Playing House

Kairo opened his eyes. He first noticed the cloth and wood of the carriage around him, then he noticed it was indeed daytime.

“I guess we made it through the night. Thank goodness.”

He breathed a sigh of relief.

Man, this past week has been rough!

One week earlier

Zashi had an expression of reluctance on her face. “Actually, before we can get moving, we are going to need to administer first aid to you,” she admitted.

Kairo and Takada looked at her with a blend of shocked, confused, and irritated faces.

“See… That ice won’t be good enough—and we don’t want to freeze your organs either. So that means we have to stay the night here.”

Come on… really? After our great speech to stop this guy from trying to die?! Kairo thought to himself.

Still, he tried to put a smile on his face, then extended his hand to his new friend once more.

“Let’s go inside!” he said.

Takada accepted, pulling himself to his feet with Kairo and Zashi’s help. Slowly, he got up, and the crimson ice in his stomach began to crunch.

“C-careful! I only applied a thin layer!” she said. The trio carefully shuffled back to the waystation with Takada hanging from their shoulders, taking it one step at a time. They entered, barely able to see past the entrance, only able to see anything at all thanks to the shining moonlight.

It’s so dark in here! Where are the lights?

“Hey, Zashi? Where’s the light switch?” Kairo asked.

“What are you talking about? What is a light switch? Is it some kind of magic?”

“Huh? No? It’s a light switch. You know, the little switch on the wall to turn on the lights?”

“Kid? What the heck are you talking about?”

Oh… Right. I’m in another world. I guess such technology doesn’t exist here yet.

“Actually, she hasn’t that kind of lighting yet. They only recently began installing it in portions of the academy and it’s become increasingly popular here in the south. Their neighboring kingdom actually even more developed,” Takada explained.

Kairo and Zashi looked at each other quietly. He understood everything that was said, but he couldn’t fathom that any semblance of modern technology was such a thing.

You mean they don’t just have magic? Does that mean I won’t be able to bring my knowledge and make a name for myself?!

He pouted internally for a moment before shaking his head.

“N-never mind. How do we turn on the lights then?” he asked.

Carefully, they set Takada down, resting him against one of the walls.

“Come, I’ll show you,” Zashi said, sounding slightly exhausted.

He followed her as she walked to a lamp on the wall. She grabbed something, then he heard a click. Suddenly, the lamp came alive, a bright flame flickering inside the glass.

“You have to light the thing. Twist this to turn it on.”

“Wow! I wonder how this thing works! How is turning that dowel doing anything?”

How does that turn it on? It’s like the desk lamp in my room!

“You give it a try. There are more over there,” she pointed to another wall. He walked away to go find another lantern, and then…

Squish!

“W-what is that?!”

He frantically looked around in the dark around himself.

Light! I need to get a light on!

He began scrambling to find the lamp on the wall. When he found it, he rushed to find the rod he needed to twist.

Come on, come on, come on…

“Aha! Found it!”

Click, click!

The surrounding area now was illuminated by a soft orange glow.

“Now to see what I stepped in…”

He turned around slowly, unsure of what he was going to see—no, afraid of what he feared he would see. Nothing was behind him, but he looked down at the floor, and dropped to his knees.

Mangled, bloody corpses.

He began gagging, clutching his stomach.

“Oh my god…”

S-someone! Please help me! I’m going to be sick!

“I’m about to hurl…”

“Kairo? What’s wrong?” Zashi called out to him, rushing over. “Oh no… I’m so sorry! Here, let’s get you outside!”

I’m sorry… I won’t make it.

He began to throw up right there on the wooden floor.

“I’ll get some water and rags—wait here!” she said.

The girl quickly left for a few minutes, then returned to the corridor he sat in.

“I needed to apply first aid to Takada. Manifest Pathos! Ice Kiss!”

She began blowing cold air at the floor, freezing what he expelled. After taking care of the mess, she ordered him to get some rest.

The next day, the sun was well up, and the birds were chirping. After slowly opening his eyes, then looking around, Kairo realized he was the last one waking up.

What a day…

“Yesterday was an absolute nightmare! I can’t believe all that happened!”

He opened the door to the room he slept in and walked in the direction of the footsteps he’d heard moments before. Kairo opened the sliding door and stepped inside.

“Good morning you two. I hope you slept well!” he greeted.

“Huh? Oh, it’s you. Good morning,” Zashi replied.

“Good morning to you as well, Kairo. I’m glad to see you’re alright and that your face has been healed,” Takada said.

Kairo looked at Takada sitting in a chair, all bandaged, without his shirt on.

“Damn!”

This guy’s got muscles for days! He doesn’t look like he’d be strong just looking at his face!

The girl was standing over a stove cooking something. She was still dressed in her uniform, but had a white apron over top of her clothes.

I have to admit, she may be a rude barbarian, but she is kinda cute like this!

“Why are you still standing there? Aren’t you going to sit down?” She asked him, actually looking in his direction this time.

“S-sure. I’ll just take a seat right he—wait a moment,” he stopped mid sentence. “Are you alright?”

“What do you mean?”

”You look awful! Did you sleep at all?!”

“Oh yeah. I slept plenty! I slept like a log!” She smiled.

”Uh-huh. Yeah. Sure.”

Her eyes were bloodshot with bags and dark circles under them. There was no chance that she slept at all. The fact that she answered as soon as the question escaped his lips made it sound like she had practiced her reply beforehand.

Why though? What was she doing all night?

Takada shook his head.

“Don’t listen to her. She spent the night keeping watch, healing me, feeding and watering the horses, and burying the people that died here.”

“N-now wait a minute! I didn’t do ALL that! Besides, we need the bodies of the woman and her husband to collect the bounty on them, so I just placed them in the carriage!” she said, her face flushing a deep red.

Like that makes it better?

“I was sleeping like a baby, but here she was, working her tail off!”

Way to go and make me look bad!

“But why?” Kairo asked.

“Because! we need the money! Especially because good healers aren’t cheap.”

Kairo shook his head.

“That’s not what I meant.”

She tilted her head in confusion.

“What do you mean then?”

“Well…” he paused, searching for the right words. “What I mean is, why take on so much work by yourself? I can help!”

There was a brief pause in the conversation like they didn’t believe he was worth the trouble. And worse, Kairo knew he couldn’t deny it either, but eager to prove his point, he tried to think of something to say when his eyes went wide.

“I can be useful! For example, the food is about to burn!”

“Huh? Oh!” Zashi panicked, rushing to remove the pan from the burner. Without looking back at him, she started to explain.

“I do so because I don’t want my idiot brother to take on everything by himself. He’ll focus on everyone else but himself, so I have to be there for him to lighten the load.”

“…”

Neither of them responded to her explanation. She must have picked up on the now gloomy mood hanging in the room because she clapped her hands together and smiled at them.

“Anyway, let’s dig in! We have a busy week ahead of us!”

She brought the food to the table sat down herself. Kairo picked up his fork and poked at his pancakes a few times.

“What are you doing?”

He briefly looked up at her and Takada before looking back down at his pancakes, continuing to poke and prod them.

“I’m looking to see if there’s any poison in mine. I know that you think I’m some sort of demon or whatever, so I can’t be too sure you won’t try to kill me.”

Takada sighed.

“Listen…,” he started. “The only reason we fought in the plains was because we believed you to be a spectral apparition of some kind. I couldn’t sense any mana coming from you when we met—-even now—yet you seemed to be able to see that specter.”

Kairo’s head began spinning. It was too much information for him to process at once.

“Wait, wait, wait. Back up a second… One thing at time. First of all… You mean to tell me that I was concealing my mana and you thought I was a monster because of it?!”

Takada looked at his sister and they both nodded at him in unison.

“Pretty much. Spectral apparitions don’t have mana to speak of. Rather, they have dark mana, which is pretty much like the waste left behind from the fear, anger, and negative emotions that leak out of humans. That energy goes on to form specters.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me… So let me guess? Everyone but YOU leak dark mana?”

Takada shook his head. “Even I leak dark mana. All humans do… with a few exceptions. But the point is, dark mana is not something that we can just harvest on a whim. Saying it is completely closed off to us would be accurate.”

So I’m special then?

“Okay… And why do you keep saying specter? I thought those were psychos? What about what stabbed you? Wasn’t that a psycho too?”

“Yes… and no,” Zashi replied. “None of the psychos you saw were actual psychos. All of them were specters, most likely shikigami summons, and there’s a simple way to tell.”

“I wouldn’t call that ‘simple’, Zashi,” Takada chided.

She shrugged and continued. “True psychos don’t crumble away when they die. And the average person can see them too. Specters’re invisible to normies, and they generally turn to ash when they’re dead.”

“Phrasing…”

She rolled her eyes at her brother and continued eating her breakfast.

I… No way. I have shikigami?!

“What do you mean by normies? Let me guess… people who don’t have magic?”

Takada twirled his fork around, spinning a uniformly square chunk of pancake back and forth.

“You’re almost right. What she means is, the average person is not trained in sensing their mana nor are they aware of their latent magical potential. That prevents them from seeing what we see, such as mana, magic, and apparitions.”

“Hmm…”

Interesting.

Zashi put her hands together.

“Okay, okay! Enough of this nonsense! Can we PLEASE eat our breakfast in peace?”

They relented and as Takada continued to eat his uniform pancakes, Kairo took one more jab at his.

Just for good measure.

◈ ◈ ◈

After eating, the trio departed from the waystation and set out on the road again, leaving it behind. That evening, they found themselves in the middle of the forest. They didn’t have a choice, so they decided to camp out for the evening.

Zashi and Kairo found a log that they carried together for them to sit on. When they searched for more, they couldn’t find any, and the sun was setting quickly, so they gave up, deciding they would all share it. A fire was made, and they all huddled together next to it, resting their backs against the log.

“Being out here at night is kinda creepy…” Kairo admitted. “Are you sure nobody’s going to come out here and attack us or anything? No wild animals lookin for a late night snack?”

Takada put his hand on Kairo’s shoulder. “Relax. The worst we could run into out here are apparitions.”

“...Dude.” Kairo gave him a blank stare. “You are not helping.”

“Sorry. I was just trying to get you to relax a little.”

Relax? What makes him think something like that is even possible right now?!

“You do realize that we are in a creepy forest right now, in the dark, in the dead of the night, right?? And you want me to relax?!”

Zashi burst out laughing. “Watching you two is hilarious!”

Kairo shot an annoyed look at her and she shot one right back. The two then got in each other’s faces… Takada stuck in the middle.

“Well pardon me for not wanting to be out here late at night!”

“Aren’t you a guy?” she asked with a chiding tone. “You shouldn’t be afraid of the dark. In fact, you should even be asking me, a beautiful maiden, if I am doing alright!”

“Huuuuh?!” he cocked his head to the side and his mouth opened wide. “And who gave you that idea?! Guys can be scared of the dark too! And I’ll have you know, it’s not the dark that scares me! It’s what could be lurking out there! Besides—you’re no princess!”

She cocked her head to the side and gave a grin that couldn’t even hide her irritation and disgust.

“Oh? Is that so?? So you’re calling me a guy then?!”

“I never said that!” Kairo shouted. “But I will say that you sure don’t seem all lady-like to me!”

“Oh? Is that so? Pansy Boy?!”

“Oh yeah? Gorilla Girl?!”

They growled in each other’s faces and Takada sighed.

“Well, thanks to you two’s arguing, we now have company approaching us.”

“Hn?”

They stopped growling and shot up, glancing around to spot any ambushers.

I can’t sense anything!

It was quiet, save for the sounds of the crickets chirping and the fire crackling. Suddenly, footsteps approached. And not just one set—they could hear many.

“Here they come,” he uttered, saying what they were all thinking.

Takada stood up holding his stomach.

Is he gonna be okay?

“Guess it’s gonna fall onto me to protect him,” Kairo whispered.

Takada drew his katana and said, “Please don’t do that. I can manage on my own.” Kairo sighed feeling a little deflated, then he took a stance as the leaves rustled. Bursting out from the foliage, a number of creatures came into view, illuminated by the campfire.

What the hell?

Some looked like black dogs with far too many eyes. Others looked like fish with legs, blind rats the size of a cat with a snake tail, even large bugs with bright colors. Nothing about them said a cohesive group at all. The one thing that was certain was…

“Hey, look!” Kairo shouted. “Some of these freaks aren’t casting a shadow! What are they?!”

“They are specters! Be on your guard!”

Suddenly, a thought struck him like an arrow.

I can’t believe I didn’t think of this until now…

“Um… I can’t use magic, remember? Didn’t you say you use magic to kill them?”

Takada’s face went blank.

Guess it slipped his mind too, huh?

“Okay… um…” Takada looked around frantically, specifically at the enemies. “How’s this? Channel your mana into your fists and you should be able to do some damage to them that way. Just make sure you don’t get yourself hurt!”

Kairo nodded and gave a thumbs up.

“You got it!”

“Okay, good.”

“Just one question.”

The specters were slow on their approach as they sensed Takada’s mana, giving Kairo the perfect opportunity for it.

“Make it quick!” Takada said back.

“Okay…. How?”

Takada nearly dropped his sword and Zashi lowered her kunai.

“WHAT?!” the siblings shouted in unison. “What do you mean ‘how’?!”

Oops. Struck a nerve?

Takada shook his head. “You did it before! Though, I sensed it was dark mana that you channeled. Try whatever it was that you did when you fought against me!”

Wait… so I just have to try channeling my chi again?! But I guess it’s actually mana, he corrected himself.

“Okay. I’ll give it a shot.”

He tried to focus on finding an energy inside him. It took a second, but him trying before had paid off. Kairo managed to find the energy swirling inside him.

And channel it into your fists!

A red aura enveloped him and swirled around his body like he was inside of some sort of gel that he couldn’t actually touch. It then surged to his palms, enveloping them, leaving a significantly smaller amount around the rest of his body.

“Here we go! Let’s do this!”

◈ ◈ ◈

All of the monsters were slain, and just like Takada said, they all crumbled to ash soon after. The group rested in shifts that night, and they left first thing in the morning. They continued traveling, having to camp each night in the forest for an entire week. Luckily, they had each other to rely on, defending each other from attack.

Present

That girl wasn’t kidding when she said we’d have a busy week! I’ve done nothing but stand by watching, looking, searching for bandits and specters!

The smell of the dead bodies was nauseating, but Kairo had gotten used to it. At least, just enough that he didn’t immediately vomit—just after a while. Still, the idea of riding with corpses sounded like something out of a nightmare for him, and it wasn’t something he wanted to do.

“Hey, guys? We are nearing the village!” Zashi said.

Kairo looked over her shoulder and saw the wide, open path they were on—but no village.

Oh god. This girl has finally lost it. All the time in this endless forest has rotted her brain.

“Look… Zashi? I know you’ve been working super hard, and I really respect that! But maybe it’s time you finally take a break and get some rest!” he said.

She turned her head to look at him, then gave him a dirty look.

“So you think I’m crazy, huh? I get it. Well, without me, you won’t be getting anywhere near Tenra village!”

Yep. She’s insane.

“Well, if that’s the case, keep your eyes on the road please,” Takada said.

They continued on until they reached the clearing he’d seen in the distance a little while ago—but after passing through the last gate, an entire village came into existence.

“What?!”

“Hahahaha!” Zashi laughed at him, hunching over. “You thought I was hallucinating or something?”

The village resembled one from Edo period Japan, filling Kairo with a sense of nostalgia.

I kind of miss home. I miss my anime, my manga, and my light novels… Sniff.

“But who needs those when you can live out a fantasy, right?”

He smiled to himself. The thought of what may lie ahead made his chest tighten with anticipation and excitement.

“I g-guess… I guess you weren’t crazy,” he mumbled.

Looking around, the wide, unmarked road they had come from was now lined with red Tori gates.

“Those gates, they are the edge of the barrier that protects this place. We don’t let many outsiders in, and we don’t want specters getting in either. Those cursed monsters already roam on a regular basis, but we don’t want them to destroy our villages,” Takada explained.

Kairo slowly nodded his head.

“Because if you stay protected, then you can safely go out to hunt them down? And I’d imagine the barrier only keeps the strong specters out?” he asked.

Takada shook his head.

“No, not quite. We only have barriers around our villages and towns—the ones under the Shogun’s control. The barrier is only capable of keeping out and destroying lesser strength spectral apparitions that come into contact with it. We have other measures for keeping them away.”

“Wow!”

This is starting to feel like a real fantasy world! Magic barriers are always a good sign!

He hid his joy, trying to hide the enormous grin beginning to form on his face.

“You know what, Takada? I’m glad I met you. Now let’s get you inside and on your feet again!” 

—————————————————————————————————————————————

I hope you enjoyed this chapter!

What do think will happen next?

If you have any thoughts, theories, or feedback, I'd love to hear them in the comments!