Yuugi and Suika were clearly the metaphorical King and Queen of Hot Springs Town. All the other oni deferred to them during the meal, and tried to chat with them, and begged them for favors like having their sake containers refilled. They were also challenged less, and when they were challenged they always won.

When an oni challenged me to wrestle, Yuugi intercepted it.

“I know you’re still a punk,” she told me as she put the offending oni into a loving headlock. He seemed to be enjoying it. “I won’t cover for you forever!”

“I don’t plan on being here forever,” I said. I needed to test her reaction.

“Hahah,” she responded. “Just try to leave.”

I almost did, just to see if it worked, but I wasn’t going to abandon Sasha or the mysterious woman in a bikini–Koishi–in these circumstances. Koishi was a youkai, so maybe her odds would be better than Sasha’s, but she gave me and my roommate the water we needed to survive. I couldn’t just leave her there.

I drank more of my ‘sake’ at another toast. At the end of the meal we played a game, or something like that. Everyone knew what to do except me.

“Time to pair off!” said Yuugi. All the oni got to their feet. Then everyone raised their hands into the air, pointing at the roof of the room in a cavern, including Sasha and the other intruder. “Now!”

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Sasha pointing at me, and the mysterious lady pointing at Sasha. I pointed at the unidentifiable youkai with as little hesitation as I could muster.

All of the oni, Yuugi and Suika included, were pointing right at me. In fact, the only person in the room not pointing at me was the unidentifiable youkai.

“Am I… out?” I said, my voice trembling. There was a chorus of yes’s and no’s. I still didn’t know what was going on.

“You certainly aren’t out with, oh, whatshername,” said Suika as she sloshed her gourd.

“Miss Conti?” I asked. I’d been pointing at my roommate.

“No, the other one,” said Yuugi. She snapped her fingers and they boomed with the force of the movement. “Again!”

They all lifted their hands, but the mysterious lady grabbed my arm before I could do the same.

“We’re done already,” she said in her cheerful voice. She pulled me to the side, with Sasha, and we stood away from the table. The oni all brought down their hands and pointed at each other. Other cycles were forming and leaving the group. Suika and Yuugi pointed at each other and were eliminated.

As I watched, they did it again. Some pointed at themselves, getting eliminated immediately, but most were pairing off or leaving in small groups. After only three rounds the table was emptied.

“A strange game,” I said. “What are we deciding?”

“Afternoon fornication groups!” said Koishi cheerfully. I sputtered again. I had been drinking the water. “Nobody ever picks me! This is exciting!”

“I chose you yesterday,” said Sasha.

“Oh yeah!”

“Koishi!” I said. “I’m… so glad to see you!” And to remember her.

“Obviously!” she said. “Do you want to fornicate?” She raised an eyebrow.

“I, uh, I don’t think…” I considered calling for Okina to save me. I hadn’t known what I was signing up for. And Sasha had pointed at me? “I didn’t realize, exactly…” Was this going to be a threesome? I wasn’t ready!

“Don’t worry, dumbass,” said Sasha. We were able to have a whispered conversation while the oni all chatted with each other. The din was growing. “They don’t force you. My first day here, Suika and I spent the afternoon playing checkers.”

“Oh,” I said, feeling ninety-nine percent relieved.

“One of Yuugi’s edicts is consent.” She had a look of disgust on her face, which made more sense after she continued. “Most of ‘em are consenting, just to warn you. Don’t watch if it’ll make you sick.” She was looking at the large doors, which two goblins were moving to open. “Since Koishi got here we’ve been going for walks as far away from the hot springs as possible.”

“Walks are fun too,” said Koishi in her green bikini. “I like talking to people.”

“And you showed up here to save Sasha?” I asked.

“I came here for booze and stayed for the company,” said the pale green haired youkai. I nodded, and looked toward Sasha.

“You were trying to save me from board games, then,” I said. “Not being fucked to death. I’m grateful either way.”

“So you knew about that part?” asked Sasha. “Suika warned me on the first day, not that I’d have been tempted. I thought you might be.”

“Yuugi warned me,” I said. Technically Wiki had too. “Wait, no, I wouldn’t have gone for it anyway!”

“Uh-huh.”

“Shoot. I could have probed for more information while we played checkers.”

“Whatever you say,” replied Sasha. “You haven’t seen how bad they are at board games, and their selection is pathetic. Although it’s probably less fun when you think your prize for losing is getting raped or murdered or one-then-the-other.”

“Uh–”

“But yeah, it’s not like a crowd of oni follows you around to make sure you actually have sex with whoever you chose at lunch.”

Ten minutes later, with my feet soaking in a hot spring, while I was surrounded by oni doing the most depraved things imaginable, I’d learn that she was partially mistaken.

–

The double doors opened onto a series of hot springs fed by unnatural spring water.

The place was more ingeniously-designed than I’d expected from the oni. Huge wooden tubs were connected to heat sources by iron pipes, and the layers of tubs all drained into a central pool full of gray rock and stone. Hot Springs Town surrounded it. The buildings glowed with cheerful light, and the air was heavy with the soft sounds of splashing and laughter, and also grunts and moaning.

I studied the infrastructure. The castle wasn’t even the largest building. Yuugi, King or manager, had to have hundreds or maybe thousands of subjects. We’d skipped quite a long line. Because of my pure and logistical nature, I didn’t notice all the essentially-nude youkai bathing. I noticed the vengeful spirits.

Every lantern or light was an angry ghost. The spirits in lanterns ranged in size from a coin to a baseball, and ran the gamut in color. Purples, greens, and bright, eye-watering blues. The full rainbow was on display except for yellow. Most of those had been taken outside to line the outer wall, I intuited, but some white-hot vengeful spirits had been put above planters overflowing with strange peppers and fronds.

Not all of them were being used for illumination. An immense skull wreathed in dark, bloody red-black flame was sitting in a glass tank on the roof of the castle. Similar large spirits occupied other tanks that fed all the ‘hot springs’, which I was beginning to suspect didn’t use geothermal heat at all, at least not directly. The water around each vengeful spirit boiled and overflowed, leading to saunas I was absolutely certain I could not survive entering. Two red oni were wrestling in one nearby.

After a moment I realized they weren’t wrestling. I turned to Yuugi, averting my gaze. Both had been male, at least when I’d happened to see them.

“Let’s get you out of those clothes,” she said. “Big Green!”

A green oni with two thin horns came by. He looked me up and down and I did the same to him. Oni with green skin seemed to be a bit rarer. He wore loose purple pants and a vest of the same. Suika introduced us, and after he said he was fine not being known as a wrestler he explained his powers.

“My ability is to manifest the perfect swimsuit for a person,” he told me. I tilted my head.

“How do you–”

“CLOTHES BEAM!” he said before hitting me with danmaku. Most of my clothes disintegrated. I looked down at my new swimwear.

“That is implausibly convenient,” I said. I was grateful I didn’t have to get naked.

“We kicked the guy who manifested shitty clothes out of town,” explained Yuugi. Two goblins were helping her change into a kimono by carrying away clothes that she took off without shame. “A wetsuit, eh?”

“A full-body swimsuit,” corrected Big Green. “It breathes better than a wetsuit. On the other hand, it won’t help him with diving. Mister Thorne seems to care about protecting himself from sunlight.” He looked at me, and then up at the cavern roof. “Are all humans so chaste?”

“Big Green has taken a vow of chastity,” explained Suika with a burp. “To perfect his swimsuit arts. He likes you, by the way.”

The swimsuit was flattering, with dark red highlights on the sides. It was tight enough to make my pectoral muscles stand out (and I discovered I had them!) and also showed off my flat stomach. My ragged pants clashed with it strongly, however.

“Why am I still wearing pants?” I asked.

“Good question!” asked Suika. “Want a skirt?”

“They must be part of your identity,” said Big Green. “Just like your hat. I dig it, by the way.”

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“Thanks,” I said. I pulled off my pants and stuffed them in my bag. Considering how much I’d spent repairing them, I was glad that they finally made the cut. After I noticed how tight the swimsuit was in the groin area, I took off my hat and held it in front of me nonchalantly.

“Dork,” said Sasha. I put my backpack on and tried not to wonder whether she’d looked at my crotch.

“You can leave your bag with a goblin,” Yuugi said. “They’re trustworthy.” One was pulling at my bag already.

“Sasha, where is your bag?” I asked.

“I have no idea,” she said. “Same with my boots.”

“I’ll hold onto this for now.” With dismay, I realized my shoes had been destroyed. At least my notebook was currently jammed against my hip.

“Very well,” said Yuugi. “Anyway, go choose a pool to bathe in. See you at dinner.” Suika and Yuugi walked off, and a fair number of the oni followed them, presumably to continue being sycophants.

I started walking down wooden steps to the last and most dilute pool. Dozens of oni were in it. The pool wasn’t a tub so much as a small lake. I hoped it would be cool enough for me to survive; the air was sweltering. Sasha and Koishi followed me, and a horde of oni followed them. I thought they would peel off to go to other tubs, but they didn’t, and the crowd seemed to be growing.

“What do you guys want?” asked Sasha.

“We want to see how humans do it!” said Red, the oni with a tie. I still hadn’t caught his real name.

“That’s, uh…” I said.

“They hate it when you tell them no,” whispered Sasha. “Don’t worry. Let me lead.”

She led me to a wading pool that wasn’t very deep at all, and was only hot enough to make me jump once. Koishi and the other youkai followed behind. The oni wore intensely-interested expressions, but Koishi’s curious look was a lot simpler. I’d later think she’d inferred there was going to be a trick, which I completely failed to infer, because I was too embarrassed.

Sasha stepped further into the water. I followed her. It was so hot my feet began to tingle.

“Humans do it like this!” she said, taking my hand. I swallowed and looked at the oni. Sasha didn’t move. She just kept holding my hand.

“Wow….” came the chorus from the demons. “Really?”

“Uh, actually–” I started.

“If you try to tell them the truth, I’ll kill you,” muttered Sasha.

“Y-yeah,” I said. “It’s always like this.”

“Man, humans are so pure,” said an oni.

“What childlike innocence!”

“But how does that convey gametes?” asked Red. He loosened his tie.

“Don’t worry about that,” said Koishi, and the oni stopped worrying. They all continued to stare at us awkwardly.

“I’m getting kind of embarrassed,” I admitted to them. “So if you don’t mind…”

“Leave the lovebirds alone!” called Yuugi’s voice from up the stairs. The oni left at once, all except for the one with a tie. I wondered how many of them were going off to play checkers.

“Nice,” said Koishi. “Can I hold your hand too?”

“Sure,” I said.

“Scandalous,” said Red.

“I was talking to Sasha,” said Koishi.

“Yeah, whatever,” she said. “Let’s get out of this cum-water before we catch a disease.”

“Oh, you won’t catch a disease,” said Red. “We have ultra-violent filtration. If you’d like, I can show you.”

“Let’s go anywhere else,” I said. “That sounds nice. But where’s the one you pointed at?”

“I pointed at myself,” he said. “After pointing at you.”

“W-why me?” I asked him, which was foolish. All of them had pointed at the new arrival, because they appreciated the variety I assumed. But his answer actually made me feel better.

“I heard humans were good at checkers,” he said. Maybe all the oni had wanted my attention for non-sex things. Maybe they all wanted human attention just for the novelty.

Regardless, we left the hot springs in Hot Springs Town, to go on a walk instead.

–

Red gave us a tour of a water treatment plant. It was the highlight of my time in Hot Springs Town. It was powered by vengeful spirits.

“They get smaller as they rage,” said Red. “Happens to all of us, really.”

“Fascinating,” I said, taking notes. “How big are they when they first form?”

“Depends,” he said. “The infini-red ones are rare, but appreciated when they appear. Only truly heinous souls become vengeful spirits of that size.” That made me feel a bit better about their eternal waterboarding.

“What happens when they shrink down to nothing?” asked Sasha.

“Wait, do you mean infrared, like radiation?” I asked.

“They explode,” he said, answering my roommate instead of me. “Maiming anyone nearby. For a kiss, I’ll tell you what happens to the souls after that.”

“No fucking way,” said Sasha. Then Koishi kissed Red on the cheek, making him blush blue.

“Their souls are judged like they would have been had they made it to the afterlife,” he said a bit dreamily. “Not even vengeful spirits escape judgment.”

“I thought vengeful souls were a major pollution in Hell,” I said. “If they fade into nothing, how can that be?”

“Oh, most of them used to go around torturing other souls. That makes them shrink slower, or grow a bit, even. Speaking of souls, we use phantoms to make cold water!”

“That’s just practical,” said Sasha. She bent over to look at some piping. Red was opening a grate with a giant warning label on it by twisting a huge steel wheel. I was impressed that the oni would even think to put a warning label on something.

“We better be careful,” he said. “These are the ultra-violent ones. They only last a couple of months when they get this small.”

“Do you mean ultraviolet?” I asked.

He opened the container and blinded me, because I’d been looking right at it like an idiot. I saw hundreds of dancing blue-white skulls in a glass tube, then I yelped as my vision went white and my eyes burned. A moment later I heard him close the grate, because I could see nothing but dancing white static skull afterimages, even with my eyes closed.

“Whoops,” said Red, having blinded me.

–

An hour later Sasha was playing checkers with Red, while I listened in and involuntarily cried. It felt like my eyes were full of sand. The stinging on my eyelids and face told me that I’d managed to get a sunburn while wearing my hat and being underground.

The only upside was that Koishi was rubbing my shoulders, and telling me that being blind wasn’t so bad once you got used to it.

“Thank you,” I said. “But you aren’t literally blind… right?”

“No,” she said. “More like deaf, since I can’t hear thoughts anymore.”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“It’s okay. I’m happier this way!” She kept rubbing my shoulders. “And you can be, too!”

“Thank you, but I’m going to try to get Doctor Yagokoro to cure me as soon as we leave,” I said. “Er, I hope that doesn’t offend you.”

“Not at all!” said Koishi. “I’m hard to offend.”

“Nobody can leave without Hoshiguma’s permission,” said Red.

“Is that true?” I asked Sasha, or at least in Sasha’s direction, I hoped.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I never tried. I didn’t want to strand you somewhere, in case you’d come to rescue me before Suika woke me up with sake.”

“So you stayed in massive danger…” I said, “...out of some feeling you owed me for saving your life?”

“It’s not a massive danger,” she shot back. “It’s a pool party with buff demons.”

We had different ideas of what massive danger meant.

“I didn’t know what time of day it was, and I didn’t want those two bitches to eat you if you failed to save me!” she continued.

“Thank you,” I said. Even if I disagreed, I was impressed with her ability to predict my actions, and with her force of will. I’d have noped out the second I regained consciousness. Then again, Sasha might not have attempted to save me so foolishly… we needed a protocol.

“You’d better leave now, though,” she said. “Get your eyes looked at. And I’ll leave tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow’s Saturday.” We’d never tried to use Okina’s power on a weekend, because she’d only given us permission to use it on weekdays.

“If it doesn’t work I’ll leave Monday, now that you know to stay home. Or I can catch a ride with someone else.” That someone else would be Satori, assuming that she had to stop by Hot Springs Town to pick up the oni sake she was always selling in Human Town on festival days.

“I don’t want to strand you here any longer,” I said. “You first.”

“You’re blind. You’ll probably die without my help. Also, they are expecting me at dinner!”

“Nothing you two just said makes any sense,” noted Red. “If you try to leave, Hoshiguma-sama will stop you.”

“Don’t worry about it,” I said.

“I regret blinding you,” said the oni. “I didn’t realize humans were so fragile.”

“Yeah, well,” I said. “I can see how you’d get confused.”

“Can you?” he asked. “Also, checkmate!”

“Stop saying that,” said Sasha. “You’re just taking a piece, not winning the god damned game.” I heard a clatter. “Checkmate!” she said in a deep voice, mocking him.

“Speaking of which, have you thought of a game for the feast?” he asked.

“Yeah, but I’m keeping it secret,” said Sasha. “To prevent cheating.”

“No oni would ever cheat.”

“What?” I asked.

“Oh, Yuugi challenged me to come up with a game that a human could beat an oni at,” she said. “Normally they fight at the feast, but since humans are so fragile, she gave me the opportunity to choose something else.” She reached up and touched the missing spike at her collar.

“Was your answer checkers?” I asked.

“No. She said it had to be fast,” said Sasha. “And even shit for brains here can’t remember what moves are legal.”

“Hey!” he said as he adjusted his glasses. “I can remember! I’m one of the smartest oni!”

“I know.” She turned to me. “Their flipping the table is a real problem.”

–

A few hours later, when we were going to dinner, I still couldn’t see anything. The blinding pain and white snow had given way to a headache and nausea. I heard a call to drink, and took a drink of water.

“I got it from the frost outside,” whispered Koishi in my ear. “Sasha said she didn’t want cum-water.”

I coughed and thanked her. I might choke to death if people kept telling me absurd things while I tried to drink, sake or otherwise.

“Alright!” said Yuugi. “It’s time for our contest.” The feast hadn’t even started. “Miss Conti, what challenge would you give to us?”

“It’s a pretty simple game from the surface,” said Sasha, effecting a slur in her voice. “It’s called ‘drawing straws’.”

Some of the oni lamented their lack of artistic talent.

“No,” said Sasha patiently. “You each take a straw, or actually, a strip of fabric. Then whoever has the shortest ‘straw’ loses. I thought it would be appropriate.”

There was grumbling about this not being a contest of strength. The grumbling grew louder and louder. Neither Yuugi nor Suika was stepping in to restore order, and I started to worry for our safety if we defaulted to the usual contest.

“Consider it a contest about your strength of character,” I said. “Because you have to accept defeat even when it’s difficult and outside your control.” Wiki had told me that the oni cared about honor, so I hoped this would move them.

I was right.

“Well said!” said Suika. “Plus, it sounds quick. Let’s just play the game and start the feast already.”

“How many of the strings are short?” asked Yuugi.

“Well,” said Sasha. “Just one.”

“It will be a lighter feast, then,” said Hoshiguma Yuugi, the King of Hot Springs Town. “Let’s go!”

A… lighter feast?

With lightning-bolt clarity, I realized how their rotation of oni as the King’s advisors worked. There was a list and the people of this room cycled somehow. I was surrounded by the strongest oni. If every feast up until then was a contest of strength, and the weakest were eliminated, well, it was only natural that the strongest advisors would be the only ones left.

But I had an inkling that the weaker ones weren’t just getting kicked out. My heart began to pound. I could see nothing, and a hard hand guided me to choose a string from Sasha’s fist. I felt its length, squinting and worrying about the fate of the loser.