Don't Lick That

 "Does your plan have to involve walking all over the neighbourhood?"

"Look, just trust me for once, it'll make things quicker." Lachlan held up a gloved finger as they strolled down the relatively busy street beneath the shade of pagoda-style eaves strung with flower baskets and unlit lanterns, a few pedestrians glancing sideways at them. "First off, you're all obake, aren't you?"

"Ordinary humans can't use the Samurai cores, gaijin. Surely you at least knew that by now," Eden sniffed out his two cents, as if anyone had ever bothered to tell him.

Interesting. Something to do with the spirit projection part? It'd make sense that ordinary people couldn't manage it, without the spirit renovations to project through. "Do now. So what're your yuurei?"

Ariake sighed but answered him anyway. "A hawk."

Lachlan squinted sideways at him as they turned down a one-way street. Hold on, wasn't his last name Takanashi? "And your name's 'Without Hawk'?"

The glare the kid sent him should've honestly made him drop dead right then and there. "My family has a proud history of bird-type obake."

Ariake Takanashi, the hawk obake. He wasn't laughing. Wouldn't laugh. But he might just find it incredibly amusing later when the other wasn't around. "Moving on, then."

He turned expectantly to the other two, Eden's mouth turning down in an almost petulant scowl. "Bear."

Hadn't expected that. "And Drake?" He prompted, the big lad trying to shrink behind Eden from the looks of it, and failing because the other obake was about half his size.

Drake cleared his throat, oddly reluctant about the whole thing. "Lizard."

Bit of an oddball bunch from the looks of it. "Alright then, to answer your question—"

"And yours is?" Eden cut him off with his signature unblinking look that suited a bird of prey far better than a bear.

"Apologies, your honour. Wolf." He gave a little sarcastic bow, King Ed scowling back but apparently satisfied. "Alright, if we want to do this quickly, then our best bet is to sniff around this yokai's hauntings between our little house visits. You should be able to sense it more easily if you pull your shadow or switch forms. And if you run into any local yokai you can try asking if they know anything."

He pulled his not-pager off his belt and waved it. "We'll separate to cover more distance, keeping each other updated. You can pick where you want to go, but we'll mark them off so we don't double-back on each other. Sound good?"

Surprisingly no one had any real objections, even Ariake. They made sure they still had their pagers on the same channel, and then headed off with maps borrowed from a stand at a bus station for the other three. He kept the original, since he was still learning his way around.

"Horrible thing, absolutely horrible!" The older lady who'd been the victim of the mischievous yokai fluttered around the apartment for half the time he spent there, spouting enough threats to make him wonder if she was related to Ariake. "You should blast it to ashes when you find it!"

"Does it come by often?" He slipped into a gap in the tirade.

"Three times now! I keep my bathroom spotless, but this wretched creature comes by and dirties it again!" She flung open the folding plastic screen, gesturing towards a very shiny, neat little bathroom, and then launched into another tirade that lasted five more minutes.

"Looks like we're dealing with a serial bath-grimer," he commented over the radio once he'd politely extricated himself with promises of apprehending their criminal and hit the street again. "This little guy's visited one old lady three times in the last week."

Ariake either grunted or growled at him. It was hard to tell over the static. "Twice at Bubble Baths."

"That was quick." He made his way down a narrow but busy street thrumming with shops towards the next one he'd marked on his map. As he went, he pulled just enough of his yuurei's power to heighten his senses, wincing slightly at the nearly-healed wound on his right arm disappearing completely. He could already sense faint hints of spirits bobbing around this maze, one visibly warping the air under a cage-stand of manga issues outside a neat little store hidden in a nook, hiding from the foot-traffic.

Always lots of yokai out here. He glanced down an even skinnier path shaded by eaves stacked on top of each other and ivy creeping along a fence, briefly pulling on his shadow. The faint heat ripple of bobbing wisps strengthened into candles melting through vague shapes like warped reflections. More in general than Wilind ever had.

For now, though, he chose to focus on the human side of the yokai troubles, walking into the obnoxiously-advertised bathhouse on the corner listed as the seventh victim.

This time the story was twice in the last couple weeks. One of the employees swore they'd seen it the second time, just a day ago—a monster leaving mouldy footprints as it fled. Considering they only took shape in the light of a glimmer lantern, he highly doubted that, though.

Well, time to ask the yokai, then.

"Hm." He threw a quick look around the slightly quieter street as he walked out again, most people not paying attention to him for once, and slipped into the alleyway beside it.

Casually strolling up to the idly floating wisps gathered around a steaming vent, he pulled his misty fur cape on. That caught their attention, and he gave a little wave. "Hi there. Can you help me out for a minute? I'm looking for a yokai who's been causing some trouble around here, an akaname."

They floated in uncomprehending circles, one bumping into the wall and blinking at him.

Smart neighbourhood. He sighed, pulling the folded piece of paper from his pocket and offering the picture for inspection, careful not to pierce it with his claws. "Someone who's been going around making a mess of bathrooms?"

They drifted closer to crowd around, peering at it, and one of them briefly took on a frowning thoughtful face that resembled Oji, hilariously enough. After a moment it winked a proud little confirmation, stretching out into an amikiri and winding around one of its mates.

"So you know it?" He prompted when it didn't elaborate.

It turned back to him, flickering a nod with Tobira's face this time, and then switched to an akaname a little more evil-looking than the one on the page, chomping one of the other yokai and air-stomping menacingly.

"Mean fellow, eh?"

In response, it pantomimed mini yokai converging on the monster only for it to stomp off with smoke billowing out of its nostrils.

He couldn't help grinning a little. "Sounds like somebody I know."

Following up with a tale of woe involving a comically villainous akaname menacing bathrooms occupied by hilariously angry or terrified humans, it gave him a decent picture of what'd been going on around here.

"A real rebel, huh. You know where he is now?"

It shook its Tobira-head and indicated off somewhere down the alleyway, pulsing spooky dark wisps.

"Is that where he usually hangs out? Think you could take me there?"

Shivering, it spun in an uncertain little circle, its friends immediately abandoning it to play in the vent again, and reluctantly pulsed an affirmative, drifting off down the narrow alley.

Lachlan hummed, pulling out his pager as he followed along behind it, and dropped the shadow-cape so he didn't stab the thing trying to push buttons. He didn't bother with the fancy messaging feature, just sent off a standard page to each of them.

While the page took its time to bounce around, he travelled down tiny little paths along the back of squat little restaurants, past hidden shops and cramped flats with vibrant miniature gardens. And it just kept getting dingier as his guide led him down sets of stairs into the depths of whatever this district was, a raised highway stretching above like a concrete rainbow.

His radio-pager crackled into staticky life as he followed the wisp into a cramped tunnel within what looked like the basement levels of the massive higgledy-piggledy complex of house-apartments blotting out the sky above him, the rest of the city abruptly up above his head on another layer entirely. Slipping it off his belt as he edged his way after the yokai—more glow than heat-ripple in the shadows here—he frowned at the complete garbleage he couldn't make head nor tails of. "Think the reception's bad here. Can you read me?"

No understandable response.

He looked up, but all he could see were star-glimmers of light past piping, eaves, cables, and the occasional hanging plant dangling off a balcony. I don't think this is getting better anytime soon. So he punched in a message to each of his contacts instead. <Down in—> He checked the map, attempting to mentally retrace his steps. They hadn't really gone too far. He couldn't say for sure where exactly it was, though. <—place below highway. West of Shibue Street.>

While a response took its time to come through, he caught up with his guide, extricating himself and stepping into a....

He paused, doing a double take at the trees stretching up the sides of a grass-carpeted walkway, an entire forest populating the spaces between what looked like a village occupying the foothills of the massive complex. If he looked up, he could see the bottom of closed pathways through the leaves and wires. Balconies with pot plants, too, and more hanging foliage.

His beeper beeped, and he glanced at his new page. <Ongaku district?>

He accidentally brushed one of the glimmer lanterns randomly strung from skinny little twisted tree limbs trying to keep an eye on both the yokai and his pager. <Probably. Forest place under some complex. Came through a tiny tunnel.>

<I'm on my way,> a page from a different number came through, another on its heels. <Ongaku. Through Chisaii Walk?>

An old man stared at him from one of the doorways lining the "street" as he fired off a quick reply to each of the other two. Probably wondering when gaijin had joined the spirits living down here.

And a few populated this maze, too. He had to pull on his yuurei again to pick out which one was his guide as little bobbing lights swirled curiously around them through the leaves, greeting it and poking at him.

One gave him a little nip, a tiny shock zipping up his arm, only to flee in terror with the rest of the group when he snapped back. He let out an amused snort at their antics, brushing through a thicket after his yokai into the depths of a dark little den, a pair of swallows scaring off, their shrill shrieks mixing with a faint hint of a chill breeze stirring the shadows.

And his hackles immediately shot up.

"What the hell?" He froze mid-step, his ears twitching almost against their will to catch every beat of a larger bird's wings above, every rustle of leaves as something—an oppressive weight he couldn't define—pressed down on every animal part of him.

Pushing firmly back on the irrational urge to coil and growl at the shadows, he hissed in a quick breath, flicking between the shifting shadows hiding in the bushes, the twisted branches of a tree arcing up to a rusted and decrepit balcony on the dead-end wall, and the mossy pipe running above a little hole in the side of the building next to him. ...That looks promising.

He forced his feet to uproot, taking a step—

And spun as a whistling call shrieked in behind him with a rustling flutter of wings.

He found himself staring into the brilliant orange eyes of a little grey sparrowhawk perched on a twisted branch, its gaze flickering over the clearing warily. "What is this, gaijin?"

Ariake? He squinted, breathing again. Hadn't expected him to be one of the smaller varieties, somehow. "You got here quickly."

"You weren't that hard to find," the bird snapped as Lachlan firmly beat his twitchy nerves into place and turned back to his original goal. "And answer me, dammit— How did you stumble on this place?"

"Depends on what you mean," he hummed, picking his way over to the hole and ignoring the bristle raising his hackles with every step. Crouching at the dark crumbling mouth, stones crunching under his not-quite boots, his heartbeat pulsed softly in his ears, the little voice in the back of his head telling him to either run or prepare for a fight. He cast aside both, peering into a chilly tunnel that smelled of mould and damp and what he could only describe as the cold tang of malice.

A low rumble lifted about every ethereal hair on his pelt and skin. It took him a moment to realise it was his own.

Goddammit. Shut up, you. He clenched his teeth, mentally whacking the damn wolf's snout with an imaginary newspaper, and contemplated the tunnel it was very insistent led to hell itself. Not sure I like the look of it myself.

"Exactly what your yuurei's telling you it is. This is an akuma's lair. How did you find an akuma's lair?"

"You'd have to ask my little friend." Glancing over his shoulder, he found the yokai still there, spinning in agitated flickering circles. "Oi, is this really where our mischief-maker hangs out?"

"It— what?"

It fluttered a nod, flashing through quick impressions of monsters and dark things he couldn't really make any sense of.

"Wait, the akaname is an akuma?"

"Seems so." Lachlan shrugged. Found it hard to believe himself, really. "Thought it'd just hit its terrible teens, but maybe it is. Can't be that powerful feeding off the annoyance of an angry old lady and a few scared bathhouse employees, though."

"This aura's strong." He'd never seen a bird make a face until now. "Damn, how did it get this strong and nobody noticed?"

"Don't know." He leaned back to gaze up, trying to see past the canopy. "Did you catch any of the others on the way?"

"I radioed before diving in. They should be here soon." The bird hopped off the branch, flashing to human-with-cape form and landing lightly, his orange-glowing eyes flicking warily around, taloned fingers twitching at his side and the sharp beak of the hawk ghosting his head arcing low over his nose. "Damn, it's even worse down here. What are you staring at?"

Lachlan didn't bother to correct the tilt of his head. "Haven't seen a lot of bird obake. Doesn't look as strange as I thought it would."

Ariake glared at him. "That's funny, because you look exactly like the gaijin dog I thought you'd be."

"I'm hurt." He turned to the yokai again, tapping at the crumbling side of the tunnel. "Where does this lead?"

It conjured up dark rooms of people with full-body glowing tattoos playing cards, and handing off money around what looked like a miniature fighting ring.

Yakuza? "What the hell do yakuza have to do with any of this?" He muttered, turning back to the hole. "And why do I always wind up running into them?"

"Oh, great, an akuma and now magic-dealing yakuza. Are you cursed, gaijin—?"

"Yakuza?" A new voice asked.

He jumped again, nearly smacking his head into the crumbling ceiling with a curse as he spun around. His eyes landed on a familiar disapproving stare in the shadows by the bushes, white hair misted out by black bear ears. "And how in the sky's name did you find an akuma's lair, gaijin?"

"That's my question," Ariake grumbled, sending him a sideways glance. "But it looks like the akaname turned into one while no one was looking. Where's the other gaijin?"

As if summoned, Drake, looking very human with no hint of a yuurei pulled around him at all, stepped out of the bushes. And blinked at all of them. "What's going on?"

Lachlan gestured aimlessly at him in the pregnant silence. "You might want to pull on your yuurei."

"Can you really not sense the akuma's aura?" Eden narrowed his eyes at the clueless lad.

"Oh," Doresu said. "That."

"You know what, I really don't care. Let's just go." Ariake slipped past him into the tunnel. "Goudon-san will be at the top of the leaderboard by the time we find this bastard yokai."

"Kore, hey." Lachlan toed his leg, making the teen glare over his shoulder. "I'll go first. I can see and smell better in the dark than you."

He turned back to the others, waving off the yokai still hanging anxiously around. "Thanks for the help, you can go off back to your friends." Glancing at Drake, who showed no signs of bothering with his abilities, he added, "You'll be in the middle with Ariake, and Eden, you're at the back. Let's go."

He switched forms to make things easier, nudging ahead of a glowering Ariake into the dank depths, the malignant feeling following them down as they wound along the space beneath the floorboards of the building above, brushing past pipes that stank of ooze and ratty insulation. Someone spluttered behind him, probably running into the spiderweb he'd just ducked.

Thus far, apart from the stench filling the entire place and the evil aura, they hadn't actually seen hide nor hair of their target.

So the sudden waft of mould was his only warning before it scuttled right around the corner.