Chapter Text
“Why the hell do I gotta take care of it?" Momo shouted at her grandmother.
Sprawled out on the floor, one hand holding a kiseru, and the other one flipping through pages in a book, was the infamous priestess of ancient Kamigoe who snorted at her reading. Yes, this silver-haired woman without a singular wrinkle on her glass skin was Momo's grandmother. No, not mother. No, not sister. An old granny who couldn't be bothered to check up on the mountains for a certain yokai who had been terrorizing the village.
"Hello?!"
Seiko glanced over her shoulder, glasses lowered on her nose as she stared at her granddaughter in boredom. "Because I said so, now go make yourself useful and take care of that thing."
Momo gaped as Seiko turned her attention back to her book, flipping yet another page with a cackle. The young girl—who had actual plans that did not involve anything spiritual—stomped towards her grandmother, snatching the book that had been spread open on the floor with a scowl.
"I haven't even unlocked my spiritual powers yet," Momo groused.
"Then this'll be good practice, now give me back my novel you ungrateful brat," Seiko muttered, reaching out for the book without much effort, the sleeve of her yukata sliding down as a result.
"And if I die, then what?" Momo asked in return, lowering herself on her knees to challenge her grandmother in the eye.
Upon closer distance, Seiko was able to steal the damned thing back out of Momo’s hands and bonked it right over the head of her ingrate grandchild. "You won't die, now get going before I decide not to feed you tonight."
Momo knew that her grandmother was fibbing. She would never let her starve and didn't usually use food as a threat, which only meant that she was real serious about this whole yokai thing. With a huff and rubbing her head from where her grandmother had smacked the wobbly pages over her hair, Momo stood on her feet with a slight slouch.
She had escaped many other attempts surrounding her grandmother's practice as a priestess—if she could even be called a priestess. Momo didn't exactly take history courses, it wasn't included in her Granny's elite schooling, but she was sure priestesses weren't supposed to have lineal kin. Either way, Momo didn't see anything exciting to such a career path, or rewarding, considering how the others in her village saw them. But, it seemed Momo had no other choice.
Averting Granny's eyes, the young girl crossed her arms. "I'm still not taking over your shrine duties, y'know. Not sure if you're aware, but I ain't exactly the best example of a shrine maiden."
Seiko took a huff out of her kiseru. "I'm aware. But while you're under my roof, you'll do as I say."
Groaning, Momo lethargically made her way towards the doors of the Ayase residence.
***
"Stupid yokai, stupid mountain," Momo muttered as she made her way up the mountain Granny sent her to. It wasn't a far walk from the shrine to reach the bottom of said mountain; Reaching the top was another story.
The hike up the stone steps wasn't so bad. In fact, Momo would argue that it was even scenic. The mountain forest was full of trees so flushed, it was easy for her to appreciate the spring season. Even the afternoon sun was bright and dazzling on her face with every step of the way. The sounds of chirping birds, a stream of water rushing down somewhere nearby, leaves creating a shadow of cool breeze over her sweating face. It was all easy to grasp, making her feel confident even if she did underpack the amount of talisman she would need if she really ran into a yokai.
And then that sun started setting right as she ran into the last manmade step up the mountain hike. If it wasn’t for the flattened grass beneath her geta, she would have no clue which path was the safest up the mountain. Suddenly, every sound was a wild boar that wanted to eat her, and the wind, which had once been comforting, had become a chill down her spine.
She was grateful, however, that the moon had been at its fullest, shining down light upon her path. The shadows of tree branches began to look a little discomforting as her mind made out shapes of wrinkly hands that could have easily been some sort of shadow yokai.
“No, no, relax, Momo,” she said to herself, shaking her head making her unruly bangs bounce about. She slapped her cheeks twice, gently, as she took a deep breath. “It’s probably a false sighting, anyway.”
Gathering her senses, Momo adjusted the cloth bag over her shoulder and clenched her fist with a bright smile. Yeah! A false sighting is all. How would the villagers even know there was a yokai up the mountain if it seemed no human had ever been up here before anyway? Maybe this was just Granny’s way of warning her of…something, she didn’t know yet, but she was sure she’d return home to complain about it.
And just as that line of thought comforted her back to her senses, a loud shout made her stiffen. A screaming man came running down from the mountain, almost toppling her down with him. Thankful for her strength, she grabbed onto the man’s shoulders and pushed him off her as he landed on his rear before her.
“What the hell?” she said in return, dusting off the sleeves of her kimono before leveling her gaze at the man. “You totally scared me!”
Her eyes widened at his state, the bald-spotted man much older than her scrambled back on his feet, a singular hand out as he shook his head. “D-Don’t hurt me! Please!”
Feeling a little bit bad now, Momo put her hands up. She did push him after all. “Hey, I’m not gonna hurt you.”
Still shaking, the man fumbled backwards, his hand slipping on and his head hitting a tree trunk behind him. Momo glanced at the direction he had come from, not realizing he had run from the very way she was destined to reach.
Well, shit.
“I-I don’t believe you, you’re p-probably working with that…that…thing!”
“Thing?” Momo repeated with a long blink. A sudden groan came out of her lips, her shoulders falling as she realized that this yokai was probably very much real. She might as well be kissing her life goodbye. “Look, I’m a…” Shrine maiden? Priestess? “...I was sent here from a shrine in Kamigoe.”
The man’s eyes widened, slowly standing to his feet. “You’re a priestess?”
“Something like that,” Momo replied, before realizing she was not wearing her spirit medium attire. Not that she would wear it if she had the choice. Momo sighed. “Look. I’m here to deal with whatever attacked you, so could you at least give me a little heads up before I get to the top?”
The man shook his head, his eyes darkening and Momo realized his legs were still shaking. “It was like nothing I’ve ever seen before…a…kid—”
Momo let out a snort, “You were scared of a kid?”
“No! It’s not like that! His energy—the way he-he grabbed me…” the man began his tale, his hands flying up to his neck before raising his voice. “That thing’s a monster!”
Momo rolled her eyes, tension leaving her body as she realized she was likely dealing with a low level yokai. Maybe it was a kappa or something of the sort. Not that she really knew all much about them, just the bare minimum to not die on her way home from running errands.
“Yeah, yeah.” Momo waved away the man as she continued her way up, only for him to grab onto her wrist with so much strength it could have broken her wrist. “Hey! What’s the big de—”
As she turned to the man, a gasp was caught in her throat. Upon closer look, his neck had very well been clawed at, blood smeared on his clothing and beard. And his eyes were so lacking of any light that it made her swallow. “You musn’t—”
“You’re creeping me out,” Momo broke her hand out of his grasp, frowning as the man's hands began to shake anew. “I think I got this under control.”
The man’s mouth opened and closed before averting his eyes. Momo couldn’t help but raise a brow as he clasped his hands together. He clearly wasn’t going to let this go. Momo pinched the bridge of her nose. “Fine. If you’re so scared of me going alone, then you can join—”
At the mere prospect of going back up, the man turned on his heel, sprinting down the mountain. Momo stared in disbelief as he practically rolled down. He put up such a show for what? But the annoyance quickly wore off as she started up the path of what could have been her doom.
With every lingering step, Momo’s heartbeat kept spiking. It felt as if it were to burst out her chest and it didn’t help that fog had somehow started to come out of nowhere.
Granny wouldn’t…let her die right? No, of course not. What was she thinking? Her own fear started to act against her, her brows furrowing in anger that she would even doubt in someone who raised her.
After all, the whole reason she was completely useless in this situation was because she constantly denied Granny’s teachings over and over again. Because some dumb boy thought it was stupid? Was she insane?...Was this pre-mortem guilt she was feeling? Was her inevitable death making her relive her life in seven minutes like rumored?
“Get a hold of yourself,” she whispered beneath her breath as a cold breeze slipped through her kimono making her shiver.
Her eyes, which were staring at the patch of grass beneath her feet, lifted slowly towards the curve that was the top of the mountain. The fog was wrapped around the scattered trees that had not grown out their leaves despite the season, and a sudden cold dread ran down her spine as she stepped into the fog, closer and closer on the flat of the curve.
She clutched onto her bag, digits wrapped around a paper talisman as she looked at seemingly nothing around that would warrant a man scattering down the mountain. Unbeknownst to her, a black shadow darted around her, avoiding her gaze in every direction she stared at.
With a dry throat, Momo shouted, “H-Hello?”
Complete silence. Momo looked back and forth, now fully clutching the talisman. And slowly, the fog itself started dissipating. Upon not hearing anything, her shoulders dropped, and her jaw unclenched. With a slight tilt of her head, a laugh escaped from her lips as she spoke to herself, her hand letting go of the talisman completely.
“Guess he was just imagining things,” she said to herself with a smile as she turned back down the path of the mountain.
And then, she froze.
Bright red eyes stared straight at her as the fog thinned. A beat of silence passed. The eyes came closer revealing a large black mask adorned with sharp teeth, a clear cut yokai hovering right over Momo.
Her own jaw hanging in midair, Momo stared at it in increasing fear. She took a slight step back before completely falling on her back, something causing her to slip. It was only then that Momo reacted, her adrenaline rushing through her blood as a laying figure forced her to act quick.
Completely unconscious and lying on the ground was a much older woman with wrinkles all over her face, a real granny, whose gray hair was splattered all over her face. No way, Momo thought as the yokai came a step closer and her heart caught in her throat, this was…a sacrifice?
And then her mind flashed to the man she ran into earlier, and a firelike anger ran through her veins. Before she could even think, Momo reached for the old lady. A wrong choice, according to this yokai, as its flame-like hair completely spiked, his gray face turning into something more akin to a monster than human, red eyes now gouging out round and yellow.
Because Momo was still human and terrified, she let out a scream, as she somehow managed to carry the woman over her shoulder, and ran down the mountain path.
Momo never understood tunnel vision until now, as her ankles begged her to stop running, the trees around her becoming like black angled lines. Her chest was going to explode. She could hear the footsteps of the yokai following behind her. And then, he was right in front of her.
She screamed as her geta dug into the earth to stop her body from completely flailing over. She had almost dropped the old lady in her arms as she took a step back. The monstrous creature had a completely different form than the one she first saw, his skin completely red now, and limbs much longer—aged and wrinkled.
“What could you possibly want from this lady, you hag?” Momo mustered the courage to say, remembering when Granny had told her that certain yokai enjoyed challenges. Maybe she could talk her way out of this whole mess. “You out here terrorizing the elderly?”
The voice came out croaky, like a woman with a sore throat mixed with a tone of a demon.
“You’re stupid if ya think you can outrun me,” it said, stepping closer to Momo as the girl tightened her hold on the grandmother in her arms. “Don’t ya know who I am?”
Momo looked at the creature with disdain, a smirk coming to her face as she scoffed. “Couldn’t tell you even if I tried.”
The yokai’s form completely changed once more, its face becoming larger than its body as its yellow teeth enlarged along with its nose, a roaring fire in its voice. “You spoiled kids! Always disrespecting your elders!”
“I know someone who might just agree with you, but she’d exorcise you back to the hell you came from, you old hag,” Momo said in-return, hoping and praying that the yokai hadn’t realized she had slipped her hand into her bag for a talisman.
“I’ll gobble you for lunch!”
Furrowing her brows, Momo quickly fell to the ground, enveloping herself around the old lady she carried. As the yokai sped down, opening its big mouth to swallow them whole, Momo flashed the talisman at it and for a brief second, its face completely changed, its exterior cracking to reveal a more humanoid face, a semblance of a round human eye staring down at Momo with absolute horror.
Jerking backwards, Momo watched in complete confusion as the yokai limbs started attacking itself, clawing at its face. It wriggled about, screaming at itself, voice pitching up and down.
“Do…on’t hurt…her—Stay down you brat—S-Stop this!”
Whatever was happening, Momo wouldn’t miss the opportunity to further dash down the mountain, talisman in hand. She ran with her heart racing against her chest, not knowing whether that yokai would return to its senses, and looked at the talisman in her hand whilst the old lady rested over her shoulder.
The paper talisman was still completely white and unused, kanji completely intact. Its effects had not overtaken the yokai, so why the hell was it acting so strangely? Her inspection came to halt as she stupidly tripped over the stone steps that helped her up the mountain previously.
“No!” Momo shouted, as she clung onto the lady on her shoulder with as much strength as she could muster. And then she rolled down the steps, feeling her skin graze every surface of her body. She wouldn’t be surprised if her kimono had completely torn considering how it saved her from possibly scraping her skin off.
Her head banged against the ground, her vision dazed as she came to an ungraceful slam against a tree. Despite her accumulating pain, she forced her wobbly legs up, her arms barely able to carry the old lady.
The elder’s chest still rose and fell, offering little comfort to Momo as she could barely make her way out the forest mountain. It’s alright, she thought as she took a step forward, noticing the village in the distance from the torches of the night. That’s right, the village isn’t too—
Momo’s eyelids started to feel increasingly heavy, and if she thought she felt impending doom before, now she only felt the comfort of home. Her parents? She was surprised she still remembered their faces…no, not faces, their voices…and then…her village friends, Miko and Muko, and…Granny…
She’s going to be so pissed.
“Momo, remember firm up your lower abs—”
Momo’s swaying stopped for the briefest of seconds.
“—and imagine your chi, shooting up above your head.”
“Sorry, Granny,” she mumbled, her eyes tearing up as the same red-skinned yokai somehow appeared in front of her anew, grabbing her by the neck.
And then her vision brightened.
A loud scream ruptured her ears, her senses heightened, and suddenly she was able to breathe again. Eyes widened, Momo realized that the yokai had been flung into a tree so hard, it created a dent within the bark.
“What…the?” Momo looked down at her hands, a slight blue glowing from them and then she turned towards the yokai whose center was glowing a deep red meshed with black.
“What dirty tricks did ya pull, you brat?!” the yokai screamed at her as the corner of Momo’s mouth twitched upwards.
“My powers,” Momo said, a slight gasp coming out of her throat. “I did it!”
The yokai got to its feet, snarling at her. “Powers or not, I’m still gonna beat the shit out of you!”
“I’d like to see you try,” Momo finally said, finding the confidence to stand on her own two feet as the yokai came dashing towards her.
With a singular kick, Momo could feel the energy wrap around her leg. A smug grin painted her face as her leg slammed right through the yokai’s face and sent it flying right into the ground. The yokai’s body dragged through the dirt, rolling around as Momo turned back to the old lady, thinking of setting her up against a tree. And just with that thought, a large teal hand reached the old woman and did just as Momo visualized.
The yokai—who had tried to get up by its forearms against the ground—met a similar fate with a large teal hand pinning it to the ground. It let out a groan as Momo stepped towards it, grinning as she looked down at the creature.
Unconsciously,—or, consciously—the hand dug the yokai deeper into the ground as Momo reached its side. She stared down at it, tilting her head. “You were saying, you old bat?”
The yokai wiggled beneath the hand, shouting obscenities that sounded like music to Momo’s ears. Plucking another talisman from her bag, grateful that she did, indeed, pack enough, she lowered herself to the ground, bending her knees.
She let out a sound of triumph and the paper talisman flung in between her fingers. “See ya.”
“W-Wait!” the yokai howled, earning a raised brow from Momo. It shook its head before breaking into a wicked grin. “You’ll kill the kid with that, ya damned idiot.”
“The ki—?” Momo's sentence was interrupted by her memory. That man who left that poor old woman on the mountain had also mentioned a kid. She looked at the yokai whose grin fell as the spiritual hand dug them deeper into the ground. “Where are they?”
“I’ll never tell you, brat,” it said before letting out a cackle. “But you kill me, you kill the boy.”
Momo’s finger twitched, uncertain as to whether or not she wanted to believe the yokai’s words. She let out a scoff. “If he’s working with you, I doubt he’s that kind.”
“He’s in this body!” the yokai shouted before Momo could slam that talisman over her forehead; It was barely inches apart from it.
The yokai smiled to itself, a wicked grin knowing that the ace up its sleeve would work against this fake priestess girl. Momo, faced with an obvious conflict of beliefs, not realizing she would actually see the boy die in front of her, let out a groan, dragging her hands through her hair. As a result of her emotions, the teal hand once again crushed the body down against the ground.
The yokai let out another screech and Momo stared at it, pained with the freedom of choice, as her brows lifted in conjunction. The red aura in the chest looked as if it were dimming as her psychic hand—powers, whatever—closed in on it.
“You wouldn’t mind being my psychic experiment, right?” Momo asked rhetorically as the yokai widened its eyes.
“What’re you gonna do—”
“Thought so,” Momo only said, forcing her psychic hands to clasp over the aura within the body’s ribcage. The teal hands copied the movements of her physical body and as it did so, she jolted from how incredibly cold the aura felt for something appearing so flame-like.
The yokai’s scream died in its throat and Momo blinked at how rapidly its form changed in front of her. The crimson skin and sharp teeth seemed to retract within the body as it had never been there in the first place, revealing the shape of a scrawny boy that looked to be around the same age as her. Frizzy white hair completely changed its shape to soft dark waves that stuck onto the forehead of this boy whose face winced.
“Huh?” Momo said to herself, taking careful steps towards the boy who was now sprawled on the floor. “Y-You okay?”
The boy turned his head towards Momo’s voice, and she watched carefully as he tried to open his mouth but couldn’t bring himself to speak, eyes shut closed. Letting out an uncertain sound from the back of her throat, Momo kneeled down next to him, careful not to let go of the aura in the palms of her hand.
“Hey, you alive?” Momo asked again, careful as she kept the aura in one of her clenched fists, and used a free hand to shake the boy awake.
Her eyes widened as she now caught glimpses of pink radiating amongst red in the aura she held in her hands. Before she could question it, the boy opened his eyes and Momo turned her attention back on him.
And then she remembered those big round eyes, human-like, the ones that looked at her on the way down the mountain as it fought itself for control. They were warm, deep and brown. His glance conveying some sort of…relief? Comfort?
He looked over at her, his body covered in dirt, his own kimono teared apart, his haori barely surviving Momo’s beatdown. And yet he somehow found himself sitting up, a hand clutching onto his cheek, swollen from where Momo had kicked his yokai form in the face.
“I-I’m so sorry!” he frantically shouted, waving his free hand around in a frenzy.
Momo let out a sigh of relief. He wasn’t dead, or possessed. Not entirely, she supposed. Laughing awkwardly at the fact that she almost killed this vaguely unthreatening boy, Momo waved away his apology.
“Hey, relax, I’m the one who should be apologizing, I almost killed you,” Momo attempted to soothe him as the boy stiffened his shoulders.
He averted his gaze, and patted his kimono before pulling out a pair of wiry glasses, setting them over his nose. Momo snorted as the lenses sat lopsided on his face. He looked like a dork. A dork with a devil inside him…
“Please, forgive me!” the boy said, leaning into her as he fiddled with the rim of his glasses.
Momo pulled herself back to give them space, an awkward smile starting at her face. “ I already said you’re fine—”
“But that could have gone so much worse if you hadn’t—” the boy paused, looking around at his surroundings: The forest encompassing the start of the mountain, the old lady resting against a tree, the dent in the ground they found themselves in because of the strength of Momo’s psychic abilities. He looked back at her, pushing the bridge of his glasses up his nose. “ —What exactly did you do?”
“Oh, uhm,” Momo stared at the spiritual hand clutching the aura in this boy’s chest. A smile came from her lips as she looked at the dark-haired kid with a head tilt. “I’m a psychic.”
He narrowed his eyes on her. “That’s not a thing.”
“Of course that’s a thing you damned idiot, I’m the one who saved your sorry ass!” Momo shouted at him as a teal hand smacked the back of his head. “A yokai literally possessed you.”
“Yokai are just tangible creatures, much like bears and snakes!” the kid fought back, rubbing the back of his head as he leaned into Momo with a glare. “It’s impossible for regular people like us to use spiritual abilities without the use of a yokai.”
“Who the hell you calling regular?!”
“You.”
“Bastard!”
Forgetting all about personal space and the danger this boy held, Momo and the possessed idiot banged foreheads, snarling at one another. And before things could take a turn for the worse as Momo grabbed onto the neck of his kimono, a low groan interrupted their screaming match.
The two turned over to where the sleeping old lady had awoken, rubbing her eyes.
***
“She’s a real granny,” Momo mumbled as they walked down the low-lit path back to the shrine run by the Ayase family.
The old lady was being carried in Momo’s teal psychic hand on one side, the boy she met earlier walking to her other side, hunched over as he held the rim of his glasses, adjusting them on his face. Momo was surprised they hadn’t broken from all the earlier impact.
The old lady, though awake for a few minutes, had promptly fallen back to sleep before she could walk her way back to the village. Momo wondered if her Granny would ever get into old woman habits like those.
“At least we were able to gather some information about her,” the boy mumbled at Momo’s side.
Momo, who still had her own hand suppressing what she seemingly believed was a curse on the boy, looked down at the gravely path beneath their feet. She knew that wars would break out here and there, amongst clans and villages and such. But she never assumed it would get as bad as abandoning one’s own mother. Did people forget about family bonds?
“Not that it’ll help,” Momo sighed, glancing up at the lady resting on the large palm of her teal hand, practically floating in midair. She frowned as she looked back at the boy who had not uttered a singular word to her about his association with the yokai. Not that she had asked.
Playfully, Momo hopped in front of him, continuing to walk down the path backwards with her hands behind her back. He looked at her with confused curiosity before moonlight reflected on his glasses, his line of sight averting her.
“So, how’s it like being cursed and junk?” Momo asked, feeling the bounce in her step. “I don’t know much about yokai, other than the basic ways to get rid of ‘em, and—”
“Uhm…Miss Ayase, was it?”
Momo tilted her head, noticing how the kid ducked his head. Shit. Did she scare him off already? Maybe talking about the yokai crap really did make him nervous. “Uh…yeah?”
He stopped in his steps and took off his haori, before handing it over to her. Momo lifted a brow as she stared at the garment.
“P-Please wear this, your kimono is practically in shreds and I uh…” his voice broke off and Momo looked down at her outfit that was—in fact—in pieces. She hadn’t even noticed the extent of the damage, and she had her under layers anyway, it wasn’t that big of a deal.
She snorted as she waved him away, “Oh, come on, I'm fine, besides, it’s not that chilly out—”
“Please,” he mumbled, scratching the back of his neck as he glanced at Momo only barely. “I’m uh…an awkward fellow, after all.”
Momo stiffened, her teal hand almost readily dropping the woman it held. She somehow got it together and managed to grip onto the woman’s waist gently before letting out an awkward chuckle.
There’s just no way he accidentally said the great samurai Ken Takaura’s slogan, she thought to herself as the two stood in complete silence for a moment. She reached out and took the haori he offered her, casually asking, “Uhm, I actually never got your name.”
“Mine?” he asked, before blinking and turning his head away. “It’s Ken.”
Momo’s arm froze midway through the sleeve of her haori.
“Ken Takakura.”