyway, as I was saying, I thought you were merely close enough to becoming a Xian that it was overcoming my distaste for the male form, but as I considered it further, there were elements that didn’t add up.”

“Much of what you can do can be attributed to your mastery of the martial arts,” she continued. “There are both historical and living examples of men and women who can command the elements, and even laywomen like me can easily identify that you’re a genius of physical intelligence. You dissected Pak Hadiman’s techniques in seconds, and your kinesthetic sense is so great that your movements resemble those of a big cat.”

“Thanks! That’s the power of my Black City Kung Fu. My style is the ultimate in adaptability!”

“Perhaps. Yet there’s much about you that can’t be attributed to mortal prowess. When we kissed, I was prepared for your breath to taste of fish and soy sauce, but instead, it smelled like the blooming wisteria trees under which I had my first kiss – that whole night and scene actually. I was hit by the smell of wisteria, the hint of my childhood friend’s shampoo, and the lingering smoke of fireworks wafting through the trees. It was unmistakable.”

My stomach started to drop as she kept going. Maki had proven herself to be supremely perceptive and insightful the entire night, but I hadn’t quite adjusted my expectations enough for this world. Just like there were superhuman fighters here, there were superhuman geniuses as well; I should have been treating her closer to a Sherlock Holmes or Hercule Poirot than anyone on my previous Earth.

“And then briefly, I tasted your saliva, only to find it better than anything I’d eaten in my life, a virtually unidentifiable flavor that my mind could only attribute to you. It was alarming, particularly the primal and immediate desire I felt to taste more of it, fully cognizant that there was but one source. My mind rejected the feeling, there was too much else to think about at the time, but I remembered it again in the shower. I remembered too how your words seemed to linger in my mind, how your image kept fighting its way into my idle thoughts, and then I thought about how not even your massive injuries managed to diminish your appeal.”

“But it was thinking back on what you said in the hallway, that made it all come together. You said, ‘When you look this good, the universe obliges.’ You were being flippant, but that was an interesting explanation. How else could I explain someone being so beautiful that dirt will not stick to him? I looked down at the water flowing out of my hair, dirty from the few seconds that I had tripped and fallen during my run back to the exit of the storm drain, and then remembered the perfectly clean puddle under where you’d hung your shirt, about how little mud had been on your shoes and socks. I realized that when taken as a whole, yours are not the abilities of a man, nor of someone merely close to attaining Immortality – these are the qualities of a man who has already achieved Divinity. Your powers remind me of Baldr of the Norse Gods, various members of the Tuatha De Danaan, and different Kami.”

I nodded with understanding. “Ooh, when you say I’m not a man, you mean I’m not a human.”

“Yes, you aren’t a man, you’re man-shaped. I did a thought experiment, you see. Many divine beings with human forms have others as well or are outright shapeshifters. So, with the reasonable assumption that you might one day gain such an ability, I visualized you in my mind, changing into other genders, races, and body types. It was strange, as long as my brain believed the person I was looking at was you, it could find any, literally any form appealing.”

There was a long pause as her questions hung in the air between us, unvocalized but asked nonetheless. Maki wanted to know what I was, if she was correct, why she felt the way she did about me, etc. but was too polite to outright say any of that. This was the most deferential she’d ever been with me, and honestly, it was somewhat disconcerting.

“Ha. That was a long shower, huh?” I said, guiltily rubbing the back of my head.

What could I say? At this point, I was positive that Maki would notice any changes to her cognition or emotional processes, both of which were sure to happen if she continued to interact with me. How could I explain them in a way that she could accept? Something told me, in no uncertain terms, that the Producers would not appreciate me revealing the nature of the game to any NPC. But at the same time, could I hide anything from her?

Maki shrank a little in the silence. Now that she was no longer explaining her logic and reasoning, she was back to being an inexperienced young woman, nervous about the upcoming intimacy.

“Sorry. That was all to say that you don’t need to worry about me, I’m completely sure and comfortable with,” she cleared her throat, “anything we need to do. Should we…get to it? Although,” she added hopefully, “if you need a confidant, I’m here. And of course, the more information I have, the better I can help you. Not that you need to tell me anything.”

I groaned. “This would be so much easier for me if you just demanded to know.”

“Oh. Would you like me to?”

“Ehh.” I thought about it. No, no, that would be ridiculous and childish. “Could you maybe threaten to withhold helping to heal me?”

She paled and shook her head firmly. “Absolutely not, I couldn’t even joke about that.”

“Gah, fine. But this has to stay crazy secret, okay? This isn’t even a secret technique, this is a personal secret; not even my senior student knows this. Got it?”

Maki bowed her head. “I would sooner die than break your confidence.”

I took a deep breath, wincing as it irritated a few fractured bones in my back. “When I was,” I did finger quotes, “‘building’ the ultimate real-life, action movie hero, I accidentally or, some might say, was tricked into discovering a way to cultivate tremendous amounts of power through the shenanigans typical to such a character. So now, anything from performing, to banishing a ghost, to sexual hijinks can bring me all kinds of benefits and rewards, most of which I get little to no say in.”

“Like the ability to be universally appealing?”

“Yes. I’m sorry that I’m doing that to you. Like I said—”

“No,” she interrupted, “I’m glad that you are. It will make this easier for both of us, surely. And by sexual hijinks, that means you’ll get stronger from having sex with me to heal yourself?”

“I don’t need to have sex with you to make you orgasm, but yeah, I’ll get power from anything we do. The further we go, the nastier we get, the more power, typically.”

Maki nodded and closed her eyes. I let the seconds tick by as she thought in silence until nearly a minute had passed while she was up in her mind palace or whatever; being around Maki made me feel like a real himbo. Frankly, it was kind of freeing. It would be nice to have someone I could pass off the big headscratchers to while I was off fucking and fighting my way to godhood.

Her eyes snapped open. All hesitation and insecurity had evaporated from her, leaving behind the same zealous, self-assured warrior I’d seen during our exorcism. She held up two fingers. “Right, I’ve decided. There are two things that we will accomplish before I leave your apartment, regardless of how long it takes. One, we will heal you completely from all injuries. Two, we will go as far and,” her face grew bright red, and her voice higher in pitch, “get as nasty as you are comfortable with. I have resolved myself to go along with anything you propose.”

I laughed – she had practically squeaked the last few words. Still, I much appreciated the gesture, even if I didn’t entirely believe her. Maki and I likely had very different concepts of ‘nasty’.

“I won’t ask if you’re sure, I can tell you are, and I know why you want the first. I would also consider it my duty to see you healed fully had you been injured. But where the hell did the second demand come from?”

Maki fiddled with the zipper on her purse nervously and couldn’t bring herself to make eye contact. “You were right, in the alleyway; the city does need idiots like you, and, like I said, you need an idiot like me to survive. If all I need to do is subject myself to your base urges for a day or two to improve your chances, then it is an onus my pride demands I bear.”

I threw my head back and laughed. That sounded like a challenge if I’d heard one.