Chapter Text
Mao stops Fumika as she goes to unlock the elevator. He moves so quietly, cloaked in that bright sunrise fog, that Fumika startles at the feather-light touch of his fingertips at her shoulder.
“I had a dream, this morning, about your intentions in the Spirit World. Or rather, its intentions for you.” He murmurs, a sheepish expression on his face. His prophecies have always been somewhat cryptic.
Whisper surges forward with an interest born of deference for the son of a dead king. But Warunyan scoffs and throws back his head. His ridiculous sunglasses catch the morning light as he grunts, “thanks a bunch, brat. But there ain’t nothin’ Fumi and I can’t handle. If yer able to see the future, you’d’a known that no dream’a yours is gonna stop us from doin’ what we’re gonna.” Whisper immediately goes to whack him upside the head for his rudeness, but Mao – bless his gentle soul – seems untroubled by the testy feline and instead shrugs placidly.
“I didn’t think I would be able to stop you from activating the Board,” he smiles ruefully, “I just wanted to be sure that you were aware of the difficult battle ahead.”
“Well, thanks for the heads-up.” Fumika says with a twinge of awkwardness, “but, that sort of thing has never stopped me before.” In spite of the uncertain tone of her voice, her eyes are determined.
“I know. Just. Just be careful,” he pleads and Fumika claps a solid hand to his shoulder by way of reassurance. Then, she turns the key in the lock, and with an offhand wave over her shoulder, she steps into the elevator. As the doors close behind them, Warunyan sneers and Whisper offers a cheerful wave. Then, in a flash of bright light, Fumika is gone. As if she had never existed in the first place.
Crossing to the Spirit World without having died is a painful experience: perhaps it’s an emulation of what it is to perish. The elevator rockets – and even the direction evades Fumika – at an incredible pace. She feels like she’s falling, but it looks as if the disc upon which they’re gathered is moving upwards. The vertigo is dizzying.
Wind roars past, deafening and brutal. Its harsh slap makes it hard for Fumika to stand upright, to keep her eyes open. But even if she could’ve, she wouldn’t have wanted to; they’re sucked into a harsh vortex of colour and sound, with each clamouring to be seen and heard. It’s headache inducing, if the steady drumbeat against the inside of her skull is any indication.
The elevator begins to slow as it breaks through the time-space continuum; a small slip of bone against the gentle, pliant resistance of skin. As they pass the threshold, everything gets substantially quieter. Fumika finds her sense of balance thrown off painfully – it’s like she’s somehow ended up with a whole lot of water in one ear. She’s certain she will be sick, and it’s about the same as last time. Maybe you can’t get better at world-hopping with practice: unfortunate.
The one-eyed sentinel of the elevator laughs carelessly at her pain, and flicks her fire-lantern tail in amusement. It cuts a bright arc through the air. That callousness is typical, yet it doesn’t stop Whisper’s disapproving stare as he attempts to hold Fumi upright by the shoulders. Nor does it stop Warunyan from baring his fangs and spitting threats.
Unaffected by both the journey and their irritation, Fuumin cheers, “welcome to the Spirit World!” as the disc comes to a gradual stop, lowered as if it were a petal settling delicately on the water’s surface.
Here, it’s much darker than home, not by way of an absence of light. Rather, it seems that everything is dim, like a television set to low brightness. While Fumika can discern what she sees, yo-kai milling about a long bridge, it seems that there is no consistency from one image to the next. Water that had been flowing in one way beneath the bridge is suddenly roiling backwards. Denizens of the Spirit World have moved from one place to another without travelling there themselves. It’s as if the world is beneath an overlay of bleeding colours and blurred sensations.
When Fumika stumbles out of the elevator, it feels as if she is walking through water and it’s a sensation that still sends her reeling, despite this not being her first experience. She scrambles to grab the railing to right herself. The balustrade beneath her hand shifts from being broken and blue, to red and repaired. It slips through her fingers like greasy seafoam. She knows it must be there, simply because she hasn’t fallen right over yet – Whisper may be doting, but he isn’t that strong.
Whisper and Warunyan are unaffected; this is home, after all. Her butler’s hands have not left her shoulders as he tries to (slowly) guide her forwards, one foot in front of the other. Warunyan saunters ahead, leading the way. He is small, yet intimidating. Threats of violence dance in the tilt of his head, the clench of his paws, the set of his fangs. Perhaps his peacocking would be expected from one with too much confidence and too little experience, but this is not true of Warunyan. There are very few battles he has fought and lost, and he is remembered for his part in the (painful) resolution of the curry-bread incident.
The final bridge creaks under their footsteps and the Lord’s Gate looms above them. The singular, bulbous eye rolls exaggeratedly in its socket to stare down at them. Passing under that row of yellowed teeth, Fumika swears she can hear the crunch of teeth against bone, the sound of a gulp.
The throne room is almost blindingly white. The watch begins to beep lowly and infrequently, but as they make their way towards the wall, it becomes incessant, nagging. The needle has swung from one end straight to the other, and is straining against the timepiece’s very mechanics.
With the push of a button, a bright purple light illuminates what was previously hidden: a lone Baffle Board – splintering wood and tattered, browning paper.
The answer to its three-part question is ‘Yami Kagami’. Fumika had noticed this on her previous visit, yet hadn’t befriended the yo-kai in question. They tend to be a grasping sort, and are hard to win over. She had been down to her last crab omelette when one had finally approached, rubbing his small hands in sinister glee. She summons that friend now, and he appears with a barely stifled yawn.
“Oh man, what’s this about?” He says with poorly concealed ire at having been woken from his nap.
“What! Surely, you should know!” scolds Whisper indignantly, “after all, this is your spot!” Ignoring Whisper’s (perhaps hypocritical) tirade, Yami Kagami totters around on tiny feet to look behind him.
He stares pensively at the giant throne, sitting vacant and gathering dust at the apex of the stairs. Suddenly, his body convulses as if something inside the glass is trying to scratch its way out.
It looks as if the reflective surface itself is bending inwards, becoming concaved at its centre. The pressure of the room amplifies suddenly, and beads of sweat begin to gather at Fumika’s brow. They wait with baited breath, until finally, a beam of black light explodes forth from Yami Kagami’s frame.
It twists and roils, like battling snakes, into an immense shape. Limbs convulse horrifically, and joints pop and snap back into place with macabre crunches. The vast yo-kai – Ikakamone-gichō – rolls his shoulders back and cracks his neck. His laugh is maniacal and disturbing; it feels like claws digging under Fumika’s skin. It makes her shudder and brings her close to tears.
Warunyan, tensed and ready for a fight, looks over his shoulder and up at the terror on her face. Something about that makes him angry – something that lies deeper at his core than a dislike for seeing Fumika intimidated and afraid. A face flashes through his mind – young and girlish and slick with tears. It’s fleeting, slipping through his mind’s eye like a river rushing downwards, and he can’t attach to it, a name. The brokenness of Fumika’s usually unaffected brow and the quivering of her lips remind him of that girl, whoever she is. He’s decided that he doesn’t like how that expression sits on her face, at all.
“Oi! I don’t care who th’heck you think y’are pal, but you’re seriously pissing me off! Come on, bigshot, y’think yer so tough?! Let’s see how you do against me!”
Whisper smacks an open palm to his forehead. Yes, their purpose was to investigate the mystery behind the Baffle Board, but could Warunyan be any more of an instigator? He wouldn’t know tact if it smacked him in the mouth – he’d just get riled up and bite it back.
Fumika throws a sideways glance to Yami Kagami, who shrugs and says,
“I dunno. You’re the one who summoned him here…Good luck with that,” and then he turns right back around. After all, he has a front-row seat.
Ikakakamone-gichō leans forward in a dizzying movement that is both too quick and too slow. Right in their faces, he booms, “what’s this?! You think you can take on a squid? HA! Bring it on, shrimp! I’ll crush you!” He grins sickly through gnashed teeth.
Fumika takes as deep a breath as she can in an attempt to ground herself. It scrapes painfully against her lungs, but she has to be of some use to Warunyan. His foe is worlds bigger; with one smack of his palm, he could send the feline flying. Fumika doesn’t have to say anything. They both seem to be on the same wavelength – Warunyan deftly avoids each thump of tentacle against stone, unprovoked by his bellowed taunts. Instead, he bounds up them, uses them as leverage to reach for the yo-kai’s face.
As per his nature, he fights brutally and dirtily; scratching at eyes and biting hard at vulnerable patches of soft squid-skin. He leaves lacerations oozing with ink-black blood, and stomps on tentacles that writhe too close. The massive yo-kai screeches in pain and tries to land a decisive hit, but Warunyan hops from one spot to another, like a mosquito through your fingers, and sinks his teeth in elsewhere.
Warunyan is definitely winning, and many inhabitants of the Spirit World have crept in through the gates to watch as the generally despised leader of a radical few is thrashed within an inch of his life. The little yo-kai’s strut and his shouted taunts (“Missed me!” and “Whaaat? Thn’yat’s all ya got?!”) excite the crowd, and soon they’re cheering in favour of the underdog.
“Keep going, Warunyan!” Fumika finds the strength to call, and what little colour she had in her faces washes white as the feline turns around to flash her a triumphant smirk; cocky and blinded by a seemingly impending victory. His opponent takes this opportunity to clout him – hard – across the back of his head with a tentacle. He laughs hysterically – and the whole world shakes – as Warunyan is flung to the far corner of the throne room.
His small body cracks against the ground, and then he goes limp. Shouts and hollers die in throats and fists are lowered. Fumika pulls herself to her feet and stumbles over to Warunyan. He’s still not moving. There’s a long gash across the back of his head – it’s shallow, but like all cuts to the head, it’s bleeding profusely and unforgivingly. Whisper begins fretting over him and Fumika digs through her backpack.
“I know I have mighty medicine in here somewhere…” she sobs through gritted teeth, “come on…Where is it?!”
“Fumika!!” shouts Whisper, and the urgency in his tone makes her head snap up much too fast. Her vision swims but through a neon haze she can still see Ikakamone-gichō lumbering closer, laughter reaching fever pitch. He’s taking his time wading through the crowd of spectators, like a child through shallow water, and relishing in their screams. They’re little more than waves to kick at. It seems that, in the scrambling sea of bodies, he’s lost them, but Fumika can hear his disturbing coos to “come out, come out.”
“Aah! I got it!” her voice is hoarse, and she gently pushes Warunyan onto his back, mindful of his head.
“F…Fumi…” murmurs Warunyan, stirring slightly, “I…I dun’…need’it…”
“What! Warunyan, you hadn’t been knocked out after all?!” cries Whisper, truly shocked.
“Nah…Couldn’t…Leave Fumi…” He grunts through gritted teeth as he slowly and shakily rises to his feet.
“And…I couldn’t…Let this clown…go…without a…beatdown!”
“Warunyan…But you’re injured! At least, here, at least take this!” Fumika babbles, waving a Tupperware crammed with Everything Ramen in his face.
He shakes his head, as if to clear it and pushes up his sunglasses. There’s a long crack running through the right lens.
“Fumi…you can…rely on me!”
The showman’s confidence has evaporated, replaced by a quietly thrumming anger that’s rapidly building in its crescendo. Ready to burst.
A vicious yowl tears from his throat, and Warunyan’s charging towards the hulking giant. Yo-kai leap out of his way as he tears a clean path. Fumika scrubs at her eyes rapidly and flicks back the lid on her watch. She receives a prompt from its glowing face – draw three shapes. She traces a spiral, a jagged-looking letter c, and the same letter but facing upwards. With each one complete, Warunyan’s aura seems to intensify and brighten. The ungodly sound he’s making grows in ferocity and volume, and when Ikakamone-gichō turns, there’s a mask of surprise on his round face. He shakes it off and leans forward, tentacles brandished and ready to strike at the ground en masse.
At the last possible second, Warunyan leaps forth, his soultimate move charged. He lands on a lowering appendage, and vaults off it with such strength that the politician stumbles. He tries to steady himself, but he isn’t given the time, and takes a Tsuppari Yo-Ro-Shi-Ku straight to the face. The force of it has him reeling. His giant feet slip over the stairs as he attempts to remove the shrieking cat, and then he’s falling, arms pinwheeling in a way that would be comical, if the fight weren’t so close.
The noise he makes as he hits the ground is sickeningly deafening, and all the dust in the room is thrown unceremoniously into the air. Everything flatlines – no movement, no sound. The audience waits with baited breath. The world goes uneasily quiet.
When it clears, Ikakamone-gichō’s body is slumped at a painful angle over the throne from which his political agenda had unfurled. There are dents in the chair’s back. Atop him stands Warunyan, proud and undefeated. He scans the stupefied crowd until he spots Fumika, and then with a grin, he topples forwards.
Feet moving of their own accord, Fumika pushes through, and drops to her knees to cradle his small body.
Somewhere, Yami Kagami gives a low whistle, and begins to clap slowly. Immediately the stunned silence is broken, and the gathered yo-kai begin to clamour hysterically. It’s Whisper who fishes the two out, and all but drags them back across the bridges and towards the elevator. The unconscious cat in the arms of the stunned human girl – the makeshift heads of a yo-kai parade.
Fuumin looks bewildered at the sheer amount of noise and bodies swelling around the platform. She opens her mouth, most likely to ask what’s going on but Whisper abruptly cuts her off.
“This! Is not the time!” He grunts, and yanks Fumika on by the front of her jumper. Runes glow and the elevator ascends. Returning home feels less like she’s dying, but it’s still unpleasant - the trip backwards through that cacophony of sound and sensation is affronting. However, the closer they get to the human realm, the more Fumika’s senses return to baseline.
In her right hand, slick with sweat, she’s still clutching the mighty medicine and now she’s free to use it without copping an earful. Without her having to ask, Whisper floats over and gently pries open Warunyan’s mouth. Fumika shakes the plastic bag twice, before angling it, and tipping as much as she can straight to the back of Warunyan’s throat. They wait for it to dissolve, but when it does, it takes barely moments for the cat to shake himself awake. When he rights himself, following a few heavy coughs and a brief struggle, the elevator has stopped politely in the human realm.
The wound at the back of his head has disappeared. Mighty medicine sure does live up to its name.
The doors slide open, and mid-morning sunshine creeps in to greet them. They waste no time tumbling out into its warm embrace, relieved and reverent. Mao hadn’t left, and he’s halfway to his feet when Fumika charges at him and catches him in a bear-hug. Jubilant bird-song laughter is hysterically pouring from her mouth.
Beneath her feet, the grass is soft and consistent. Mao’s hand at her elbow as she pulls back and the sweetness of the air are grounding. It soothes her aching head, a gentle coolness and dulls the pain. She pivots to grab Warunyan into a hug of the same magnitude. He had been sourly tracing the crack in his glasses and she’s caught him by surprise.
“Warunyan, you’re amazing!” Fumika gushes, and Whisper is quick to join in.
“Quite! I was certain your carelessness had cost us that battle!”
Warunyan shuffles closer to Fumika and sends Whisper the dirtiest glare of his life. He says nothing in response to Whisper’s unintentional barb, and instead mutters sheepishly, “well, it’s my job to protect you, ain’t it? You gotta be able to count on me, y’know. ‘Sides, it’d be embarrassin’ if a cat let a stupid squid beat’im.”
Fumika’s breath leaves her in a whoosh, and she laughs, long and loud.