Yakumo Yukari Gapped Me to Another World; Now I'm Trapped in the Human Village Full of Pathetic Touhou Maniacs

We walked to the edge of the village and crossed it. Sekibanki didn’t break stride and I marched behind her, unable to slow my steps or my racing heart.

We were going in the opposite direction from the Forest of Magic. I’d never been here before. The landscape was hilly with scattered trees, but in general we were walking downhill. Moonlight and starlight were barely enough to see by, because the moon was only half-full.

If I remembered correctly, we were going toward the Misty Lake, the Scarlet Devil Mansion, and certain danger. My steps began to slow. A head bumped into my back, making me jump. The other heads turned to look at me, but only one at a time; they were mostly scanning the surroundings.

I was completely surrounded by a single youkai, and still her attention was outward.

“Keep up,” said Sekibanki, her voice coming from the head behind me. Without her body to give the head a voice, it spoke in a breathless hiss.

“Are you going to kill me?” I asked. I wanted to leave a corpse near the village, at the very least, so someone could figure out what happened!

“If I were, would I talk to you about it?”

“Talking might lessen my fear, a little bit.”

“And why would I want that?” she said, full-voiced from in front of me. The head atop her body turned completely around, its wide smile showing teeth. “I’m getting a real meal out of this, Jake. Such a productive friendship!”

I tried to step back, surrounded by heads. “I think we should go back.”

“Your will is strong, to have overcome the compulsion after a few hundred steps. But I disagree, and I have all the power. Will you make me use danmaku to compel you?” As she spoke a head lifted off her body, and another took its place.

The heads were slowly circling me. There were six, now, or maybe they were just moving in ways that made it hard to count. I steeled myself as best as I could. Her smiles dimmed until they became frowns, like so many lights winking out.

“You’ve acted like an enemy,” I said.

“I’ve acted like what I am,” she responded, a head flying in close to whisper it behind me. “A rokurokubi. I feel that your fear is diminishing. You really intend to fight me.” I was still terrified, but I guess ‘fight’ was less tasty than ‘flight’. Or maybe she was just annoyed.

“I–” I started to say, but I didn’t finish. She blasted me again. We resumed our march.

Sekibanki spoke quietly.

“Being indebted to you is so frustrating, you know? I would very much like to let you run away, screaming, feeding all the while. I’d never have to speak to you again. You could tell the others of your close call. I could beleaguer your tiny tribe, one person at a time, a hiss on the wind, a glimmering eye in the darkness, until all of you were too scared to even leave your hovel. Until your doorstep was a feast salted with your chattering.”

I didn’t respond. The compulsion wouldn’t let me.

“Instead, I have a debt to pay. Kagerou warned me not to consort with humans. Maybe she was right.”

I sputtered, but didn’t find my words. Kagerou was a werewolf who could pass for human. Instead, she lived in the Bamboo Forest of the Lost.

“I have to comfort you so that you stop fighting me,” said Sekibanki. “It’s contrary to my nature. But be comforted, Jake! If I wanted to drink your blood we’d already be done, here, and you’d be crawling back. If I wanted to kill you, you’d be dead. I don’t talk to food.”

We walked down a slope. Ahead was a wide, dark expanse of water. The Misty Lake was large enough to have lapping at the edges, even during a still night. We walked toward a copse of trees on the lakeshore. Sekibanki slowed as we passed into the shadows.

“Hide here.” I got low and crawled into a bush, and she amended her instruction. “Go forward. Look at the lake. I’m going to go away now, but if you run you’ll be in more danger than if you stay quiet and still.”

“Where are you going?” I said, coughing a little. It was still hard to speak.

“To call on a friend,” she said. “Wait for me to return.”

Her body lifted into the air and she drifted over the lake with the majority of her heads.

One head remained behind and settled next to me: a guard, or an alarm, I supposed. In the dark night and under the brush even Sekibanki’s bright red hues were hard to see. As I watched the head darkened further. The hair turned black and the ribbon drained of color. The shadows deepened until it looked like a black stone with glowing red eyes.

I’d have to add ‘color changing’ to the list of youkai powers, right under reading minds and eating emotions.

Sekibanki’s body and other heads hovered over the lake as she looked down into the depths. Her main head shot off and sank with a splash.

“Do your heads need to breathe?” I whispered. I had overcome the compulsion again.

No answer came from beside me, but I saw the eyes move briefly. I tried to keep my attention on the lake. This decapitated, dark thing next to me had a gaze that was impossible to meet. Out of the corner of my eye I briefly caught sight of glistening white teeth.

After several tense moments the submerged head returned to the air. It spun in the air, fast, and became dry. I saw a youkai emerge behind it from the water’s surface.

Wakasagihime, the freshwater mermaid. She rose out of the water like a pale ghost trailing ice-blue fog, but the blue was a fish’s tail. She wore a seaweed-colored kimono with a rippling white hem. She rose into the air over the lake.

Of course the mermaid could fucking fly. Sekibanki’s head could swim–it was only fair! I almost complained aloud, but I thought better of it.

I stared hard. Something was wrong with the fish. Her angles were too sharp. Her skin was pale and corpse-like, stretched thin over her bones. She was like one of those novelty fish, transparent to the point where you could see some of the organs, although her kimono kept most of her body covered.

A frightening appearance, especially since she was one of very few youkai who was supposedly no threat to humans. That was according to something I remembered Wiki saying when he was explaining friendly youkai to Arnold. I wondered if that part of the lore was accurate. She was a skeletal monster.

Sekibanki and Wakasagihime were talking. I couldn’t hear them, but the head beside me began to murmur.

“She’s hungry,” moaned the head, breathlessly. “But we are all hungry. The human village is swollen with people, people who don’t come to hear her song. No one walks the shore. No one finds the stones she hides there. The Outside World–”

The two youkai were moving, dashing away from each other. The head shook.

“Observe.” The two figures above the lake burst into light. The mermaid emitted a spiral cone of blue spikes; the rokurokubi exploded with red spheres.

“What are you–”

“Silence.” The head got closer to my ear, making me want to crawl away, and started to hiss. “I’m concentrating on that spiral. She always flies forward, because it's too hard to swim backward. She forgets she is flying. She opened with a show of desperation, she has no will for subtleties or buildup.” There were more blue spikes, an even denser swarm of them.

I watched the spectacle for a few moments. Wakasagihime produced a wet cloud of blackness that washed over Sekibanki, but the red youkai wasn’t phased. Instead all her heads dashed through the cloud, forcing the mermaid to turn hard and flee. With a hiss, Sekibanki’s extra head explained that going through the darkness served her kind particularly well. She chased Wakasagihime with the same eye lasers that she had used on me. Wakasagihime wasn’t able to escape, either, and the needles of light converged on her from behind. The fish collapsed back into the water.

A moment later Wakasagihime was back up and fighting again.

“She is proud,” said Sekibanki’s head from beside me. “She fights above the lake, weakened, trying to make that weakness a beautiful acceptance. Or an excuse. But look.”

Wakasagihime dove again, and popped up to Sekibanki’s right.

“She is frustrated. She invites me to dive after her.”

“And you don’t because she’d be stronger underwater?”

“Fool,” said Sekibanki. “No more questions. I slow here; I gain height.” Sekibanki’s body soared into the air above the mermaid. “I see through the water. She cannot hide, and I’ve said I won’t join her. She thinks I am cruel, or selfish. She is not wrong.”

Sekibanki continued to narrate the fight, talking about pattern and counter-pattern. Every motion had a subtext, a communication. Sekibanki started using less-directed attacks; this said she wanted to linger, to be expansive. Wakasagihime narrowed her scope, to say that she’d play along and pay close attention. Sekibanki rushed forward recklessly; an apology, for staying on the surface, which was accepted with forgiveness when Wakasagihime rose high into the air to continue their fight from above.

This was very unlike the battle between Marisa and Reimu. It was slower, less frantic, but also less focused. In some ways it looked less technical. I could follow the action, especially since I was being given a play-by-play. I found myself regretting that I hadn’t brought a notebook instead of my split hat.

They swirled around each other, passing close but not touching. Sekibanki’s heads mostly stayed far away, only firing a laser or two, but at one point her headless body stood back as they wove through each other in a sweeping attack. Wakasagihime caught a head and kissed its forehead. That part didn’t get narration.

Sekibanki was more skilled, and more numerous. There was no way she could lose. The fish youkai disappeared into the depths after only a few hectic minutes, and just as suddenly as it had started, the battle was over.

Sekibanki continued to float over the lake as the water went still. She looked up at the sky for so long I blinked; was that shadow really her? Where had her other heads gone?

But then her eyes flashed when she turned to look at my hiding spot.

—

I crossed back over the village threshold without really noticing it. I was thinking about the fight. I twisted my broken hat in my hands. I had misjudged Sekibanki, I felt. She was taking hard steps, practically stomping as we walked back. She hated an accurate appraisal.

It was hard to keep being afraid of things as you began to understand them.

“I didn’t want you to… beat up your friend.” I felt bad for the fish. She had looked diseased.

“We played together,” said Sekibanki. “That’s how we are friends.”

“You said she was starving?” That fact was making me particularly upset about how things had transpired. I empathized with Wakasagihime a bit too much.

“Hardly unique, here.” Fuck, I found myself reconsidering whether humans should be food. No. Humans came first; youkai were second. But maybe some of the monsters could be accommodated, in some cases.

“What emotion does she feed on?” I asked.

“She is a good little mermaid,” said Sekibanki. “Wonder. Curiosity. Tranquility and patience. She’s not like most of us.”

“And she’s starving?” I exclaimed. “Those should be easy things to provide!”

“Most youkai don’t provide those emotions, and humans don’t leave the village very often.” She didn’t meet my gaze. “Not yet, anyway.” Another thing clicked into place

“I’ll try to help her,” I said. “When I can leave the village, I’ll go to the lake.”

“That is up to you.” She didn’t want a debt.

“Good behavior should be rewarded.”

“You speak as though we choose who we are,” said Sekibanki. “Wakasagihime will be one of the lucky ones. Her nature is compatible with humanity. She just needs to last long enough for Yukari’s little experiment to pay out. I give her as much as I can, but she weakens more every day.”

“What emotions do you feed her?” I asked. Fear wouldn’t do, not if she was a youkai of tranquility. Sekibanki couldn’t feel the full range of human emotions. Wakasagihime must have the spiritual equivalent of a nutritional deficiency.

Sekibanki stopped short.

“I feed her danmaku, you imbecile.”

“Well, yeah, but–”

“I tire of this conversation.”

Suddenly, I felt pity for Sekibanki. She wanted to help her friend, but she was literally incapable of feeling the right emotions–or maybe she was helping her friend, but it was never enough, because both of them were too weak. Sekibanki glanced at the sky again, then back down toward me, wearing a tight frown.

“Did you learn anything from this?” Her face was marred by disgust, so I tried to temper my feelings.

“I—maybe,” I said, running my hand through my hair. Even with narration, I wasn’t sure if I’d learned much about danmaku, per se. What I had experienced was mostly a spectacle. “I’ve got a lot to think about.”

“So it was not valuable.”

“No! I think it was. I just didn’t… if you’d told me it was going to be that, I wouldn’t have hesitated so much.”

“You would have expected it to be an excuse for an ambush,” she said. “I offer to take you to my hungry friend unannounced. She eats you.”

“But she–”

“My other friends prefer ambushes. Not many are like Wakasagihime.” She touched her chin, and her head rose a fraction. “Maybe I should introduce you, sometime.”

“I, uhh,” I said. The youkai chuckled. I twisted the torn hat again.

“Give me that,” she said. I let her take the hat without a thought. She held the two halves together, grimaced, then had one of her heads fly down and bite the brim of the hat, freeing her hand. Sekibanki ran her finger down the length of the cut.

The two halves joined each other. She handed it back to me. It was whole.

“You–you reattached it? How?” That power definitely wasn’t in the lore, was it?

“The same way I fly,” she said, dryly. Sekibanki lifted a hand to her throat and touched the blue-white seam there. Her head lowered itself and the light disappeared, until the neck didn’t have a seam in it at all. “It is a thing I can do. Are we even, now?”

With her head attached, Sekibanki was a short, red-haired, red-eyed Japanese woman. The head popped back off before I could finish thinking that she was way less scary.

“Ye–” I said, before I remembered that she had mentioned a debt being the only reason she continued to meet me. I sighed. I couldn’t very well lie about it. “Yes, I think we are.”

“Good,” she said. “Next week we will talk more about the Outside World.”

“Y–yes.”

She left without another word.

–

I entered the dorm as quietly as I could. The chicken was wary, but I only provoked a few grumbles. I thought I’d done pretty good at sneaking back into my bed, at least until I heard a voice.

“Where were you?” asked Sasha, her voice accusatory. She wasn’t whispering.

“Let’s be quiet,” I said. “I didn’t want to wake anyone.”

“Where were you, shithead?” she whispered. She sounded genuinely angry, for reasons I could not fathom.

“I was out practicing danmaku,” I said, leaving out some important facts.

“That’s against the rules.”

“I didn’t make any bullets,” I said, once again truthfully. “I was studying.”

“Hmmpf,” she said. “This has got to be the thing you don’t want Satori to know about.”

I’d forgotten to ask Sekibanki about that again. I did need a notebook.

“I don’t think you were going to go meet a girl,” mused Sasha. I almost corrected her, but stopped myself in time. “You weren’t looking in windows, were you?”

“Why would I–”

“Being a perv.”

“No!” I hissed. “I don’t even know where the girl’s dorm is!”

“Maybe you went to the bathhouse to peep?” Her voice had gotten quieter. Despite sleeping during the day, she must have gotten tired while waiting for me.

“It’s closed at night.” I was ninety percent sure she already knew that. “I really was practicing danmaku!”

“I guess that extra practice explains some things about your skills.” She rolled over. “I don’t know why you’d hide that from Satori, though.”

“That’s… something else.” Okay, by that point I was lying.

“Well. If I find out later that you’re perving on people at night, I’m going to kick your teeth in.” She yawned.

“Good,” I said. I thought about that. From a utilitarian perspective, being a creep and not getting caught was… irrelevant to anything going on in my life. I stopped thinking about it.

“I forgot for a moment how cowardly you are,” she said. “You probably give every house a wide berth, even, in case people get the wrong idea.”

“I’m less cowardly than you think,” I said, which I did have cause to believe.

“Whatever.” Sasha mumbled something else, but I didn’t catch it. She said goodnight, and our conversation ended.

I just wanted to go to sleep, but I’d slept all day, and I’d been pumped full of adrenaline. It took a long time for me to doze off. I kept thinking about what it meant that Wakasagihime could eat positive emotions, and yet didn’t live in the village. Why couldn’t she cure her hunger just by living in the bathhouse and talking to people?

Some sort of secretiveness must have been intrinsic to youkai. Getting them to speak plainly was like pulling teeth.

I did eventually get tired, but before I fell asleep, a new thought came to me. Sasha had been very willing to believe I was practicing in my free time. She’d accepted that excuse; she must believe good things about me after all.

More importantly, Sasha was also–almost, but not quite–keeping up with me. Sasha supposedly went away to work in all her free time, but the last thing I’d actually seen her spend her money on had been the spiked collar. If she was working, she was saving all her cash.

Or perhaps, she was doing something else? Practicing?

Possibly… someone else was teaching Sasha, just like Sekibanki was teaching me.