Morning In a Stranger's Home

Neither Hideo nor Miho were awake until late in the morning.

They emerged from the bedroom, forced to borrow clothes from their hosts. Which is how Hideo ended up wearing a faded shirt advertising a tokusatsu show and Miho a full-blown if ill-fitting kimono.

Miho was not happy with her choice of clothing. It was built for someone with a larger chest. “Do you wear nothing but kimonos?”

The kitsune – who’d revealed her name was Erika – smiled. “If it doesn’t make me look good, it doesn’t go in my closet.” She offered the two what remained of the traditional Japanese breakfast she’d cooked for her other guests.

Those other guests – Fuku, Sayuri, and Hanzo – had all spent the night sleeping on or near the couch. They’d been awake for a few hours and drinking every gram of coffee Erika had in the cupboards.

Everyone assembled eventually took a seat around a dining room table. Hideo and Miho took turns recounting the events of the previous night. The constant fighting, the connections to Nise Kitai…

“The desperation I felt,” Miho explained, “from the kaijin I fought. I’ve never felt so much of it before.”

Sayuri pat her dear friend on the back. “These are the kinds of people I see in the Support Group. They need help anywhere they can get it.”

But that made Erika roll her eyes. “And who’s going to help them? They need food, shelter, jobs to pay for those things, specialized care for their own needs… Your goodwill is a drop of water in the desert.”

Fuku glared at Erika. “She’s done everything she can.”

“Maybe. But I shouldn’t have to feel grateful to one rich bitch for bread crumbs.” She waved her hand at everyone present before locking into a stare with Sayuri. “You all can pass for human. They let you in because you’re like them. None of you have ever experienced humankind’s apathy – or its hated. Not even you. You’re friends with Miss Big Hot Shot there. They handle you with kid gloves.”

“Is it any wonder,” she continued, “why so many kaijin are willing to go along with this? The bounty’s not just a lottery ticket to riches. It’s a lottery ticket to living. To having enough money that you don’t need those table scraps of help the government gives. If that bounty had been around back when we fought? I’d have gone for it.”

Sayuri shook her head. But she didn’t fight back. “You’re not wrong. They need help. One of the topics we usually discuss at our meetings is how little aide they get. Making blood bags last an extra few days, or how hard it is finding a psychiatrist that won’t treat being attacked as a metaphor.”

Hanzo coughed politely. He needed to put this conversation back on a more productive footing. “The system doesn’t serve people well. But what Jade Chrysanthemum would replace it with won’t work well for anyone. Zetsuboru will keep cultivating that desperation and grow stronger. We can’t afford to wait. This has to be brought to an end and quick.”

Miho remembered what it took last time to defeat Zetsuboru. Yokai couldn’t be defeated through sheer strength of force. Stopped, yes. But they’d linger and come back. Last time they’d brought in priests from a local Shinto shrine. They’d drawn a magic circle around the place they’d fight. The combination of her magic and the priests’ efforts was what cast it out.

But that hadn’t been enough to completely exorcise it. The problem as Miho saw it wasn’t the concept of how they’d done it. It was that they hadn’t been thorough enough.

“If we want to stop it for good this time,” said Miho, “we’ll need to form another magic circle.”

Hanzo flinched. “The shrine those priests maintained is gone. I don’t know where we’d find anyone who’d be willing to help us.”

Miho looked to Fuku. “Then we make one ourselves. It doesn’t need to be divinely inspired, it just needs to be strong enough to hold Zetsuboru in place.”

Fuku gave her a thumbs’ up.

“Zetsuboru has had all this time to build up its strength. We can’t stop it from feeding on people’s anguish and suffering. We can’t undo the harm that’s been done. What we really need is unbridled joy. Lots of it. It’ll disrupt Zetsuboru and give us enough juice to do this.”

Erika frowned. “Do you know how big of a magic circle you’re taking about? The amount of magic you're talking about, it would have to be over a block in size when you draw it!”

“Three blocks,” corrected Miho. “And the moment it activates, everyone inside is going to know it’s active and try to kill us while we focus it.”

Hanzo gave Miho’s plan some thought. “Two problems. One, Zetsuboru’s going to clock that we’re doing this the second the circle activates. Meaning someone’s going to have to fight it at full power.” But that problem’s solution already seemed to present itself from how Miho and Hideo were nodding to each other. “Two, how are we supposed to generate all the positive emotions we need to do this?”

That was the part Miho was struggling with. Disrupting a decade of Zetsuboru’s influence wouldn’t require something to linger. It only had to last a moment. But how could they get people to that moment? It would require such a scale!

Of all the people to present an answer, Erika seemed the least likely. But she looked deep in thought. “If what you’ve all discovered is true and Nise Kitai is a front for Jade Chrysanthemum, then I’ve just the opportunity. They make a big deal out of announcing their new slate of shows. That’s tonight.”

Miho blinked. She’d dimly been aware they held a ‘Super Smile Showcase’ every year in Akihabara. But because Nise Kitai had been screwing them over all those years, she had never thought much of it.

That gave them a big audience. But they needed to show something that would truly inspire a wave of jubilation.

Her eyes widened as a new idea struck her. She knew exactly what could get people excited. “Kuma-chan!”

That blue-winged teddy bear floated over to the table. Kuma-chan smiled as his little wings beat to keep him afloat. “Yes, Miho?”

“I’ve got a mission for you.”