I felt afraid, and Remilia’s eyes seemed to sparkle. Not in a good way, though.

“We’ll take it from here,” said Byakuren. She got between the diminutive vampire and me. “Thank you for magnanimously stepping in, Lady Scarlet. Your generosity has saved many lives.” You might think that the Buddhist nun was trying to protect me.

“Three,” said Wiki, his face ashen. “You saved three lives, out of five. You made your one CC run.” The assembled youkai looked at him with varying levels of confusion. “Congratulations.”

“Of course, of course,” said Remilia, waving her hand. “But before I go. I must punish my subordinate. Mister Thorne, I’m not some genie you can summon to grant wishes!”

“I know,” I said. “I’m sorry, Lady Remilia. I just wanted my friends to live, and I had to call someone for help. You were the only person I thought would come.” I glanced toward the other three. Their expressions hardened. I might be making enemies, but I was about to die anyway.

Remilia nodded. “You should have been more clever about it, at least! I’ve got a deal for you. I’ll come fight some sun-empowered psychopath to protect your friends, and you’ll give me all the blood in your body.”

I wrung my hands. “Can I pay in installments?”

“Mister Thorne, your twenty-four hour grace period starts right n–”

Keine pushed up her glasses. Remilia frowned, the anger turning to confusion.

“Mister Thorne, contribute more to the fight next time. I can’t keep coming to save you.” She looked back toward the lake for a moment. “The next time I feel the need to intercede on your behalf will be the last, one way or another, and the reading lessons be damned.”

“Understood, Lady Remilia,” I said, suddenly grateful for my teacher and the fact that Koishi had retrieved her. I was starting to remember that Keine really was the protector of the human village and the humans within–or maybe she just wanted me to remember that. I couldn’t tell.

“Goodbye,” said Remilia. “Sakuya?”

The maid popped back into existence and then they disappeared without a trace. I bent over, putting my hands on my knees, and heaved. My stomach was roiling. Wiki patted my back.

“We need to discuss some policy changes,” said Miko. “A coordinated attack is… unexpected.”

“It would be admirable that they chose to work together, in any other circumstance,” said Hijiri. “Is one escort not enough? Perhaps we need a blanket ban on going out at night, and guards for the human village.”

“We don’t have the funds to hire them,” said Miko. “And can you imagine what sort of youkai would volunteer? Just think of the incentives.”

Hijri sighed. “Let’s return to the village to discuss this.” The group began to walk. I shuffled after them, just like the others. Raghav of all people was helping me walk.

“You saved us,” he said. “I apologize for attempting to incite your murder.”

“It was a team effort,” I replied. “I asked you to, so it’s okay.”

“A fair point.”

“We’ve got to stop soon so I can take a leak, by the way.”

“I’ll come with you,” said Wiki.

“Eh?” I realized he wasn’t talking to me, but to the three youkai leaders of the human village.

“Don’t worry, Mister Sloan,” said Miko. “We’ll make the appropriate changes to policy. For now, all of you should return to your dorms and recover.”

“You aren’t even going to interview the survivors of the attack?”

“I will provide context,” said Keine.

“Bullshit,” he said, making the buff youkai grimace. “You weren’t there for three-quarters of it! You don’t even know who’s responsible!” Wiki had earned some admiration from me, both for standing up to them, and for using danmaku to make Arnold try to kill me when I’d asked. He was a good, reliable friend.

“We will track down the perpetrators on our own,” said Keine.

“Having the lesson on the full moon was a poor decision,” said Hijiri.

“I am at the height of my power,” replied the monstrous woman. “Any single youkai, I could have turned away.”

“Nonetheless,” said the Buddhist nun. “You faced many.”

“You weren’t even there,” said Keine, her voice rumbling. “You faced none.”

“Don’t say something you might regret, hakutaku. You will have to eat your words.”

“I have given my students strength. No other night would do; it is unfortunate that attackers appeared, but we can’t let fear make us hesitate. They need to be able to protect themselves.”

“Things could have gone worse,” said Miko. “A small adjustment to policy might be enough–”

“They could have gone a hell of a lot better,” interjected Wiki. “And what’s your change going to be, a curfew that you neglect to enforce? A responsible-use limit on the number of humans killed?”

“We will make an announcement,” declared Hijiri. “We will punish one of the transgressors, to serve as an example.”

“We have to identify one first,” said Miko. “We’ve been caught flat-footed.”

“Don’t ignore me!” said Wiki. “And did this really catch you off guard? People have been disappearing!” The youkai said nothing. “You’d have seen this coming if you gave enough of a damn to, I don’t know, investigate? To take reports? Or have any police whatsoever?”

“He’s got a point,” said Miko. “We could establish a police force. Except, again, the incentives are all wrong, and any youkai that joined it would abuse the power.”

“Make the force out of humans!” said Wiki. “Start with Reimu and Marisa, or–or–Youmu! Pay her enough that Lady Saigyouji can hire a different gardener.”

“Those two are disasters waiting to happen,” said Keine. “And I’m sorry to say it, but Miss Konpaku isn’t smart enough to preempt attacks like this.”

“Neither are you!”

She growled, and when she spoke she was almost bellowing. “The humans in the village have been my responsibility for hundreds of years! I have prevented more attacks against them than even you can fathom, with your scholarship of diversions and your obsession with minutiae!”

“The village is bigger now,” he objected. “This is no-one’s sole responsibility–that went right out the window when five hundred modern humans showed up! It’s time you three realize it!”

I had the thought that Keine would gore him, but instead she growled and put up her paralune. She transformed back into a blue teacher.

“‘Sole’ responsibility,” she said, “A good phrase. Sole, from French soul, from Latin solus. Alone, only, single… forsaken, extraordinary.”

We walked in silence for a moment.

“You know something about that, don’t you?” asked Keine. “Well. Mister Sloan should attend our discussion. In fact, from now on there should always be one or more humans at policy discussions. These disappearances are a major oversight, and despite their flaws and inability to danmaku, the humans can be insightful.”

Byakuren and Toyosatomimi only frowned. I heaved again. I hadn’t even known that there were policy discussions, but of course there were, because there were policies and more than one person decided them.

“Youmu would actually be a good detective,” I told Raghav, somewhat deliriously. “At least she’ll cut a bitch when necessary. Or a dude. Hahah.” He didn’t say anything. “By the way, where’s Sasha? She’d have laughed.”

“I don’t know,” he said.

“Where’s Sasha?” I said again. My knees felt weak and I wanted to vomit. That might have been the spider’s curse, or it might have been the fear growing in my stomach. I looked at the drying red stain on my shoulder.

Sakuya hadn’t gathered the corpses of the two who had been slain. Was Sasha dead? Why hadn’t I thought of her before now?

“Ordinary humans could enforce a curfew,” mused Miko. “Reimu and Marisa might only have to show up once or twice…”

“Everybody stop,” I said, halfway shouting. “Headcount. Now.” Raghav and Wiki started counting.

There were twenty-four humans, three detectable youkai, and one undetectable youkai. There were twenty-four men and four women. Sasha was nowhere to be found.

“What are we going to do?” asked Arnold, who was still holding his wrist. I looked up at the sky. The moon had moved noticeably from the zenith. I knew how to tell time a little bit, by then, having watched Sekibanki do it so often.

“Yukari,” I moaned.

A gap appeared. Yukari stepped out. She stifled a yawn.

“My name is Miss Yakumo, Mister Thorne, unless you want to seduce me, in which case you should have done it before I went to bed.”

“She comes when you call?” asked Byakuren, with confusion on her face.

“I come whenever I want,” said Yukari, fluttering her fan.

“Where’s Sasha?” I asked.

“I teleported her to safety, of course. The last time I saw her she was dying.” A moment passed. “Well, at least she’s doing better now.”

I stared at her. I couldn’t tell what this monster meant.

“Sasha is alive and well at the doctor’s office,” she clarified. “Miss Yagokoro is the doctor. Why, what did you think happened to her?”

I vomited.

“Does anyone else want a free trip to Doctor Yagokoro’s office, since I’m here?” A portal opened next to the tall purple-clad youkai. It was full of eyeballs, per usual, but it looked a bit more inviting otherwise. I felt like collapsing into it.

If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

“You’re everywhere,” objected Wiki. “So what do you mean ‘while I’m here’?”

“Excellent point, Mister Sloan. My offer will not in fact last forever, despite what I may have implied. Apologies–does anyone want a free trip to Dcotor Yagokoro’s office while I’m feeling magnanimous?”

“Let me empty my bladder first,” I said. After a moment the pressure was gone. I looked down. My pants were dry.

“You’re welcome, Mister Thorne,” said Yukari. “I’m delighted to be acquainted with yet another of your organs.”

Someone whistled.

“She really takes the piss out of people, eh?” said Arnold with one thumb up. He spun around to gently elbow me with his good arm. Then he strode through the portal. I almost stepped through right behind him, but I didn’t want to abandon Wiki, or to miss what crazy thing he might say to the village leaders next.

Many other humans didn’t wait. I wasn’t the only person who’d been hit by Yamane and made ill, it would seem, but at least those she’d merely tied up were unaffected.

“Can you handle this on your own?” I asked Wiki.

“I cannot,” he said, “But neither can any of us, am I right?”

Raghav straightened up. “I will join you to argue for better treatment,” said the Indian man. “Let us see about starting this police force.”

“That’s… good,” I said. “Are you sure, Wiki? I don’t…”

“You look exhausted,” said Wiki. “Go rest, get your stitches looked at, maybe get a miracle pill.”

“I–”

“And please check in on Sasha.”

“Okay,” I said. I turned toward the portal and stepped through. I had a desire to argue with Yukari, or complain about the unnecessary deaths, but our third monthly check-in was coming up soon anyway and I didn’t think vomiting on her directly would accomplish anything. She obviously wasn’t afraid of bodily fluids.

–

I stepped into a doctor’s office with bamboo chairs. A door closed a moment after I arrived.

The chairs were less than perfectly comfortable, but collapsing into them was probably outside of their design specs so that might have been on me. Five other people were sitting around the office. Arnold and Sasha were nowhere to be found.

The place was lit by fluorescent lights, a technology that hadn’t been in use for over a decade. It was old-fashioned. Mister Speedo was there. I decided to talk to him because he seemed the most open to conversation; he was an extraordinarily open individual. For example, I didn’t think he knew how to tie a robe.

I asked him where the others were.

“Doctor Yagokoro prioritized those with injuries,” he explained, scratching himself in a way I was determined not to notice. He coughed. “You just missed them. She also sent Reisen after some miracle cure for the flu and told us to sit tight. She’s very decisive.”

“And you do sit tight!” said another martial artist.

“I’m not in the mood for banter, Chris,” said Mister Speedo. He had a real name that I never remembered. I couldn’t learn it, because I spent a lot of cognitive effort looking at his face.

“I’m just trying not to cry,” said the other man, cheerfully and companionably. “You know how it is.”

“I can’t believe they got Caleb,” said another person, his head in his hands.

“Yeah…” said Mister Speedo, his expression dark. “I hope Yukari really sent him home.”

“We all know that’s a fucking lie,” said one of the other martial artists. “He’s not home, he’s in pieces and in that other monster’s stomach.”

Nobody had anything positive to say to that. We lapsed into a silence punctuated only by coughing. I settled in to wait for Yagokoro Eirin to return, because I was an idiot and I wasn’t thinking straight.

It had been a very taxing night, so I found my head nodding. I almost dozed off, or perhaps I actually did. I didn’t have a watch and I was inside. Time passed.

“Hey,” said Mister Speedo. He shook my good shoulder. “Hey, Mister.”

“Hmm?”

“You’re bleeding.”

“Eh?”

I opened my eyes and looked down at my shoulder. There was a trail of fresh blood on the front of my yukata. It was surprisingly large. When I touched my chest, I could feel that the blood had been dripping under the clothes. I gave a peek. There was a fair amount of red.

“Call Maroon,” I mumbled. “She’d love to see this.”

“Who?”

“Maroon, the red fairy. She likes blood. It’s pretty, don’t you know. Like poppies, or, I don’t know, the sky. Sometimes.”

“Okay. Do you… need help?” he asked. He laughed. “I’d offer to tie a tourniquet, but I’ve no clothes to dashingly tear into strips.” He looked down at his pink swimwear. “Unless…?”

“No thanks,” I said, trying to wake up a bit. This psycho didn’t even wear a coat at night. He was a cool dude, I thought. I tried to tell him something about how I was going to go talk to the doctor and ask for some tape.

I stood up, which was a bad move. My remaining vital fluids stayed in my feet. My head filled with starbursts and the collective gasp of people watching an injured man collapse.

—

I woke up in a bed. It wasn’t a very nice bed. It felt starched, and sterilized, and not nearly soft enough. It was like the bed was a youkai that had formed from the belief that hospitals shouldn’t be comfortable.

“Please stay calm. The transfusion is almost complete,” said a woman with long white hair in a long white braid. She was sitting stiffly beside me and wearing a red and blue outfit covered in constellations. This was Yagokoro Eirin, the immortal doctor from the moon who had created the Hourai Elixir, a serum for immortality.

Wiki had begun debriefing us in advance, as is only rational.

“Please hold still,” she said as I shifted.

I complied, because even if she’d topped up my fluids, my engine was mostly still not running. Or something. I wasn’t good at car metaphors, I hadn’t owned one for a very long time. She pulled a needle from my arm. I tried not to move, like I tried not to make car metaphors. That is, mostly unsuccessfully.

“Hold this,” she said, and I put pressure on a gauze pad in the crook of my elbow.

“Will I live?” I asked.

“No,” she said, giving me a serious look. “You’ve got sixty or seventy years left, optimistically. This is a temporary intervention.”

“Um,” I said. “Can you—” make me immortal, I tried to say. My throat hurt immensely, probably from the curse of the spider youkai. “Can you, y’know… help?”

“I’m afraid not,” she said. As she talked she continued to clean up after my transfusion by putting a red-stained plastic bag into a medical disposal bin. “I would list all the arguments that people have given to me in regard to that question, to save you the trouble of trying to invent new ones. However, you only have seventy years left. I would not want to waste your valuable time.” Her smile was a grimace, because clearly her time was not so protected.

It tracked that Eirin refused my request for immortality. Wiki had explained to us during a planning session that it was a different youkai’s power that had allowed Yagokoro Eirin to make the immortality elixir, and she’d made it sometime between fourteen hundred and hundreds of millions of years earlier. She’d gone a long time without giving it out, so she wasn’t likely to budge on that front.

And she was an incredibly evil monster for that, arguably, except we didn’t know what went into creating the Hourai elixir and whether it was still possible. Also, she was a youkai, a literal monster, and if she was hundreds of millions of years old the elixir might only work on dinosaurs or their youkai, which they would have to have if Eirin was that old.

It had been a long planning session.

Eirin told me to let go of the gauze I’d been holding in my elbow. I complied. The bleeding had stopped.

Wiki hadn’t been optimistic about our ability to convince Eirin to make the Hourai elixir for us, but nevertheless, our official plan for Doctor Yagokoro was to have one person just ask her for immortality. In case she was feeling generous. Sometimes the easy solution worked. And an immortality elixir could solve his youkai problem, or possibly make it horrifyingly worse, but either way it was worth a shot.

The elixir was low on our list of priorities (we had more immediate threats than old age) but it was one of the stretch goals for our endeavor to empower humans in Gensokyo. I had done my duty.

I rubbed my shoulder, then looked at it. The wound was completely gone. Eirin pulled off her gloves and pulled on a new pair, making them snap. She sat next to me.

“You’re being quiet,” she said.

“I’ve got a lot to think about,” I said, thinking about how I wished I was immortal. How would she even know what was ‘quiet’ for me?

“I’m good at reading people–I have been for thousands of years–but people with brain injuries are sometimes difficult. What is your name?”

“Jake Thorne.” Did I have a brain injury? It would explain… well, way more than I was comfortable with, actually.

“Where are you?”

“Gensokyo, the… um, Land of Fantasy.” I looked around.

Sasha was on the cot next to mine. She was sleeping. She also had an intravenous line, but there was saline hooked up to it instead. The room had three more empty cots in it.

My folded yukata was next to the bed; I was naked under my blanket, but it was probably nothing that Yagokoro hadn’t seen before.

“This is a doctor’s office,” I went on. “I’m in bed. Or I might be having some sort of psychotic break, I suppose.”

Eirin nodded. “You’d be surprised how often people know that very fact, even mid-crisis. And what year is it?”

“Twenty thirty-seven,” I said. “Assuming time works the same here as in the Outside World.”

“It does not, but you’ve satisfactorily answered my questions so far.” She smiled at me, and it was as plastic as the lines that had carried my blood. “Finally, do you know why you’re here?”

“No,” I said, putting my head in my hands. “Youkai food, probably.”

“I meant in my office.” She raised an eyebrow. “I feed on ponderous thought, incidentally, so thanks for misjudging the context.”

“Oh. Sure thing. Well, my shoulder was hurt because my friend tried to murder me half-assedly, at least until my other friend was more insistent about it. Then I forgot to check how much blood I had left. I was distracted. And I have the flu.”

“Very good. Take this medicine,” she added, handing me a small cup full of a syrupy purple liquid.

I swallowed it and one of her eyebrows went up. It stuck to my throat on the way down and burned a bit.

“Normally people have questions when I ask them to take medicines,” said the doctor.

“Was that… Nyquil?” I asked. I realized that ‘a miracle cure for the flu’ could mean a lot of things.

“An admirably experimental approach to drug identification, and surprisingly successful,” she said with what could possibly have been genuine goodwill. “Reisen went to a lot of trouble to acquire it for you and the others. I may have… spruced it up, somewhat.”

“Thank you,” I said.

“You’re welcome. Do you have any other questions?” Thank fuck, I thought, because the doctors in Gensokyo aren’t like those in the Outside World. They let you ask questions.

“Yes. Er, where’d you get the blood?”

“The donor demanded anonymity,” she said. “Even from Miss Yakumo, which is a service that few doctors could provide.”

Eirin had once made an illusory moon to isolate the Earth from a lunar invasion, or something, I couldn’t recall the details. She must have done some trick to obscure my donor, as well. I imagined her making illusory blood donors, and laughed in a way that didn’t concern her as much as I thought it should.

“By the way, if you are going to have maids whipstitch your mistakes and librarians handle your organs, please keep your blood supply in mind. Your new kidney did not come with any blood. You were already in a precarious situation.”

“How do you know that’s what happened?” I asked.

“Deduction,” she said, as though that answered anything. “At least, about who gave you a new kidney. I looked inside to verify that it was new.”

“With magic?”

She winked at me. “I’ve got good eyesight. Magical, even.” She wasn’t wearing glasses, I realized, which made me feel uncomfortable. I had the intuition they’d complete her outfit.

“I see,” I eventually said. “Well. I ask you about the blood, because if it was the Lady Scarlet who came to my rescue, I’m out of a job.” Twice in one night would stretch her patience. I might be out of a life. Maybe she had filled me up with tasty blood for later.

“No, it was not Remilia. The actuarial tables would look considerably different if it had been her to provide the blood.” Eirin shrugged. “It wasn’t one of her associates either, lest you erroneously think they have a backup supply, and yes, that was a free hint for you. I like you, Mister Thorne. Please continue pondering.”

“Thank you, I like you too.” She’d saved my life. “You should meet my friend Wiki, though, if you like ponderous people.” She could be an ally.

“Tell him to get near-fatally-injured sometime,” she said nonchalantly.

I found myself pondering who had saved me. If not for the vampires, who might supply blood in Gensokyo? A normal human? I looked around like the donor might still be there in the room.

“It wasn’t Sasha, right?” I asked.

“No, Miss Conti is using all of her blood and then some, currently,” said Eirin. “All of her blood save for that which was spilled. As much as I enjoy the elimination game, I have other patients to see. Do you have any questions regarding your own health? Your treatment?”

“When can I go home?”

“Sixty or seventy years.” I heard a chuckle from somewhere dark.

“I actually meant to the dorm.”

“I knew,” she said with a small smile. “I was making a joke for any listeners. You can leave tonight, if you wish, or tomorrow.”

“Will there… be a bill?”

“Yes, but you don’t have to worry about that,” said Doctor Yagokoro. “Gensokyo has single-payer healthcare, and I’ve negotiated fair but reasonable rates.”

“Wait, is it Yukari who pays?”

“You’re welcome,” said the gap between my cot and the wall. “I would very much like to know who offered the blood, by the way. It may have been a crime.”

“I will not violate patient confidentiality,” said Eirin.

“Sorry if this is blunt…” I said, “But are you as powerful as Miss Yakumo?” We could definitely use an ally who could defy Yukari without consequence.

“No,” said both the gap and the doctor at the same time. Only the doctor went on: “Miss Yakumo picks her battles, and while she can negotiate very powerfully against me, especially compared to the private market… I still represent an essential service. We have an understanding. We have a game.”

“I’ll find out eventually,” said the darkness. “Don’t you think it’s enjoyable not to know, once in a while?”

“Very much so,” said Eirin.

I nodded and slumped back into bed. “I’m going to just lie here until Sasha wakes up, then.”