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“What are all of those?”
Arataka shrugs off his coat and drapes it across Katsuya’s lap. “Here, you can look. These three are just normal spirit tags—I wrote them with my best brush and purified ink, transferring them to a waterproof patch material was a pain in the ass, I’m telling you, especially trying to make sure I could keep the spiritual power. I ruined so many patches trying for that. This one on the sleeve is the seal of the shrine near my house, I’m pretty good friends with the priest! You remember Yanashita-sama, right? Then these four are shrine seals too. The neat thing about shrine seals is they’re powerful even if they’re not the original stamp. If you have a picture of one loaded on your laptop minor spirits can’t attack it!”
“How did you find that out?” asks Katsuya, running his fingers over the Tsukiji seal. “Are there usually minor spirits trying to attack your laptop?”
Arataka snorts. “No, I asked Guriguri to help me. It knows I like it best and it likes to play, so it’s pretty easy to convince it to help me test stuff. Anyway, this one’s a picture I got an attendant to draw me at one of the Inari shrines, can’t remember where. I think I have it written down somewhere.”
“It’s really cute! What about the one next to it?”
“Eh? That’s decoration. Can’t you tell, Katsu-kun?” He grins when Katsuya blushes slightly in embarrassment. He’s so easy to tease it’s almost not fun, but just enough that it’s extremely fun. “So’s the third eye patch. It just has that psychic look, you know? I didn’t want to have just a ton of spirit tags on the back, that’d look boring.” He reaches out and flips over the coat, exposing the lining, which is now slashed everywhere with black and red ink. “Most of the spirit tags are on the inside.”
“This is amazing, Arataka-senpai! It must have taken you a really long time!”
“Yeah, probably like twenty hours. I get a cramp in my hand just thinking about it. But it was so worth it, spirits can’t even get near me when I’m wearing it! I think Guriguri learned how to cry just so it could tell me how sad it was.” Katsuya frowns, because he’s a bleeding heart for every kind of animal, even the spirit animals that have way too many eyes and a weird air sac. Arataka puts a hand on his head and messes up his hair. “Lighten up, Katsu, I don’t wear it inside. I’d never make a gross spirit cry if I didn’t have to.”
“You shouldn’t call it gross,” mumbles Katsuya. “It’s your friend, isn’t it? Ah, is this our stop?”
“Nope, sit down. You too, Tsutsu-chan. I have lots of gross friends. Master’s gross when he’s within like a meter of Gouda-san. Tome-san is gross all the time because she never showers. Ritsu’s personality is gross.”
“He’s not!” says Katsuya as the bus creaks and starts forward again. “Master Ritsu is really patient, and he’s nice to me. He just doesn’t like you.”
“Yeah, that’s because he’s a gross mean old man.”
“He’s a year younger than Master Shigeo…”
“Hey! Are you calling my master old??”
Katsuya makes a frustrated noise, and Arataka bursts out laughing. He loves to annoy Katsuya and right now he’s having fun annoying everyone else on the bus. “I’m making fun of you, Katsu. I’m not even being serious. The point is ‘gross’ is subjective and I’m a fan of gross things, so it’s fine. Our stop is the next one.”
Once they’ve gotten off the bus, Arataka leans casually against a nearby street sign, trying not to look like he’s lost. He really wishes his phone had internet so he could look up maps, but failing that he did print one out. Katsuya comes up behind him (still not close enough to touch, he’s so sensitive about personal space) to look at the map over his shoulder. He remembers again that Katsuya is two years younger and four centimeters taller than him, and scowls.
“Well, we’re here at this intersection,” he says, to distract himself from how unfair it is that Katsuya’s huge and will only grow bigger. “Then I think the canal is that way.”
Katsuya squints upward and does some kind of thing with his hands like he’s measuring the angle of the sun, and then he nods. Not that Arataka really needed that confirmed, or trusts Katsuya’s sketchy sun divination, but that’s fine. He sets off walking, with Katsuya and Tsutsu in tow. The canal is a little ways away, but Arataka isn’t even really tired by the time they get there. “Feel anything?” he asks Katsuya. “Because I don’t.”
Katsuya just shakes his head, so Arataka picks a direction and they start walking along the canal. It’s actually kind of hot, hot enough that Arataka hates himself for making a leather jacket into his primary spiritual protection, so they stop to get popsicles from a vendor near the canal. While he’s at it, he might as well ask—“Have you heard anything about the monster that lives in the water?” he asks the vendor while she’s counting out his change. “Like where it is?”
She gives him an appraising look. He knows he looks a little odd because of his incredibly cool fashion choices, but she seems a little too suspicious. “Why’d you want to know that? Are you making another documentary? Last couple of kids who tried that ended up in pieces.”
“No cameras here,” says Arataka pleasantly. “I promise not to get too close, I just want to know if it’s real. It can’t walk on land, right?”
“Nobody knows,” she says shortly. “Making assumptions like that’ll get you killed. But that’s on your own head. Keep going the way you have been, you’ll probably find it.”
“Thanks!” he says, and tips her an extra fifty yen, to show his gratitude.
Katsuya is frowning nervously when Arataka turns back to him. His hands might even be shaking a little bit. Arataka’s about to call him out on it when he crouches down and whispers, “Tsutsu-chan, can I have a hug?” Tsutsu, of course, is literally always up for a hug, so Katsuya is soothed and Arataka is satisfied. They keep walking until Arataka starts to feel the familiar pressure in the air that means an evil spirit is nearby. Arataka continues to walk forward, but Katsuya has stopped.
“Am I going it alone, then?” asks Arataka cheerfully. He is confident in his protection, but he’s not really sure it would keep him from, say, getting eaten by a monster with huge teeth. It would be nice to have Katsuya for backup.
“I shouldn’t let you face it by yourself,” mumbles Katsuya. “But I’m scared. And I don’t want Tsutsu-chan to get hurt.”
“Tsutsu-chan needs your protection more than I do,” Arataka says. Very gracious. Chivalrous, even. He swallows his fear and swings his bag off his shoulder to get out his purified salt. And he keeps going until the presence stops getting stronger, at which point it’s so strong it makes him feel a little nauseous. If only he had normal powers so he could create a barrier—well, no point wishing. He zips up his jacket, and his stomach settles a little bit. He starts the purification chant, pulling a bundle of spirit tags out of his pocket.
About ten seconds in the water in the canal starts to swell. He doesn’t waver as a long neck unfolds, lined with staring red eyes, and a head appears to look at him. Well, more like, one and a half heads? Or two heads mashed into each other. Eugh. “Be GONE,” he finishes with great sincerity, and flings a handful of salt at it. So far it’s just seemed puzzled, but it flinches back from the salt and makes a gargling roar/scream noise that makes him take a step backward.
“Come on, attack me if you think you can,” he says. Not that he wants to be attacked, but spirit tags aren’t exactly aerodynamic so he needs it to get closer. “Or do you want some more salt?”
It strikes quicker than he thought. One moment it’s poised above him, and the next he’s stumbling backward from what feels like a hammer blow to the chest. Better than if it could actually bite him, he thinks dazedly, but not great.
It could probably still bite his legs, huh? Note to self: if you survive this, make protected pants.
He does manage to leap and stick a couple tags on one of its noses, and it hisses at him and strikes again. This time he nearly dodges, and he gets more tags on it. Something beneath the water starts thrashing. He starts the purification chant again and, since it’s getting wary, throws more salt to goad it. It’s maybe a little too goaded, because it starts to slither out of the canal. He risks a glance to his left, and is relieved to see that Katsuya’s still well away from it, holding Tsutsu in his arms and looking scared.
That turns out to have been kind of a dumb risk, because he finds the canal monster’s coils surrounding him. Even though it has to be hurting the thing, it’s wrapped around him and starting to squeeze. Well, fine. Plenty of places to stick tags. The bad news is that it’s plenty long enough to go for Katsuya at the same time. “Katsu! Get out of here!” he shouts as he slaps five of his strongest spirit tags on it. It squeezes tighter, crushing the breath out of him. He starts grinding salt into one of the eyes on its back, and all the rest start weeping red light.
He can’t say the chant out loud, but he can form the words with his mouth. It is weakening, he can tell. It knows he’s going to kill it, it’s just hoping to take him with. Be gone, he mouths, and a shudder runs through the whole creature.
His head is starting to swim and his coordination is going. Fuck it. He upends the entire bag of salt onto the monster’s back and sort of scatters tags onto it. By the time it dissolves into strangely red-tinted rainbows he’s not really up for landing on his feet, so it’s lucky that Katsuya is there to catch him telekinetically. He lies on the ground trying to make his lungs expand properly, staring at the sky through half-closed eyes. After a little bit he hears Katsuya’s footsteps and the taptaptap of Tsutsu’s paws.
“Arataka-senpai, are you all right?”
He coughs weakly. “I’ve been better. Really showed that thing who’s boss, though, huh?” Tsutsu starts licking his face and he lifts a hand to pat her vaguely.
“You’re trying to seem cool so I won’t worry about you,” Katsuya accuses in a quiet, slightly choked voice.
“Sorry, Katsu, I just genuinely am that cool. Really, though, don’t worry about it. My ribs are a little, uh, crushed but I don’t think anything’s broken. I’m gonna be ultra sore tomorrow, though. You want to be a really good friend and help me stand up so we can go home and Master can give me soup and tell me how great I am? Ah, my bag is still over there.”
Katsuya has to kind of crouch down a little so he can get Arataka’s arm over his shoulder, but it works out okay. When they pass the popsicle vendor Arataka waves at her and smiles.
“I told you you’d get hurt,” she says. “Stupid boys.”
“Well, I did kill it, so you’re welcome,” he says.
“Hah! As if.”
“In a couple weeks when nobody’s seen it you’ll be like ‘oh dang he was totally telling the truth!’ So. Bye I guess.”
She shakes her head, but she does run after him to give him an ugly popsicle she probably couldn’t sell, so maybe she’s a little bit grateful. Or she feels sorry for him because he looks like he got hit by a truck.
Tsutsu kindly consents to being enveloped by Arataka on the bus ride back, because he needs comfort. Her soft dog body and soft dog smile distract him from how much moving hurts, and she sticks her nose into his armpit. “Love you, Tsutsu-chan,” he mumbles into her fur.
The walk from the bus stop to the farm sucks, and he’s totally exhausted by the time he collapses onto the couch in the front room. He doesn’t even care (that much) that it makes his whole torso start aching even worse. “We’re hoooome,” he says. A few minutes later he hears footsteps and feels his master’s aura approaching, so he opens one eye.
“I’m glad to see you’re safe,” says his master. “Katsuya-kun, did you get hurt at all?”
“No,” says Katsuya softly.
“Not gonna ask about me?” Arataka mumbles, closing his eye again because he can’t be bothered to keep it open. “I’m hurt.”
“It’s obvious that you’re hurt,” says his master. “What happened?”
“Canal monster thought it was a constrictor snake. Think it was mad it couldn’t bite me. The coat’s awesome, by the way. I did kill it.”
“You did a very good job,” says his master. “But in the future I wish you wouldn’t put yourself in danger like that. I don’t want to lose my student.” A quiet thump, and his voice is closer. Must have kneeled down. “I’ll heal you. Where are you hurt?”
Arataka is halfway asleep, and he can’t really muster an answer. The last thing he hears is Katsuya’s voice saying, “He said it crushed his ribs…” The last thing he feels is his master’s gentle hands on his back. It’s fine to pass out, because there’s nowhere in the world safer to be.