Sugar Rush

 “It's in moments like these that I wanna eat.” grumbled Lu.

The group, sullen and withdrawn, was making its way back through the forest. This was the first time their silent bubble had been ruptured since they'd witnessed Henrietta's magical girl voyage. Until now, it had been a couple hours of walking tongue-tied.

“We don't get hungry, Lu” Inês reminded her mechanically.

“I know, I didn't say I was.” she clarified. “Just that I wish I could eat… you know, my feelings.”

“That's healthy.” ironized Marcel in a hoarse voice.

They kept marching in silence.

The snow was falling sideways along the frigid wind. Debuu-ni was leading the march, Marcel and Jin a little ways away; Inês was behind them, Lu by her side. Lu would look at Inês with a worried look now and then, something she'd been doing more and more since Inês had cried to her over the tanuki's death. Inês never caught those glances; she was always walking with her head looking straight ahead, her eyes not really looking, more so seeing. That's why she didn't notice Lu wondering off to a gnarled tree obscured by snow-blanketed branches. There was stillness as the group continued to advance, leaving Lu behind. Then, there was a sudden, blood-curling scream that chopped the woods' silence in half. Inês turned around, her head searching where to look, but Lu was nowhere to be found. They heard her again.

“Help me!” she yelled.

Lu was up in a tree branch, balancing against the void pulling at her from under. On the tree alongside her, a giant man's head dangled by its hair from a branch near the trunk. He snickered and advanced slowly toward Lu, slamming his jaw opened as if to signal he wanted to eat her. Lu's eyes widened and she screamed louder. She gave the head a kick to the eye which pushed him back some and blinded him, but also made her lose her balance. She fell, now hanging only by her hands.

“Do something!” she pleaded.

Inês and Marcel grabbed whatever they could find: rocks and branches, which they started throwing willy-nilly at the head. Meanwhile, Jin started climbing the tree bit by bit, trying to get to Lu. During this scene, a haze of glimmering ivory and scarlet flashes dashed through the chaos with precision. Debuu-ni rocketed up to the branch, its eyes glowing red, and scorched the creature mid-air. There was a low, brutal shriek, and the head fell in a ball of fire to the ground. Marcel jumped to Inês, getting her out of the way in-extremis. The relic of the head, charred black, stood at their feet, fuming. Inês looked at Marcel.

“Thank you.” she said.

“Anytime.”

Jin got to Lu in time. Their hands clasped and he helped her up the branch. A few minutes later, she was down the tree, more shaken than hurt. Inês caught her breath. She gave Lu a warm, long hug.

“You're here.” said Lu.

“We are.”

She broke the embrace and looked at Lu with tears in her eyes.

“What happened?” she asked.

“I was just walking when I saw these.” she said, showing a handful of brightly colored, star-shaped candies. “They were at the base of that tree. I was picking them up when that thing caught me.”

“That thing was a tsurube-otoshi.” said Debuu-ni. “They trick people into approaching their trees and drop down on them. Usually they leave coins, but it probably heard you wanted food earlier so it got you that.”

“It's konpeitō.” said Lu sheepishly. “It's originally from Portugal, I think.”

She held out her hand with a hangdog smile, and every one took a star. There was quietude as they crunched on the hard sweets.

“So...” asked Inês in a didactic tone. “What does it taste like to you?”

“Hum... nothing?” answered Lu.

“Exactly! Nothing tastes like anything in this world, you know that!”

She shook Lu around a bit and brought her in for another hug. When she let go, Inês turned to Debuu-ni.

“We'll have some more things to talk about tomorrow.” she said.

The bug noded vigourosly, its pompon shaking as it did.

 “This world is working against us, let's see if there's anything we can do about it.”

Ashes of the tsurube-otoshi danced on the breeze like dark snow as they followed Debuu-ni out of the blackening forest like a north star.

They didn't stay in the shrine that night. Instead, they went back to the House of Still Waters. They didn't trust Debuu-ni fully and they didn't plan on going back to pretending like everything was fine, but they had a new mission now: they were going to put an end to this world and to Truck-kun's reign of terror, and for that they would need to join forces.

That evening, they didn't pretend to enjoy dinner together and they didn't have a late-night debrief of that day's events; everyone went directly to their rooms and Debuu-ni stayed in the dining room. But, later in the night, they all shared a dream of her, walking barefoot among a sea of stars: Henrietta.