Somebody knocked on Sekibanki's door.

Nobody ever knocked on Sekibanki's door. Her cottage almost looked like it was purposely designed to discourage it: It was on the very outskirts of the human village. The windows were perpetually covered by heavy curtains. Her garden was a little messy and overgrown. The combination of the complete lack of any outdoor lighting, plus the rather faded coat of whitewash on it, made it look just spooky enough in the evenings that she'd heard some children in the village whispering that it was haunted. That was fine by her. The less company, the better.

And yet, somebody was knocking on Sekibanki's door.

The rokurokubi sighed and grumbled under her breath. "Hold on, I'm coming." It was easier said than done. At the moment, she was both taking a bath and cooking dinner. Her body was reclined in the bathtub, idly scrubbing at itself, while her head rested on a shelf above her stove, keeping an eye on a boiling pot of stew. The wooden spoon sticking out of the stew had bite marks on the handle. It was, in her opinion, a small price to pay for getting two things done at once.

Sekibanki's body rose out of the bathtub, and she kept an eye on it as it fumbled for a towel. Once her hands found one, her body started drying itself off, while her head drifted over to the door to look out the peephole.

Outside, a blue-haired woman was peering back at her, futilely trying to look through the peephole in reverse. "Ms. Sekibanki? I really need to talk to you..." It took Sekibanki a moment to remember the name—Keine Kamishirasawa, right. The... were-... something, teacher, and occasional defender of the village. What the hell did she want?

"I said I'm coming." Sekibanki glanced backward, to where her body was almost finished drying. Right, time to get presentable. Her head floated over to rest in her outstretched hands, and very carefully, she settled it back into place on her neck, then gave it a few tugs side to side to make sure it was on straight and secure. Now that she was back in one piece, she dressed hurriedly, picking up her discarded clothes and not bothering to get fresh ones.

Finally, Sekibanki walked over and opened the door. She immediately realized that she probably looked like an idiot, with her body still wet from her bath, her head obviously dry, and wearing a cape inside the house. Whatever. Who cared what some schoolteacher thought? "What is it?"

If Keine thought that the rokurokubi looked like an idiot, she didn't say it. She glanced over her shoulder back toward the village. "... may I come in? It's... sort of urgent."

Sekibanki held her gaze for a moment, then sighed and stepped aside, holding out one hand in invitation. "Come on, get in here."

Sekibanki's cottage was a comfortable place. It was a single large room, with only a curtain to separate the bathing and changing area from everything else, with a bed, a bookcase, a stove, a small table with two chairs, an icebox, and two larger chairs sitting around the perimeter. Hanging on the walls were an assortment of paintings, mostly landscapes. An astute observer would notice that not all of the locations from the pictures were within Gensokyo, and a few of them had charred patches peeking around the frames.

Keine settled down in one of the chairs at the table, with her hands neatly folded in her lap. "So, er, I was..."

"Hold on." Sekibanki wasn't about to let her dinner burn over this. After giving the stew an appraising stir with the spoon, she started ladling it into a bowl, taking her sweet time. Urgent or not, if this girl wanted to interrupt her, she could at least have a little patience. Only once she had a full serving did she walk over and sit down across from Keine, and even then, she scooped up a spoonful of stew and blew on it a few times before she looked up at her. "... go ahead, say your piece."

"... well." Keine's rhythm had obviously been thrown off a little by the hostile welcome. Good. "We are a little short on time," she did the best to keep the tone of annoyance out of her voice, but it was getting hard. "So I'll be blunt: Are you a youkai?"

Sekibanki visibly paled for just a moment, but blew on her soup again, then swallowed a spoonful without looking up. "Yes, I am," she said with as much disinterest as she could muster. "A rokurokubi. What about it?"

"I sort of thought so, after half a dozen people talked about how they'd seen your head flying around and shooting lasers at the shrine maiden. It's a slight giveaway," Keine said, then rubbed her forehead. "Did you ever think that, maybe, this might be a good thing to tell somebody about?"

"Not really, no." Sekibanki dropped her spoon in her soup, then finally looked toward the were-hakutaku for the first time since they'd sat down. "Do you have a problem with that?"

"I don't, no." Keine wasn't even trying to keep her growing annoyance out of her voice now. "But some of the villagers are another issue, and they're—" There was the sound of distant shouting, and Keine instantly stopped to listen, then sighed. "... and, there they are."

Sekibanki had stopped eating, and just stared sullenly into the her stew. "They're just humans. I can take out all of—"

"No. You can't. The people of this village are under my protection." Keine's hesitance was gone now, and she rose to standing. "Even the jerks."

Sekibanki's eyes narrowed. "So you're just going to—"

"That includes you."

The rokurokubi paused. Did she just call me a...? It didn't matter, really. The voices were growing a bit louder and more distinct, and she could hear at least one barking dog among them. She shuddered. Bad memories. "... so what are you going to do?"

"I'm going to make sure that nobody kills each other."

It had been a pleasant spring day, and even though the sun had set an hour ago, the warmth was still lingering. When the two stepped outside, it was immediately obvious that something was wrong. The lights of the human village lit up the landscape in one direction, and among them, there were the moving lights of several lanterns and at least one torch heading toward the cottage.

The light illuminated a group of people—Ten or so in all, mostly men. Two of them had two braying dogs on leashes. Judging by their unsteady gait, not one of them was sober. When the approaching mob saw the pair, somebody gave an unsteady shout of, "The monster!" A few other people echoed this, and as they grew nearer, Keine stepped forward and partially shielded Sekibanki with her body. "... let me do the talking."

The group came to a stop a few meters away, close enough for their weapons to be easily visible. Almost all of them were repurposed farming tools—pitchforks, machetes, and kama—but also a lone hunting bow. They'd still get the job done if it came down to that. Even on a youkai. Or a were-youkai. for that matter.

The apparent leader of the group, a somewhat disheveled-looking man who was holding the lone torch, stepped forward. "Outta the way, Kamishira... shira... rasawa. We need t' talk to the monster." It was a crowded field of contenders, but out of all of them, he was quite likely the least sober.

"I don't think you do." Keine's voice was free of the hesitance that she'd shown earlier. "Do you think that nobody heard your little planning session in the middle of the street?"

The man scowled. "This doesn't have anything t' do with you."

"I've said that I'll protect the people of this village, and—"

"She's not a person! Shizza monster!" A shout of approval went up through the mob, and a few people held their weapons aloft.

"She's not—!"

"We all saw 'er shootin' at the shrine maiden! An' she attacked Tanaka three nights ago!"

"She didn't attack anybody! If you'd just shut up and talk this out..."

Sekibanki grumbled something under her breath, and while nobody could hear it over the argument, several members of the group noticed her lips moving.

"What wuzzat, monster?" "What'd she say?" "Is she castin' a spell on us?!"

Keine shot Sekibanki a reproachful glare, then turned back to the crowd. "She's not casting a spell, and she didn't say anything. Now if you'll..."

"No." Sekibanki stepped forward now, out from behind Keine's protection. The were-hakutaku trailed off. "I did say something. I said that you're fools." She'd looked worried at the start of the confrontation, but now, a slightly vicious grin spread on her face. Her eyes drifted across the mob, savoring the sight of a few of them taking cautious steps backward. "Foolish humans who think that a few sticks and blades will allow them to stand up to the power of a true youkai." She spread her cape dramatically, while her head levitated up off of her neck, her eyes glowing red and blood dripping from the base. It was a well-practiced move by this point.

Everything was quiet for a moment, except for the sound of one of the dogs whimpering. Keine raised a hand to interject, and one of the men stammered, "W-we can't let her intimidate..."

"BEGONE!" Sekibanki's head flew forward, with her eyes leaving a glowing red aftertrail, and she gave an unearthly shriek. With that, the mob's morale was broken. They gave a collective scream of their own, then turned and took off running, but the rokurokubi didn't give up that easily. Her head harried the stragglers, wailing at them, swooping down from out of sight to make them nearly fall over in shock, and just generally being an unearthly terror. The dogs slipped their leashes and dashed off toward the treeline. One poor soul tripped and fell, and Sekibanki literally nipped at his heels as he scrambled to stand back up.

Not until the group was nearly out of sight did her head turn to fly back toward her body, but for the entire return trip, she could see Keine. The were-hakutaku's arms were crossed, and she had a scowl on her face. but she waited patiently until Sekibanki was pulling herself back together to speak up.

"I certainly hope you enjoyed that," Keine said crossly.

"Oh, I did." It didn't really need to be said. Sekibanki was grinning ear to ear.

"And if they come back?"

"They wouldn't dare face me again after that." She grabbed her head and jerked it side to side to help it settle into place, then rolled her shoulders.

"They don't need to face you if they can just block the door to your house and set it on fire."

"..." Sekibanki turned toward Keine for the first time since she'd returned. It seemed to have dampened her enthusiasm a little, at least. "Then what would you have me do?"

"I think it's better for everybody if nobody knows where to find you for a few days. Do you have anywhere else you can stay for a while, friends you could...?"

"No."

Keine sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. "I thought as much. Very well. You will be staying at my place for a day or two. Go get your things."

The two argued for a bit, but in the end, Keine won out. Sekibanki would be staying with her. It only took her about ten minutes to gather up the things she wanted to bring, and after bundling them up, the two set out.

By the time they left the rokurokubi's house, it was fully dark, and the only light came from windows and the occasional street lantern. The pair walked in silence for a while, until Keine spoke up.

"Was it true, what they said back there? That you attacked that man?"

Sekibanki scoffed. "No. The man was a moron. I only chased him down the street with my head."

"... ah."

"I'm surprised he recognized me, though. Most humans don't."

"Did you ever think that, perhaps, if you were a little nicer, people wouldn't—"

"It doesn't matter." Sekibanki cut her off, and the youkai's arms crossed over her chest as she walked. "You heard them back there. They called me a monster. That's how humans are."

"Speaking as a former human, and somebody who mostly still is one, I don't think you're a monster. Just a jerk."

"I feed on fear. If I didn't do that sort of thing, I'd die."

"I'm not talking about scaring people." Keine stopped in her tracks in the light of a storefront, and Sekibanki reluctantly turned to face her. "Do you think that here, in Gensokyo, that's anything special? If my studies have taught me one thing—"

Sekibanki scowled and turned away to start off down the street again, but Keine grabbed her shoulder and continued, a little more loudly, "If my studies have taught me one thing..." She released Sekibanki's shoulder and quieted down; the rokurokubi didn't move this time. "... it's that the question of who is a monster and who is not is largely a political one. That is what keeps Gensokyo running. Do you think that every youkai just stopped scaring humans as soon as the barrier went up?"

"No, but—"

Keine, however, was in full-on lecture mode now, and wasn't about to get interrupted. "Youkai scare, and trick, and sometimes even attack, humans every day. But there's peace here, while youkai are nearly extinct in the outside world. Because humans can no longer see most of them as monsters." She held up one hand and counted off examples on her fingers. "Mystia Lorelei blinds humans almost every night, but she's invited to every festival, because the village elders love her grilled lamprey. The entire Myouren temple is full of youkai, but it still gets human visitors, because everybody wants a blessing from Bishamonten. Even the flower youkai is polite when she has business here. Because they all know that if the humans want, they can destroy all of them, in time. It was well underway before the barrier went up."

The two glared at each other in silence for a few seconds. "You can ditch the tone, but you were right about one thing, They'll come back. They always do. With more people, and more dogs, and more weapons every time. The last time it happened, in the outside world, they tried to drive a stake through my heart. They thought I was a vampire. Morons." She smiled bitterly. "Perhaps I just didn't open enough lamprey stands, though."

"There's no need for the sarcasm. Those were exceptional examples." Keine crossed her arms again. "My point is, if you were something other than 'that jerk who never talks to anybody and chases us with her disgusting decapitated head,' people might be a bit less likely to burn your house down." With a sigh, she lightened her tone a little. "That group mostly was morons, though. I don't think you actually need to worry about them coming back. That's the first time anything like that has happened in Gensokyo in a very long time."

"What do you...?"

Keine smiled sheepishly. "They were drunk and angry and looking for a fight. If you hadn't drawn attention to yourself lately, they probably would have just gotten into a bar fight instead. I actually did come to prevent any violence... but I was more worried about you hurting the humans than the other way around." Keine sounded a little defensive now. "... although I do think it's probably a good idea for you to stay somewhere else tonight, just in case."

Sekibanki flushed angrily. "So that whole speech you just gave, you just felt like lecturing me?"

"No, I just felt like telling you that... look." Keine sighed and relaxed. "The way you greeted me back there isn't going to win you any friends. I don't know how long you've lived in Gensokyo, and I don't know what happened to you in the outside world, but... things are different here. Most humans still fear youkai, but for the most part, everybody gets along."

"Except for the ones who showed up at my door with weapons."

"Except for them, yes. And now tomorrow, they'll probably try to save face by telling all of their drinking buddies that you were only able to chase them off because you grew ten meters tall and breathed fire, and nobody will ever bother you again. Happy?"

"No. But I think a few days of chasing the drunkards home at night will even the score."

Keine sighed. "That's close enough, I suppose."

"Good. I'm going home."

"Please, one moment."

Sekibanki scowled and folded her arms back over her chest, but did at least stay in one place for the time being.

"Despite all of that, I know that it... can be difficult. There aren't many people in the human village who know what it's like being a youkai. Or part youkai, for that matter."

"And?" Sekibanki cocked an eyebrow expectantly.

"And, so, if you need somebody to talk to sometime, I'm available, except for during classes. If nothing else, perhaps you could learn some manners." The were-hakutaku crossed her arms sternly and held Sekibanki's gaze.

Which was a bit of a feat, since the youkai stared at her blankly for a good five seconds. "... I'll think about it," she finally conceded.

"That's all I can ask. Good night, Ms. Sekibanki."

The rokurokubi gave a grunt of acknowledgment, and with that, she turned to set out toward home. Within a few minutes, she'd disappeared into the night, and Keine turned and did the same.