“My power is gone,” I told Sekibanki. Then, because it would be premature to declare defeat without trying harder, I tried to fly again. My feet barely moved.

“Gone,” said Sekibanki as she landed in the darkness beside me. “Are you sure?”

“No,” I said. I focused even harder.

I felt my ability to fly trying to catch. It was a numbness and a lightness in my stomach. My borrowed wings twitched and my stomach flipped over. The inability to fly was almost literally nauseating, but I could still feel it there, even if it didn’t work.

It didn’t make any sense. I’d been more capable than this one minute after acquiring my wings! This wasn’t just a backtracking–it was like something had cored me, and sucked all my magical might away.

I was nothing if not stubborn. I tried again, pushing, rocking on my feet, lifting up on my toes.

With a deep breath I rose several inches into the air. As I strained I inevitably descended again. It hurt something inside me to fly without Suwako’s power aiding me, like I’d been driving a car for weeks without a break and now I was trying to go for a walk. Standing up strained muscles I’d forgotten about.

I lifted up once more. Then I remembered what Arnold had said about not overdoing the practice, which had helped him catch up to Sasha and I with his flight skills.

“I can still fly,” I told Sekibanki. “I’m going to walk, for now, but I can still fly.”

“If you call that flying,” she replied. “Your presence does feel different. Less impactful.”

I felt my legs growing weaker. This wasn’t a magical effect or anything, it was simple despair from having it all taken away. The youkai moved in to steady me, a hand on my shoulder.

“What the fuck happened?” I asked as Sekibanki held me up.

“I have no idea,” she said. Her eyes flicked around. “It seems obvious that your borrowed power has been withdrawn. I did not expect retribution, especially not so swiftly.”

“Is it because–” I said before I stopped myself. Then, because it would be premature to give up without thinking, I slowed my panic and tried to actually reason out what had happened.

My power came from Suwako, who had charged me with keeping a secret and had promised me that if I became cursed again the power would disappear. I’d revealed that secret to Sekibanki and my power had disappeared. It was natural to think that revealing the secret cost me my power.

But the more I thought about it, the less sense that explanation made. I’d already revealed the secret to my roommates without issue. And the secret wasn’t the critical part–what mattered was if I turned into a youkai again.

I distinctly remembered Suwako not using the threat of removing my power against me. She’d warned me, not threatened me: warned me that I could not be saved a second time. That meant…

Perhaps I’d become cursed again.

“Your fear,” said Sekibanki, her head swivelling. “I can taste it. I will protect you, outside the village, but you should calm yourself before you draw someone’s attention.” She released another head to patrol. It blossomed from her neck like danmaku.

“Okay,” I said. I took a deep breath and willed calm to my beating heart.

How could I check if I were becoming a youkai? Previously, my ability to absorb fear had depended on my sense of smell.

I inhaled sharply through my nose. Nothing. I thought about asking Sekibanki if I could smell her hair, but instead I walked to a pine tree and ripped some needles from its branch. I crushed these in my hand, painfully, and tried to smell them.

Nothing. That didn’t mean I wasn’t cursed, necessarily, but my previous curse had involved my sense of smell. That I still couldn’t smell anything was evidence against the curse returning. So if I was currently cursed, it was a new curse.

Sekibanki asked what I was doing, so I explained. What I really needed was to find a being that could feel fear and see if I could taste it. In the meantime I was outside of Human Town and in extreme danger. At least I had Sekibanki with me.

“Let’s go back,” I told the red-haired youkai as I started to walk. I stumbled in the snow almost immediately. It was dark and icy, and winter still.

“I’ll help you,” Sekibanki said as she offered me a hand. It was surprisingly warm. “Don’t rush yourself. That is how accidents happen.”

I took three more steps and almost fell down again. I flew to my feet before she could lift me back up.

“Idiot.”

“Sorry,” I said. “Being nigh-powerless is making me jumpy.”

“Typical human,” she said, with a little bit of laughter in her voice.

“We need to return to Human Town as soon as possible.”

“Hmm. You are right.”

“Can you carry me?” She gave me a look.

Sekibanki was smaller than me, and her head had to lean back a bit to look me in the eye. She frowned. She lifted an eyebrow at me to ask if I was serious, and frowned a bit deeper when I made a small nod. Then she put her hands on her hips.

Did she want to carry me? Absolutely not. But she probably could. I saw the moment she decided to go ahead and try. A tension entered her arms and her stance became wider. She stepped toward me in the snow.

Then Sekibanki wrapped her arms under my own and lifted. Her whole body was warm, even through the winter clothes. I felt my face grow hot. She was wearing a puffer jacket and scarves, but underneath it all was a slender and undeniably feminine body. A fireman’s carry might have been wiser.

Her cheeks puffed out with the strain, which didn’t make any sense when you considered that her lungs weren’t actually connected to her mouth. That was assuming she even had them. The slender, warm body wasn’t breathing, as far as I could tell. To be fair, at that moment I wasn’t either.

She squeezed me tighter and tighter, but when I tucked my head in toward hers her head simply shifted out of the way. At first I thought she was recoiling, but then the head fell off. I flinched.

Of course–no attached neck muscles. This wasn’t like a normal hug at all. The head bumped against mine as it reseated itself and nestled back into place. Sekibanki pulled one hand back from under my arms and touched her neck. The skin of her neck met her head, making what appeared to be a genuine neck.

The force continued to increase and I exhaled. Sekibanki was strong. As strong as any of the human martial artists I’d wrestled with, and all of them were stronger than me. She squeezed me hard enough that my ribs began to pop.

“Ow,” I wheezed. “Less squeezing, more flying!”

“Sorry,” she said. “Forgot what I was trying to do.”

“Wait, did you used to squeeze the blood out of people!?”

We finally lifted into the air. Sekibanki rolled so that I was on top. I awkwardly pulled my face back so I wouldn’t bump against her cheek and displace her head again. I didn’t know how strong the attachment was.

“This is undignified,” she said as we shot off toward Human Town.

“I’m sorry,” I gasped. “Thank you for carrying me.”

“Shut up.”

We flew in stealthy silence for several moments, at a frankly terrifying speed considering that I wasn’t sure if my wings would automatically slow me if I fell off.

This was the third time I’d been carried by a youkai. Wakasagihime had dragged me from the water like a sack of wet kelp. Remilia had held me at arms length like a rat she’d caught by the tail. Sekibanki…

Sekibanki held me like a diminutive Japanese woman wrestling a big dumb American. We were flying, but we were also kind of halfway through a suplex. I wondered if we’d end up landing on our heads.

“What’s funny?” she asked.

“Thinking about wrestling,” I said. I wasn’t the biggest or dumbest American, at least.

We neared the boundary with Human Town.

I felt Sekibanki stiffen beneath me. Her head rotated with a skin-tearing sound and put her softly glowing red-and-white neck stump right beside my face. I nearly fainted.

“Stop that,” she said, about my fear. She was looking straight ahead, her head upside down. I glanced at the glow, and there was anatomy there that I didn’t want to see, so I stopped looking. At least she wasn’t bleeding. Sekibanki pulled up short and set me on the shovelled walkway in Human Town.

“What’s wrong?” I asked her.

“Someone is very afraid right now. Can you sense it?”

“No.”

“You must not be turning into a youkai, then.”

“Are they having a nightmare?”

“More than that,” she said. “An attack of some sort. We should stay here until it’s over.”

“What? No!” I started forward and she stepped in my way. “Someone’s in danger!”

“We aren’t involved,” she said, scanning the distance. Her body faced me, but her eyes didn’t meet mine until the head had made a full rotation.

“That doesn’t matter!”

“It does.”

“Where is it?” I asked her. “Do you have a head there?”

“A dorm, I think. It’s…” I saw the profile of her frown, and her eyes turned to look at me. She saw my reaction to her hesitancy. “Ah, hell.”

It was my dorm. I could tell from her face. Of fucking course it was. Sasha and Arnold were off being cleansed. I was meeting Sekibanki. Only one person was left at my dorm, and he was slated to die from a youkai attack.

And we’d announced to the entire village that we wouldn’t be there! I was already starting to run around her and toward my home.

No–that information was limited to a few people, wasn’t it? But there was no time to think about it. Wiki was in danger. I tried to fly reflexively, and I zipped past Sekibanki before she could react.

I flew twenty-five feet without issue. My borrowed power wasn’t back, per se, but when it came to protecting people my motivation still mattered. Sekibanki hastened to keep up with me, which was easy for her because she could truly fly and I had to switch to running on the icy streets.

“Jake, hold on a second!”

“We have to save him!”

“Jake, I…” she shook her head. “I can’t openly resist the rebellion, not without losing my place in it.”

With the immediacy of neurotransmitter release, I was enraged. She recoiled; she could taste it.

I was in fight or flight mode, and I couldn’t even fly. I tried to calm myself. Sekibanki was the most valuable double agent we had. The only double agent we had. She had reason to hesitate. Was it worth blowing her cover for a human she barely knew?

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

Not to her, certainly.

Hell, even Wiki might tell her to stay back, because if he died we’d lose the founding Human Council member, but if she was outed we’d lose our connection to the youkai rebellion and the possibility of subverting it from within. Nobody in the Human Village was quite like Wiki, but Sekibanki was just as unique, and arguably a lot more valuable.

On the other hand, Wiki wasn’t willing to sacrifice myself. I shook my head. These thoughts were inane.

Sekibanki wouldn’t help. Fine. She wasn’t stopping me either, and it was useless to be outraged just then. My dormitory came into view. An idea came to me as I ran toward it. Marisa was on patrol, and I could make a signal beacon any time I wanted.

I skidded to a stop and raised my hand to fire danmaku into the air, but Sekibanki yanked it down.

“Don’t make yourself a criminal!” she said.

“Wiki is about to die! If he hasn’t–” I pulled up my other hand to make a light show and she grabbed it as well. Sekibanki hovered in front of me, holding my arms by the wrists, and bore down on me to prevent me from firing danmaku.

“Fool. Breaking that rule might doom him.”

“Wha-”

“Consider: the youkai is likely following the danmaku restrictions herself.” Sekibanki’s head rotated to face toward our small home. “Tradition and social expectation are the only hope he has against a youkai, and you were about to cut them off without a thought.”

She had a point. I almost elbowed her off me as I yanked my hands from her grasp, but I didn’t try to release more danmaku. I started walking

“It’s a contest of strength and fear,” she said. “You’ve just lost your danmaku. A danmaku fight is not what you want.” I was angry at her for not being willing to help more, but she was right.

“Then you find Marisa!” I said.

Sekibanki nodded, releasing two more heads as she followed me forward. They shot off in different directions. Sekibanki herself lifted into the air once more.

“Thank you,” I said, my breathing only slightly labored. Even without flight I was a lot healthier and lighter on my feet than before. We were right beside the dormitory.

“Have you considered not running straight into danger when you can do literally nothing?” she asked as she turned and flew away. I didn’t get a chance to answer her, but that was fine because it was a rhetorical question. Sekibanki knew how I operated.

My dorm wasn’t a large building. Wiki was inside, possibly being murdered. I considered stealth. Would that even work on a youkai? She (and it probably was a she unless Rinnosuke was keeping some giant secrets) might be able to taste my fear even then.

Before I opened the door there was a flash of light at the second story window. A high-pitched scream rang out, making my hair stand on end. It was a woman’s scream.

The window exploded as a dark figure burst from it, covering her face with her arms. Another figure was right behind her and less obviously panicking. Both were holding items, and neither were wearing a hat. That was all I could identify about them in the darkness.

They looked down at me, saw me, and fled immediately. My fame in the village meant something, I supposed. Part of my mind filed it away; they hadn’t known I was powerless.

I ran inside the dorm and past a squawking Emeff, straight up the stairs. The door to Wiki’s room was closed. I threw it open and met a cloud of smoke. Wiki was lying flat on the floor and staring at the bright ceiling, trembling in terror, coughing a bit. He was halfway under his bed.

I couldn’t believe it. He was almost completely unharmed except for the air quality. Noxious gas that I could not smell made me cough, burning my nostrils.

He’d lined the room with white LED strips, one in each corner. They were still faintly smoking and burnt. His hand was under his bed, on a very steampunk blade switch attached to a car battery.

Wiki had protected himself.

—

“The power distribution system wasn’t ready,” Wiki explained to Marisa as I prepared ‘hot chocolate’ for them. We called it hot chocolate, but it was boiling water with some local leaves thrown in it. It had as much in common with hot chocolate as seltzer did with champagne. “I got a car battery, but now I think it was too high of a voltage.”

“You didn’t test it?” I asked.

He stared at the table and spoke, his voice faltering. “I-I didn’t want someone to see my room light up. I tested one strip with a little battery, in a pillow case, but no. Not the big battery.”

“Twelve volts is way too much, you dingus,” I said. I meant it to sound affectionate. I jumped as he slammed the table with his fist.

“I ruined perfectly good lights,” explained Wiki, as though his outburst were a natural phenomenon, like a geyser, and he was a tour guide for Marisa and myself.

“Wiki, it’s okay,” I said as I patted his back. “You survived.”

“Yep,” said Marisa. She sipped her not-chocolate without complaint. “Good move. Thanks again for the flashlight. It works almost as good.” She pulled it out and clicked it on and off a few times. Marisa had bags under her eyes; she was exhausted from staying up all day.

“Nitori gave me the battery,” he continued. “She thought it was going to be used by the power engineers, so she didn’t even hesitate. I didn’t tell her what I wanted it for.”

“The who?” asked the witch.

“Power engineers. For the electricity grid we are building. Human Council stuff.” He noticed his hot chocolate and picked it up, but he didn’t drink any. “We’ve been experimenting. Obviously. And I got the LEDs from Raghav’s cleanup crew.”

“The train!” I said. “I thought I recognized them.”

“We pulled everything from it we could,” he said, darkly. “I didn’t tell them what I was taking them for, either.”

“Nor us,” I noted. “We don’t have lighting in our rooms.”

“You can do danmaku,” he said. I almost told him I couldn’t anymore, but Marisa was right there.

“Not in the human village,” I said instead. He looked at me like I grew an extra head. Marisa, however, was nodding.

“Politeness is all that saved you, Winston. They could have compelled you to leave.”

“They could have just carried me off, too,” he said, frowning.

“I’m sorry I didn’t get here sooner,” added the witch. I was surprised to hear an apology from her, but then, I supposed she wasn’t apologizing to me.

“You were pretty fast, actually,” he replied. “Maybe even fast enough to save me all on your own. They talked to me for a surprisingly long time.”

“What did they say?” I asked.

“That they were going to take me somewhere else…”

He trailed off and stared at the table. They’d said something awful to him, to make him afraid.

“That reminds me,” said Marisa, moving right along. “A ghost told me to come here. Do you know what that’s about?”

“No,” I lied. Wiki didn’t say anything. Sekibanki kept disguises on hand, it would seem.

“Not that I’m in the habit of ignoring prophetic night visitors” she said. “But it’s weird, when a sheet slaps you awake and tells ‘ya someone’s about to get murdered, and it happens to be correct.”

“They were wrong,” I told her. “No one was murdered.”

“Good point.”

“They didn’t just take me, did they?” mumbled Wiki. “Perhaps… they needed me to be afraid? To be strong?”

“This one is very smart,” said Marisa. “When you’re afraid, the youkai are stronger. They probably wanted to scare you to make it easier to drag ‘ya off.” That explained why Sekibanki had been cracking my ribs earlier, right after I’d realized I was lost in the woods, almost by myself.

“So the trick is to not be afraid,” said Wiki. He laughed, and his voice caught. Marisa frowned at him.

“Neat trick,” she said. “I have a couple of grenades to use instead.” Marisa pulled her coat aside and revealed glass jars that glowed an ominous blue. “I’d rather not have to use ‘em, of course, of course. But if I had to…”

“Burning down the human village would be unfortunate,” I said. She snorted.

“It’s magic. It only affects youkai.” She turned to Wiki. “Do you want one?”

He took it. “Thank you. Only youkai?”

“Yep. If you want to know how–”

“That’s good,” said Wiki, his voice warbling a bit. “Because burning down the human village would be unfortunate.”

We stared at him. He didn’t meet either of our eyes. He sniffed.

“Welp,” said Marisa as she stood up and grabbed her broom. “I’m off to patrol. Thanks for the drink!”

“Stay nearby,” I said. “They might come back.”

“Oh, I hope they do,” said Marisa as she walked to the door. “I’ll keep an eye on your place for the rest of the night!” She put her half-empty drinking vessel down on the window sill without a care in the world. “See ‘ya!”

Marisa closed the door gently behind her. Wiki and I waited in silence for several moments. He put his head in his hands.

“There’s something I need to talk to you about,” I said to him.

“This night has been awful,” said Wiki. There was a hitch in his voice. “Can I just have a minute?”

“Of course.” I sat down next to him. “As much time as you need. I know it’s hard.”

He started to cry. I frowned, and because I didn’t know what to do, I put my arm around him. He didn’t pull away. I didn’t think it was helping, but I had no better ideas.

“It’s impossible,” said Wiki. “We’re surrounded by monsters. We have no industry, no technology, no solvents, no computers, no robots, no drills for the dentist…”

“Dentist?” I asked. He continued and ignored my question.

“We’re animals in a cage, and the caretaker is gone. We’re all going to starve, but before then, they’re going to come here and eat us one-by-one. Piece by piece! Our emotions grow back, so they don’t want to kill us all at once, oh no…”

“Did the attackers tell you that?” I asked him. “Because it’s a lie. If they were going to do that, they’d be doing that already.”

“You know, Raghav keeps losing chickens?” he asked.

“What?”

“From the henhouses. People are stealing them. Because they are starving, Jake, even if you keep yourself fed from Patchouli’s gifts, and Satori’s kitchen… and the other youkai.”

“That’s…”

“Sorry,” he said, waving a hand. “The point is that the same thing is happening to Human Town. They are taking us.”

I swallowed, and remembered a Human Council meeting I’d attended.

“We just don’t tell anyone about it. We are up to forty disappearances, or about one percent. People are starting to notice. We’ll have to make an announcement, soon, or face a rebellion of our own.”

I didn’t know how to respond. Wiki’s crying hadn’t really stopped.

“I’ve been doing so much, Jake. Talking to people, trying to convince them to work together. The electrical grid, the distillation, the patrols, the training, the planning and wargames and information gathering.” He looked at the two cutouts covered in sticky notes of his ideas. “Fighting their stupid politics, so that the Council can accomplish something. Trying to get the allied youkai to commit to bloodshed if it becomes necessary. Prioritizing one of a dozen deadly issues, and having to debate on an empty stomach because we were dropped here without any support network whatsoever!”

“You’ve been building one,” I said. “Successfully, I might add.”

“There are literally bloodthirsty monsters in every direction including up and down and they might change their minds about letting us exist at any moment!”

“You’ve done all you can,” I said.

“I know, and I know it’s not going to be enough.”

“But it was enough,” I said. “The lights, I mean. I’m very impressed that it worked, Wiki. You are far more clever than even I thought, and I thought you were clever.” The compliment didn’t seem to affect him at all. “You’ve been holding Human Town together, doing so much–”

“No, it didn’t work, because I know that tomorrow they could just come back, and now the LEDs have burned up.” He pulled away, and started shaking his finger at me. “I didn’t expect the light thing to matter, and it burned up, and now I’m back to where I fucking was yesterday. Even if the entire Outside World’s military were here, a youkai could just… teleport in and slit my throat!”

“Wiki…”

“I’m scared all the time…” he said with a hiccup. “I jump at shadows. I don’t trust anyone, because they can look like anyone! I’m afraid to be alone with Reika, because what if one time it’s not her?” His voice was rising. “I run away from people in the streets! I can’t trust my own thoughts because they can influence them! I can’t sleep at night, because they might show up at any time…”

And they had, and his paranoia had been justified. I stepped forward and wrapped him in a hug. Wiki hated hugs, but instead of pushing me away, he just kept going on, his voice falling.

“I’m fucking cursed, Jake. Remilia has proclaimed that I will die from a youkai attack, and now they are coming here and trying to make it happen. A self-fulfilling prophecy, but no matter how much I tell everyone we’re going to survive instead, they don’t believe it. I don’t believe it. Nobody thinks that we should keep trying. They’re tired… and so am I…”

“You should rest,” I said. “And we will keep fighting tomorrow.” I held him for a few more seconds, saying nothing. Wiki finally disengaged from me.

“We will,” he said.

“Yes. Tomorrow.”

“The Human Council is installing the electrical grid,” he continued. “Soon the whole village will be a lot safer…” He wiped his eyes. “From now on, though, someone needs to stay here with me at all times. Just in case.”

“Good idea,” I said.

“I’m almost ashamed to ask, but–”

“I’ll move my bed into your bedroom,” I said. “Not too close, though.”

“I didn’t mean it that way,” he said. I knew that, and he should have known that I knew that.

“Good, because my polycule is complicated enough already, thank you.” He chuckled, and I felt immense relief. I chuckled with him.

“The other way is smarter,” Wiki continued. I tilted my head. “I mean, my bedroom is full of burnt electronics. And the window is broken. It’s probably cold in there, so we should use yours.”

“Fair point,” I said. “We should also probably commission a bunk bed for us to rotate who stays with you. Arnold knows the furniture maker, so….”

“Good idea,” he said, reaching for a pen. “By the way, this was clearly a planned attack, in response to things said at the livestream.”

I frowned. “That sort of speculation is supposed to wait for tomorrow.”

“And it failed,” he continued. “That will send a message, perhaps. It could buy me more time. To think of something else, or at least get more lights installed…” he yawned, and hiccuped again.

“Wiki.”

“Tomorrow. We’ll talk about it tomorrow.”

Even as we set about dragging his bed out and into the other bedroom, my heart swelled in admiration. Wiki was already back. I’d done nothing but stand there and wait for him to feel better, and it had somehow helped.

I decided not to tell him that my power had disappeared. Not until the next day.