The Real Tokyo

Stretched out on her battered couch, Aoi drifted between waking and sleep, trapped in a half-fever dream where she thought she sensed a distant pulse — silver rather than gold, cold rather than warm.

Rei.

She could feel him. Faintly, like a far-off echo, but undeniably present somewhere in Tokyo.

Rousing herself from the haze, Aoi checked her smartphone.

A message from her editor-in-chief:

“What the hell are you doing? Tomorrow at noon, I want your article or bring your resignation!”

Straightforward.

She laughed — a joyless sound that died quickly in the empty room.

Her gaze dropped to the business card lying on the coffee table. An address in Akihabara.

Aoi checked the time. Ten p.m.

She had no choice — she wanted answers.

She stood, grabbed her jacket, and stepped into the Tokyo night.

An hour later, Aoi emerged from Akihabara Station.

The district exploded with color and noise — pink and blue neon blinking on every surface, overlapping anime music leaking from a dozen shops. Groups of otaku lingered in front of storefronts, tourists took selfies under manga signs, drunk salarymen staggered out of izakaya.

It was loud, chaotic, excessive.

Aoi checked the address on the card. A bar in a side alley, a few minutes away.

The alley was quieter — almost eerily silent compared to the main artery. The neon here was dimmer, older. Red paper lanterns hung in front of traditional izakaya squeezed between electronics stores.

The inside of the bar was small, intimate — a dozen seats at the counter, a few low tables, traditional décor.

And at the back, Rei was waiting. Black hoodie, dark jeans, a cap hiding his hair. He looked like any random Tokyo ikemen.

Rei gestured to the seat across from him, and Aoi sat down.

He leaned back slightly, fingers playing with a glass of whisky he apparently hadn’t touched.

“Explain,” she said softly. “Explain everything. What’s really happening in Tokyo.”

Rei studied her for a long moment, as if evaluating her. Then he nodded.

“The world changed, Mizushima-san. Humans stopped believing, and we had to adapt. Each in our own way.”

He swirled the amber liquid in his glass, watching the reflections dance.

“A hundred years ago, Tokyo was teeming with yokai. Thousands. Each with their own territory, their own nature, their own way of surviving.” His voice grew tinged with melancholy. “Now… maybe a few hundred. And not all survive the same way.”

Rei smiled bitterly.

“Some, the conservatives, refuse change. They cling to abandoned shrines, to the rare offerings from old people who still remember. They survive — barely. The weakest fade slowly, like old photographs. The others despise those of us who adapted.”

“Like you.”

“Like me.” Rei didn’t break eye contact. “Others chose to live like you do — marrying humans, raising families. They feed on the love of their wife, the admiration of their children, the respect of their colleagues.” He shrugged. “It’s a life. Not mine, but a life.”

“And the others?”

“Others found… niches.” Rei gave a faint smile. “I know someone who lives off the admiration she provokes just by walking down the street. Her beauty alone sustains her. She does nothing, asks for nothing — she simply exists, and humans fall in love with her for a few seconds.”

“That’s…” Aoi searched for the word. “Elegant?”

“That’s just Kuzunoha.” Rei’s tone was layered — respect, irritation, maybe a touch of jealousy.

He took a sip of whisky.

“And then…” He hesitated, as if brushing against something painful. “There are the Transcended.”

“The Transcended?” Aoi repeated, feeling the weight behind the word.

“Those who chose to transform themselves.” Rei’s tone turned bitter. “To alter their very nature. To become… something else. Not who they were anymore, and not what they hoped to be either. Just… other.”

His gaze drifted into emptiness.
“No one really knows what they become.” His voice softened, almost sorrowful. “Only that they never come back. Not as they were.”

He tightened his grip around his glass.
“I knew someone who made that choice.” The words were barely a whisper. “I never learned what she became.”

He shook his head as though pushing the memory away and lifted his glass with a sharp gesture.

Aoi let him change the subject.
“And you,” she said at last. “Where do you fit into all of this?”

Rei didn’t answer right away, and for the first time, she saw something like shame — or maybe just brutal honesty — in his eyes.

“Me? I’m greedy.”

Silence stretched between them — almost tangible.

“I could survive with less.” He smiled joylessly. “But I chose the entertainment industry because I enjoy it. The mass adoration. The spotlights. The feeling of being adored by tens of thousands at once.”

He leaned forward.

“I take what I need, yes. But I also take what I want. More than the bare minimum.” His voice hardened. “Stages are the new shrines. Likes, tweets, fan adoration… are the new offerings.” He raised his glass in a bitter toast. “And we — idols and celebrities — are the new gods. Gods who live through screens.”

Aoi didn’t look away.

“You control your consumption. But others…”

His expression hardened again.

“Others work for big agencies run by divinities who show no restraint. Who drain their human idols and their fans until they’re empty.”

Silence again. Aoi processed it — the complexity of a world she had barely begun to glimpse.

“And the yurei from last night,” Aoi continued after a moment.

Rei’s face darkened.

“For the past few months, something has changed. Negative emotions — hatred, obsession, jealousy — condense more easily. They take shape. They become yurei.” He set his glass down. “It never happened before. Not on this scale.”

“Why now?”

“I don’t know. But the one from last night was tracking you specifically.” His golden eyes locked onto hers. “Someone knows you’re asking questions. Someone knows about your onmyoji power. You’ve become a threat.”

The weight of that revelation crashed down on Aoi.

“Now that your purification ability has awakened, you’re dangerous to malicious yokai. They can’t afford an active onmyoji in Tokyo.”

Aoi gave a humorless laugh.

“And my options are…?”

“Together, we find who’s behind this. We stop the escalation before it gets worse.” He paused. “And you learn to control your power.”

“The Resonance,” Aoi said quietly. “Explain to me what it really is.”

Rei drew a long breath.

“It’s an almost mythical phenomenon.” He turned his empty glass in his hands. “All I know is that when a human and a yokai have compatible energies, they can… synchronize. Their energies merge and their powers amplify each other.”

“That sounds like a good thing. Doesn’t it?”

Rei’s laugh was dark.

He lifted his gaze. “The more the Resonance is used, the stronger it becomes. And the stronger it becomes, the more we grow dependent on each other. Our powers merge. Our emotions merge.” His voice dropped lower. “Our beings merge.”

The silence that followed was glacial.

“And eventually?”

“In the end, the Resonance leads to death.” No emotion in his tone. Just fact. “Either because the human body can’t contain the spiritual energy. Or because the fusion becomes so complete that both identities vanish.”

Aoi’s throat tightened.

“How long?”

“A few months. Maybe a year. It depends on intensity and frequency.” Rei looked at her with something like regret. “But eventually, we’re doomed.”

The world seemed to shrink around Aoi. Four years of drifting — and now, just when she had finally found something that gave her existence meaning, she was being told it would kill her.

Of course.

She looked at him. This ancient being who had chosen gluttony over asceticism, who embraced modernity with all its excesses, yet still held a line he refused to cross.

Who was now offering her a chance to fight.

She thought of her life. The four years spent writing empty articles. Waking up every day with the weight of a scandal she didn’t deserve. Wondering if continuing even mattered.

And now she was being offered something. Maybe not a long future. But at least… meaning.

“All right,” she said finally.

Rei blinked.

“All right?”

“Teach me how to control this power. And let’s find out who’s behind all this.” She gave a bitter smile. “At this point, I’ve got nothing left to lose…”

For the first time since the beginning of their conversation, Rei smiled — a real smile.

He opened his mouth to respond, but suddenly froze. His golden eyes widened.

Aoi felt it too — a pulse. Something dark. Sick. Like a heartbeat beating in the wrong rhythm.

Rei stood in one smooth motion, his entire body tense.

“A yurei forming.” His eyes gleamed dangerously in the dim light of the bar. “Close.”

He glanced at her, pure urgency in his stare.

Aoi rose, her heart pounding.

The real Tokyo, she thought as she followed Rei toward the exit.

The night was only beginning.