Chapter Text
The sun had properly crowned over the tree line when Raidou and Narumi touched down in Kuzunoha Village the next morning, the melting frost filling the whole valley with a slightly eerie—but, Narumi allowed, very scenic—blanket of mist. They barely had time to drop their luggage off at Raidou the Thirteenth’s house before Raidou vanished with Gouto in tow, off to some hallowed ground where no outsider dared to tread to take care of the business part of this business trip. Narumi stayed behind, nothing to do but kill time and wait for him to get back.
It was a fine old house, as they went—Narumi had grown up in a house like it, once, in a lifetime he hardly recognized as his own anymore. He could practically picture his folks—the old man sitting at the kotatsu here, his mum pouring tea there.
And him, standing in the doorway, a blemish in his Meiji-bred father’s picture of all things Japanese from the moment the midwife pulled him out with a head of tea-brown hair. It was a wonder he’d ever thought the Army would have been enough to redeem himself as a good, firstborn son. A smarter kid might’ve called the whole thing a wash before he even enlisted. Ee janai ka, or something.
He was homesick for the Capital already.
The whole front room was covered in an inch of dust that made Narumi’s eyes water if he disturbed too much of it, and—given that Raidou had admitted even he had barely touched most of the rooms since his mentor kicked it—the rest was probably worse. He actually thought about rolling up his sleeves and taking a cloth to it, surprising Raidou when he got back with the place properly resembling a house more than a crypt, taking initiative and all that, but he didn’t dare go further inside without Raidou’s permission, he didn’t know what would and wouldn’t be acceptable to touch, he’d been warned ad nauseam that there were probably demons skulking in dark corners—
—and when it came down to it, he just didn’t want to. He wasn’t the housework type, and he didn’t feel a lick of shame about it. Tae called that chauvinistic of him, acting like chores were a wife’s work, but the joke was on her—he didn’t need a missus with Raidou around. Kid was fastidious to a fault, from how he did his hair—under his hat!—to how he labeled the jars of pickled vegetables he always had stewing away in the kitchen to, of course, the endless scourge of dust and how to keep it at bay. Narumi couldn’t remember a single time he’d had to ask Raidou to take care of something at home since he’d first shown up on the doorstep, and that suited both of them just fine. He couldn’t even get him to take a day off if he tried.
The thought of the look on Raidou’s face if he did put in the elbow grease was a nice thought anyway, but not quite enough to get him to follow through. A walk and a cigarette or three, though, that sounded like a good way to pass some time and figure out a productive way to pass more. They’d had a rushed but satisfying breakfast at the inn before checking out, but Raidou would probably be gone long enough that Narumi would need to see to his own lunch, and the kid hadn’t exactly given him a list of the village’s finest eateries—if there even were finest eateries here. And hell, Raidou was expecting they’d be spending the night in the house tonight—there was dinner to deal with, too, and it wasn’t like the kitchen was stocked. There had to be somewhere a man could get a bag of rice around here.
He doubted he’d have many more chances to see where Raidou grew up, anyway, so he figured he may as well take in the sights while he could. Not that there were as many sights to take in as he’d thought; the village was shockingly mundane in everything except how small it was. Tsukigata Village looked practically metropolitan by comparison, gloomy, sunless mud puddle that it was. He guessed there were maybe five hundred people living here, tops—and after about ten minutes ambling through the streets, he had the feeling most of them disliked him on principle.
For once, he regretted that he hadn’t thought to dress down from his usual style; he might not have passed for local in a kimono any better than he did in a three-piece suit, but now it felt like he’d written “outsider” on a sign in big broad strokes and hung it around his neck. He considered himself a rather friendly face, all told, but he could hardly catch the eyes of anyone around the village without a suspicious glare from the ones who didn’t look away altogether.
So much for any chance of finding himself some pretty doe-eyed country girl to dazzle with tales of the big city, he thought—but that was a flight of fancy in the first place, not even half serious. A certain country boy would have his hide, no doubt, and no roll in the hay would be worth Raidou’s ire even if he could manage to score himself an interested bird.
Or an interested gent, for that matter, but that really wasn’t the sort of company a fella went looking for this early in the morning.
A tofu shop caught his eye as he rounded a corner; it was modestly decorated, but the cloth banners were still plain as day. Tofu was as good a place to start on the whole meal problem as any; when Raidou made miso soup, he liked to load it up with all the fixings, and Narumi reckoned a Japanese-style spread would be more apropos for the locale—and easier to get ingredients for, especially at this time of year—than the kind of yoshoku he’d favor from Ryugu or Tawara-ya back home. Might make Raidou more comfortable, too, sticking to the old reliables.
A dame right in that lacuna between middle-aged and elderly was manning the shop, a younger gal in an apron occasionally bustling into view behind her; Narumi fished out his wallet before he even reached the counter, hoping having cash in hand would show the owner he meant to do business and get out of her hair.
“Good morning, madam.” Narumi put on his most affable smile, tipping his hat. “Fine weather, isn’t it? How much would some firm tofu run me?”
“You have a queer aura,” the dame said, narrowing her eyes at him—or at something behind him, maybe, but that was just plain superstitious of him. Most of the villagers weren’t Summoners, Raidou had insisted—most of them didn’t even have the potential, and chances are she wasn’t seeing anything but an overdressed fop she didn’t like the look of.
Narumi winced, though he tried not to let his smile falter. “All the same, I’d really like to buy some tofu.”
“Seiko!” the woman barked to the girl in the back, then gave Narumi another conspicuous look-over, from his hat to his Italian leather shoes. “What for?”
He had to appreciate the audacity, really. What for. What nefarious designs could a man have on a block of tofu? “I’m staying with a good friend of mine up the hill, and I thought I’d make myself useful and run a few errands. Now, how much do I owe?”
That earned him the full attention of Seiko—seventeen or eighteen, he’d peg her at, a slip of a thing with a round face that made her look even younger and a red ribbon in her hair.
“Auntie!” she chirped, darting over to the owner and whispering, almost too loudly to be worthy of the word, “That man was with Jo—with Master Raidou!”
The old girl thawed instantly. It figured, really—Narumi couldn’t pretend it didn’t rankle him a little sometimes, the way Raidou just effortlessly commanded respect from anyone who knew the name, but here, of all places, he couldn’t really take too much offense at it.
He had to say, when she started breaking out the “honorable guest of the Kuzunoha clan” act, he thought she was laying it on a bit thick—but it got him his tofu at a hell of a bargain, with an extra block for his trouble.
As much as it hurt his pride, Narumi dropped Raidou’s name at the first opportunity at every other shop he stopped by, as soon as anyone had the chance to look at him funny. Like pulling rank, he tried to think of it—and it got the job done. He even talked his way into borrowing a few woven bags to carry everything in, and good thing, too, since he hated the thought of what a fool he’d look trying to balance all this in two arms.
One and a half, really. The bags were heavy enough to really remind him that he wasn’t in the shape he used to be already, his right shoulder in particular throbbing in protest by the time he made it halfway back to the old house.
At least it was until one of the bags of groceries was yanked out of his grip by nothing at all.
“H-hey!” Narumi yelped as the bag hovered weightlessly in midair, just above his eye level. A demon—it had to be a demon, Raidou had warned him they were particularly active around these parts. And sure, he’d also said the ones in the village were mischievous more than dangerous, but that didn’t mean there weren’t exceptions.
His hand twitched for his gun, but if this thing meant to hurt him, it’d have more than enough of a time to get it done with by the time he managed to hit something he couldn’t see, never mind that he’d be shooting with his bum arm.
The bag shook in the air, as if the thing holding it was laughing, and suddenly sped off in the wrong direction. Cursing, Narumi adjusted his hold on the bags he was still carrying, the sudden imbalance even more awkward as he sprinted after it.
The invisible demon led him around in circles for what felt like ages; it probably wasn’t more than ten minutes, but Narumi was panting for breath by the the end of it, his good arm aching nearly as much as his bad one. He couldn’t seem to close the distance between him and the flying bag, but it never got that far away from him, either—like it was taunting him, staying just out of reach.
As Narumi was seriously considering giving up and taking the loss, though, a familiar voice called out behind him.
“Muu Shuwuu!”
Narumi swung around just in time to see Raidou with one of his tubes in hand, a bright green light shining through the glass. He muttered some incantation or other under his breath, and the light brightened, then went out.
By the time Narumi realized what he was seeing and remembered the bag, now in midair with no demon to hold it up, Raidou had somehow, miraculously, already dove to catch it without a single vegetable falling out—and without Gouto falling off his shoulders. Narumi had no idea how he could move so damn fast—and so damn gracefully, for that matter—but he wasn’t about to complain about the help—or the show.
“I’m sorry,” Raidou said, straightening that hat of his as he stood up, the bag clutched protectively to his chest. His color was high, flush practically glowing on his pale skin, and he seemed a little out of breath himself. Gouto meowed, probably saying something about the acrobatics, Narumi reckoned, but Raidou ignored him. “I only let her out for some fresh air—I looked away for a second and she got away from me—”
“Hey,” Narumi cut in, trying to keep his own breathing steady, like this wasn’t more than a little light exercise for him. “No harm, no foul, right?”
Raidou looked down, fidgeting with the brim of his hat the way he always did when he was embarrassed.
“Sorry,” he mumbled again. Narumi patted his shoulder.
“Everything go well with your, uh—secret Kuzunoha business?”
Raidou nodded solemnly, but then his eyes widened; he glanced from the bag in his hands to Narumi and back several times, as if he’d just realized what it was he was holding. “You bought all this?”
“What do you sound so surprised for?” Narumi huffed, flicking Raidou’s forehead—or, well, the brim over his forehead, but he flinched as if the thing was actually connected to him. “We’re gonna need a meal or two, and the groceries weren’t going to buy themselves. I can be reliable, you know?”
Raidou glanced to Gouto expectantly, but the cat just stared at Narumi with those big green eyes, totally silent. A few lines of tension relaxed in Raidou’s face, and he holstered his tube and reached for the bag Narumi was still holding with his free hand.
“I’ll carry these the rest of the way,” he said.
As much as he longed to give his arms a break, Narumi shifted out of reach, leaving Raidou grabbing at empty air. Surely he wasn’t still out of breath enough for it to be that obvious. “Come on, you don’t need to do that.”
Raidou stared at him.
And stared.
And stared.
“Narumi-san,” he said insistently, and Narumi sighed heavily, holding out the bag. Raidou took it, and how inadequate it made Narumi feel seeing the way he carried the bags like nothing—with those skinny arms of his, too!—was all worth it for a peek at the rare, sly smile on his face.
Lest Raidou get too smug, though, Narumi squished down his cap—ruffling his hair without being able to actually get to it, because he knew better than to think he’d get that particular treat again any time soon. Raidou’s breath hitched in surprise, and he tried to shake Narumi’s hand off without actually having a free hand to swat him away. This accomplished exactly nothing but jostling an unhappy Gouto, who promptly said—meowed—something that made Raidou grimace.
“How many times do I have to tell you,” Narumi started, and a little of that flush came back to Raidou’s face.
“To loosen up,” Raidou finished wearily, looking determinedly away from Narumi and Gouto both and down into the contents of the bags. “What did you buy for dinner?”
Narumi gave him the rundown—the staples, rice and tea and soy sauce and katsuobushi, miso and scallions and, of course, the tofu, salmon and pork and sweet potatoes, so on and so on—to curiosity turned rapt attention, until Raidou actually looked impressed, and, miracle of miracles, even happy. He was a man of few words at the best of times, but by the time they made that last trek up the hill to the house, he was gabbing away as freely as he ever did about what sides they could make later that evening and what he needed to start preparing how far in advance.
Narumi always appreciated those few easy minutes he could tease out, when the weight of the world lifted off Raidou’s shoulders and he actually looked the part of a painfully earnest nineteen year old who got excited about how the miso from his hometown was just better than in the city, who’d needed coaxing to try a couple cups of sake mere months shy of twenty even though he knew a dozen ways to kill a man and a dozen more to make him wish for it.
Narumi had known young men like that, in his Army days. Maybe he could say he’d been a man like that once, though he struggled to assign himself any virtue he saw in Raidou, like doing so was an insult. He’d been a damn good soldier, and for a couple precious years he’d believed, on some abstract level, that he was fighting for something noble, but he’d still spent cold nights in Vladivostok trading around the booze and cigs and porn that spread among the barracks ecosystem like a disease, their own kind of capitalism built on contraband and rations and sexual favors all the boys would put up if it meant they had something to keep them warm through the uncaring winter.
He was pretty sure he was actually drunk at the time when the Kempei scouted him, which said everything it needed to about Raidou being made from better stuff than he was at nineteen. And Raidou knew it, too; he said things sometimes—things he claimed to be passing on from Gouto, but a guy had to wonder—about Narumi being a bad influence on him, and Narumi couldn’t deny that. But the thing was—sure, the Army and the things he’d seen, the things he’d done, had chewed up and spat out Shouhei Kudou in shreds, but Narumi had already had enough wrong in him to let that man die and make something he could (sometimes) accept was halfway decent of himself from what was left of him.
The truly good men went down harder, and most of them didn’t get back up. The idealists bent and bent to the party line until some of them snapped and some of them were so twisted their own mothers wouldn’t know them. The staunch moralists died, or ended up as good as. Narumi didn’t want that for Raidou. He wanted him to keep that spark, to stay bright eyed and hopeful even when he was the one thing holding the whole damn world together. To keep the principles to do the right thing even when it wasn’t what he was told, and the guts to face the consequences if anyone—man or god or giant demon insect—didn’t like him sticking true to what he believed in. To keep thinking about the little things even when he’d folded on much worse, because he never got jaded enough to stop caring.
To still be, even when he was as old and gray as Geirin and Narumi’s time as his handler-guardian-partner was no doubt long in the past, the kind of guy who’d slice his way through an undead army to save a washed-up old fool who didn’t want to be saved.
If that made him a bad influence, well—Narumi wasn’t the type for blind loyalty anymore, and if Raidou ever wanted an out, there wasn’t a thing he wouldn’t risk to give him one, or a thing he wouldn’t risk to make sure Raidou knew he could ask.
Now, though—Narumi watched with mild wonderment as Raidou ordered one of his demons to chill the old icebox in the kitchen so the meat would stay fresh without having to get ice to keep it on.
“It’s forbidden to use demons for your own personal benefit,” Raidou said, glancing conspiratorially over his shoulder. “but since it will keep you from getting sick as well, I’m protecting a citizen of the Capital.”
Gouto meowed, though Narumi couldn’t so much as guess if it was positive or negative. He grinned either way.
“Sounds perfectly reasonable to me.”
After he’d stripped out of his cape and gear, Raidou dragged a battered charcoal grill out to the porch, and they grilled up one block of the tofu and what vegetables he didn’t have designs on for dinner as a light lunch. Raidou whipped up a dipping sauce out of nothing but soy sauce, sake and katsuobushi that was somehow impossibly flavorful; he swore that the local soy sauce, too, was simply better than what they could get in the city, and by now Narumi was starting to see his point.
Even as the sun reached its peak, the weather was still just on the edge between pleasantly brisk and properly chilly, but they ate outside anyway, the radiating heat from the grill keeping them warm. Raidou blew on his food to cool it down, a fact that Narumi had noticed before with the same frank endearment every time. Partway through the meal he, bafflingly, grilled a thick slice of daikon and threw it into the dry grass—or at least it was baffling until something Narumi couldn’t see snatched up the daikon and disappeared into the deeper shrubbery with its prize.
“A tsuchinoko,” Raidou explained when he caught Narumi gawking. “They’re poisonous, but they don’t attack humans unless they’re defending themselves.”
Narumi whistled lowly, staring at the bush where the tsuchinoko had fled and wondering how Raidou could make feeding a mythical demon snake seem so mundane. “I won’t pick any fights, then.”
Raidou looked him up and down. “I think you could beat a tsuchinoko.”
Gouto, chowing down on a piece of kabocha squash, meowed something muffled.
“Not just if he could see it,” Raidou retorted. “They’re very slow.”
“You could have a little more faith in me,” Narumi said. He tried to be straight-faced about it, he really did, but he caught himself grinning before he could stop it. “Come on! I could beat a demon that’s only fairly slow.”
That got him one of those rare smiles in return, before Raidou got shy about it and tugged his hat down to hide it.
“My predecessor—my great-uncle,” Raidou started, and Narumi wished he understood the Kuzunoha family dynamics enough to get the significance behind his choice of words, “always told me not to feed them, because then they’d keep coming back and he was the one who’d have to fight them off if they caused trouble. I’d sneak things when I was little, but I kept getting caught, and I didn’t want to make him angry.”
He blew on a chunk of kabocha of his own, looking out into the distance.
“But that doesn’t matter anymore,” he said. “So I thought… there’s no reason not to.”
Ee janai ka, indeed. Why not. How fitting was it, that Raidou’s idea of hedonism was still doing something kind?
Narumi patted him on the shoulder. “What do they look like?”
Raidou blinked at him. “You know what tsuchinoko look like.”
“In stories! I’ve never seen one,” Narumi wheedled. “C’mon, Raidou, be a doll and throw the poor layman a bone here.”
Raidou huffed at his tone, but he didn’t protest any further, launching into an academic description of the common tsuchinoko, which led to an explanation of all the local demons he’d grown up alongside. The family of kitsune in the mountains, ethereal and reclusive shapeshifters with whom the founding Kuzunohas—Raidou’s own mother’s kin—shared blood, who had once helped Raidou find his way back to the village when he’d gotten lost in the mountains as a tyke. The chou-keshin that fluttered around graves at night and would keep the deathly ill company in their final days, wrongly called foul omens. The kodama and sudama whose laughter could always be heard from the foothills if you knew what to listen for. The kappa who’d moved into a nearby pond when Raidou was thirteen and had a years-long rivalry with the local fishermen.
Not being able to see all the creatures of the night and what have you had never been something Narumi regretted, at least not for any other reason than that he didn’t like the idea of something he couldn’t see being able to kill him. Hearing Raidou talk about this whole other world that was so normal to him, though, made it feel like a bit of a shame that he’d never properly be part of it.
He’d become a more credulous sort since falling in with Yatagarasu, naturally—it was hard to be a skeptic once he knew, at least on an academic level, that all that horse hockey was actually true—but he still looked for the answers he could properly wrap his head around, when it came down to it. He’d have seen a kid with an overactive imagination finding his way home through his own wits. The old and dying hallucinating dames with wings to comfort them. Funny tricks of the wind, rustling the bushes just right. Fishermen getting tied up in knots about a superstition. Simple, logical, scientific, like a proper modern gent—the kind of fella who went to one of the big universities, who only went abroad to study and widen his perspective on the human condition, not some wastrel of an only son who was going to be a nameless country carpenter before he got it in his head that the Army would let someone as insignificant as him make a difference.
But it was moments like these when he realized that, for all the disquiet it brought him, for all the danger and horror that kept him up at night wondering if each time Raidou picked up his sword would be the last—it wasn’t all bad. The world Raidou lived in was magical.