CHAPTER 15

Kou was the King of the Night, the ruler of all that walked in the misty borderline of realms, the sole singular power who could command all of Japan’s supernatural front, and he was terribly bad with horror films. Ghost movies especially. He wouldn’t be fazed in the face of the real thing, he had done his own share of ghost-hunting for work (like when he found Kurotarou), he could probably stand up to a vengeful onryou without blinking, but he couldn’t handle ghost flicks for his life.

More than his inability to punish nightwalkers or hurt people, more than his lack of cold blood, more than his lack of fitness to be King, it was the one secret he couldn’t let anyone know. Not even his sister. Not especially his sister. It was why, that night—or dawn to be precise, since it’s just a few hours away from sunrise—the moment Kou started hearing the sound of small steps on his roof, he realized that the night was long from over.

It began with a step.

Kou had cooled down from the night’s patrol. The lack of nightwalkers in their locality had made it rather uneventful, although it did make Kou think if he should start shifting operations. It wasn’t exactly realistic at the moment, but he could probably bring it up the next time his mother came home. After all, with the nightwalkers moving away, most of their activities were also shifting. That said, though, the ones who remained were also likelier to attack people due to their sudden hunger strike, so there’s still that risk to consider.

For now, they’re not moving away. To begin with, they didn’t really have another base of operations ready for that. They’re still schoolkids, all things considered, so it’s unrealistic for them to just move without preparing for all that in advance. More than ever, Kou had to wonder why he didn’t really have anything to accompany his title as the King of the Night—he only half-joked when he mentioned to Chi that he had no land to speak of, but he was really feeling the lack of resource now. Land ownership was a serious thing. Who the heck decided to make it so hard to own land? Whose bright idea was it to make land so expensive that only the rich could ever afford them?

Even the nightwalkers weren’t free of this curse from the more supernatural end of things. The oni couldn’t really use their powers outside of Japan because of how vaguely their myths were perceived out there—most of them had to shift identities as soon as they arrived. Count Dracula’s first attempt to invade London was accompanied by a whole ship containing crates upon crates of Transylvanian land just so he could recoup and recover. The Dracula descendant that settled in Japan, Kou’s own ancestor, used a similar tactic at a much smaller scale with only one crate of Transylvanian soil, because he finally realized that there was something more practical than a whole-on invasion like what Count Dracula tried to do.

Even Countess Karnstein had to change her identity a few times until she became the legendary Carmilla, because the moment her homeland was discovered, her influence broke apart.

And they were Counts. Like, landowning nobles.

A lot of the more powerful vampires used their immortality to accumulate wealth, so Kou had to wonder how his family got stuck with a very unassuming house and just about nothing else worth mentioning. Sure, they’ve got a house at least—that’s already more than can be said for a lot of families in this economy, really—but what kind of vampire didn’t have more?

What kind of King didn’t have more?

Then, finally, the main reason they couldn’t move: their father’s body.

It’s simply very unsafe to bring the body of the former King elsewhere without adequate preparation. Who knows what kind of things from his past would bite him in the rear?

Either way, it was useless to lament the state of things, so at least for another night or two, Kou stayed there. They’d just wrapped up their patrols—which actually managed to cover more ground this time, thanks to Onihime and Tenka’s help—and prepared to go to sleep.

That was, at least, until the footstep.

The soft thud began at the rooftop. Kou’s immediate thought was actually that someone else was doing night patrols like they did, traversing through the rooftops. They’re probably just less experienced. Or less skilled. There was nothing subtle about the noise they left.

However, the thud was still really soft. Whoever made that noise couldn’t have pressed down too much. Either that, or they’re very light. Maybe another boyish youkai, like the hitotsume-kozo or tofu-kozo?

Then, silence.

There was nothing at all. Kou sharpened his ears. Had the disturbance left?

Thud.

Nope.

Kou couldn’t help but stare at the ceiling of his own room. There was a sound of showering, which probably meant that Chi was still cleaning up—well, if not Chi, then one of the guests. Or maybe the both of them, they seemed close enough to bathe together. How do the oni usually bathe, anyway? Could they use the modern appliances in the bathroom? It’s not that they stink, either; it’s more that Kou was way more preoccupied by their supernatural scent that he failed to register how they physically smelled like.

Heck, do oni even take baths? They had clothes, and Onihime’s clothes looked pretty fancy, so they had to at least have some concept of hygiene, right? Or did she just rob that outfit and grab new ones from people when they got dirty? She didn’t seem the type to, but given her soft demeanor, it’s easy to forget that she’s still an oni. There’s also still the chance that she deceived him: Ibaraki-douji deceived Watanabe-no-Tsuna by pretending to be pretty women, after all, before finally getting through his defenses by pretending to be his aunt. Onihime definitely felt more like the alluring spellcasters like Ibaraki-douji than the more temperamental muscleheads like Ootakemaru.

Anyway, bathing girls aside, the roof once more came down with another thud. This time a little heavier than before.

The showering continued, so it was probably not the girls. At the very least, Kou’s ears told him that they’re still all in the house.

Whoever was above was someone else.

Slowly, Kou began crossing off his mental list of possible nightwalkers. They’re in the Kanto area, and they’re in Tokyo specifically, so it couldn’t have been low-ranking kitsune like an osaki. To begin with, osaki rarely left such physical, audible traces of existence. The higher-ranking kitsune of Edo made it impossible for lower-rankers like the osaki to enter Tokyo, so it’s not an osaki.

If it were a higher-ranked kitsune, they wouldn’t have resorted to these cheap effects. Only younger kitsune do these little pranks—older kitsune would engage in something more meaningful, more impactful, and—often—more dangerous. So not only was it not a lower-ranked kitsune, it wasn’t any other kitsune, either.

Nightwalkers known for making noises … there’s the yanari, the ‘house creaker’ who liked making noises in a newly-built house, but they’re only known for this kind of harmless noisiness in the Kansai region. There was a yanari legend that took place in Sumida Ward, Tokyo, but it was much closer to the European poltergeist than the noisy-devil it’s described to be in Kansai.

This one didn’t feel nearly as malicious, and it didn’t appear to be squeaking floorboards or any wooden parts of the house anyway, so it couldn’t be the yanari.

The thud sounded like a step. There actually was one legend of a gigantic foot that kept coming through the ceiling, also set in Sumida, but it had more to do with the house and its inhabitants than the apparition itself. The ashi-arai, ‘foot-washing’, was a gigantic foot that haunted the dwelling of a high-ranking samurai, Aji-no-Kyuunosuke. The foot would intrude upon the manor, breaking through the roof every night, and order the inhabitants with a thunderous voice to wash it. ‘Washing one’s foot’ means to absolve one’s sins, though, so it’s long thought that Aji-no-Kyuunosuke was simply involved in something unsavory and the youkai was just his retribution.

Some versions also said that the ashi-arai was really just a kitsune pulling a prank. See? Stronger kitsune preferred to do more meaningful stuff when they’re pranking someone.

Also, there’s no foot coming through the ceiling this time. No thunderous voices demanding a foot bath, either. So, regardless of ashi-arai’s true identity, the roof-stomper was clearly not an ashi-arai.

Thud.

His mind was still racing, but Kou had to admit that he was starting to break out in cold sweat. It’s probably his own fault for forgetting to turn on the lights in his room, but he was going to get some rest, anyway—since their ability to live without sleeping didn’t necessarily mean they didn’t accumulate mental fatigue—and Kou was more used to just not turning his lights on. They’re bright. It’s nice, but it’s confusing his biological clock because he relied on the rays of sunrise to signal when he should start prepping for school.

As a result, he couldn’t help but remember horror films. Lights out, deep in the night, and—

Thud.

—and that.

Kou could feel a shiver down his spine.

Lights first, he thought. “The lights, the lights….”

Things should be less scary with more light, right?

Wrong.

At least, Kou wouldn’t know—he tried to turn his lights on, but the switch decided it’s the best time to stop working.

Oh, come on.

Click, click.

Nothing.

Thud.

The sound was louder this time. Not because it grew heavier: it was closer.

It no longer sounded like it came from the roof. It was coming from the space between the roof and the attic.

Kou took a deep breath. His room still refused to light up.

Turn on, dammit!

Thud.

Not only was it closer, it was more frequent.

Thud.

It moved a bit forward.

Thud.

And further forward.

Thud.

And further forward.

It was walking.

Kou could feel his hairs standing on end. The thumping on the ceiling continued on, and on, and on, and on, and—

A pause. It stopped. Kou kept his eyes locked upwards.

Nothing.

There was a noise of something racing, something a bit loud, rhythmic, consistent, just much softer … oh, it’s Kou’s own labored breathing.

He gulped.

Splash.

That’s just it. As suddenly as the thudding appeared, and as suddenly as it stopped, a loud noise of water just appeared. This time not from the roof, but directly outside of Kou’s room. It sounded like someone was washing something outside of his….

Wait. Directly outside of Kou’s room?

Kou blinked. His room was on the second floor.

Kou could feel all the blood draining from his face.

What kind of ghost would wash—

However, that was the tickle he needed. Thumps. Steps. Ceiling. Water. Outside the house.

Against his instincts, Kou closed his eyes.

He couldn’t feel the presence of the nightwalker. It just appeared there above his house and started making noises. Not a lot of nightwalkers were naturally good at shrouding, since presence concealment was a rather refined technique, but some could do it naturally if it’s part of their identity.

It just appeared there above Kou’s house and started making noises. A noise-making nightwalker.

They’re in Tokyo. A Tokyo-based noise-making nightwalker.

Steps. Ceiling. Water.

It sounded like someone was washing something….

The gears finally clicked. Kou realized that the correct answer was not to let the jumpscare setup get the better of him, like the protagonists would do in those damned horror films. He wouldn’t open his windows to check what caused the noise—because he knew, the moment he did, the creature would disappear.

It’s in their identity.

His eyes still closed, Kou finally called them out: “Azuki-hakari-san? I know you’re there.”

The noises disappeared. The azuki-hakari, ‘bean-weigher’, was known only as a purely auditory youkai—there was never really any single recount of them ever being seen. They would haunt a house by first landing on top of it, stomping on the ceiling, and then start doing something that sounded like he was weighing his red beans: he would first drop a bean, then two beans, then three beans, and so on until it sounded so loud, as if eighteen liters of beans (it’s an ancient measurement, Kou never really asked) were spilled at the same time.

Then, when he’d had his share of scaring, he would go out to wash the beans—like all good people did—on the water source typically outside of the houses he haunted. This would make the people in the house think he was close enough to be seen, so of course they would look outside to see what kind of person would pull off that kind of mischief.

And that’s when he would disappear.

The azuki-hakari could come undetected even by trained samurai, and he was never seen in any historical record, so of course he was good at natural shrouding.

Problem was, the moment he was spotted, he would disappear. Kou was gambling with his response. If his callout counted the same as opening his windows, then Kou was screwed—he would never know why his house was haunted by a random azuki-hakari.

Otherwise, though….

“Yes, Your Highness.”

It was a whisper. No … it was just very soft, as if it was whispered. Kou opened his eyes—there’s still nothing in front of him. The azuki-hakari was speaking from outside his window, beyond his closed curtains. Somehow. Could they even fly? There’s no way he could ever know.

“Can I ask why you’re here?” Kou started. The azuki-hakari hesitated.

“I need help, Your Highness.”

“What is it?”

“I heard that Your Highness has granted help for even lowly youkai such as a tofu-kozo….”

Oh? Was he also hungry? “Are you also hungry?”

“No! No, Your Highness, I wouldn’t even dare think of begging you for scraps.”

The whisper turned raspier. Kou couldn’t help but tilt his head. “Then?”

“Your Highness, I happen to hear that You graced the tofu-kozo with a tofu of your own.”

“Yes.”

“Then….”

Tofu for tofu-kozo. That one was for food, yes, but it was mainly for identity.

Identity.

The azuki-hakari was a haunter. A noise-maker. Like tonight.

Steps. Ceiling. Water.

… wait.

Steps. Ceiling. Water.

Kou’s heart sank—that sequence was missing one part entirely before water.

“My … my azuki beans have been stolen, Your Highness,” the nightwalker finally spoke up. “I can only thump and make water noises, but I have nothing to weigh and nothing to wash.”

Steps. Ceiling. Water.

No beans.

Kou sighed. “Understood. Are you otherwise starved?”

“No, Your Highness. I go where the mushiyoukai go.”

“Can you maybe wait until tomorrow night?”

“I should be able to hold out, Your Highness.”

“Good. Come back here tomorrow night.”

“My immeasurable gratitude, Your Highness.”

Then, silence. Kou couldn’t feel his presence to begin with, but he could tell for sure this time that the azuki-hakari had gone.

An azuki-hakari without his azuki—the red beans that defined his hauntings so much that it was part of his name. That couldn’t be good.

Kou sighed. He had never ordered red beans online before, let alone a whole eighteen liters of them, but maybe there’s really a first time for everything.

*