Everything was dark.
Outside of the sack, Sekibanki could hear noises—the rattling of carriage wheels, conversation that was just a little too muffled to make out the words. It was obvious that Seija was taking her captured head somewhere. Where they were going, though, was another question entirely. It was definitely outside of the village. She could feel her body, distant and only growing more so, through a connection like an increasingly strained rubber band.
She was just going to have to hope that it didn't break.
The carriage rattled to a stop. Somebody lifted the bag, leaving her head rolling around on the bottom. "Almost there," Seija said, clearly relishing the discomfort that she'd inflicted. "Have you out of that thing in no time."
The sound of footsteps announced that they were moving again, but it didn't last long this time. A door opened. There was more muffled conversation. Something rattled.
Sekibanki was tossed onto a hard surface. She rolled, and rebounded off an equally hard wall that rattled on impact. "Come on out," Seija's voice announced from somewhere outside the sack. "I have a proposal for you."
Sekibanki grumbled under her breath, but slowly hovered upward. The sack fell away from her head, until she emerged into light again. After half an hour wrapped in burlap, she needed to squint. Between the wound on her cheek and the distance between her two heads, that wasn't exactly her primary concern. She head a splitting headache, and her thoughts felt like they were percolating down through a layer of tar. She'd live, for now, but she might wish she hadn't.
They were in a tiny room, barely more than a closet. Light shined in through a tiny window near the ceiling, but any hope it gave her was quickly quashed—her head wouldn't fit through it, even if she could find some way to get it open. Sekibanki herself was sitting atop a small table that was otherwise crammed with tools. More importantly, she was in a cage. A bird cage.
Seija loomed over her. "Comfy?" She gave the cage a shove just to rattle it.
"Not really." Sekibanki hovered backward, putting as much room between them as the cage would allow. "What do you want?"
"Never a good question to ask an amanojaku. They just might give you a straight answer." Seija flashed a frankly unpleasant smile, then tugged a chair over and took a seat, bringing the two closer to eye level. "I'm not going to lie, I was pretty pissed when I realized you'd been eavesdropping on us. With the stuff you heard, you could probably blow the whole thing open. Of course..." She gave one of the cage's bars a flick with her fingertip. "I'm pretty sure you're smart enough to realize that sending the shrine maiden here would be pretty reckless when we've got hostages. And your head."
"I'm... well aware."
"You did pretty good to manage it, though. I hadn't expected expected somebody to be dumb enough to break into the Hieda place. Seeing as you're here and you outsmarted me... I want to make you a deal."
"A deal," Sekibanki repeated dryly.
"That's right. I offered it to that umbrella girl before, but she didn't have enough sense to take it. It's simple—I want you to join us."
"And why should I do that?"
"The only reason you're against us is that you don't know what we're about. Can't see eye to eye if you don't even give us a chance."
"You made me into an outlaw before I had much reason to 'give you a chance.' Besides. I heard your plans. I don't think I'm interested in helping you murder villagers."
"'Murder.'" Seija scoffed. "Youkai eat humans every day, you know."
"Not villagers. Outsiders."
"That's the problem." Seija walked back and forth as she spoke, pacing the tiny room like a predator looking for its moment to strike. "Ever since that spell card system came around, the humans in Gensokyo have been too cocky. They aren't afraid of us. Some shrine maiden barely as old as the dirt under my fingernails makes a threat, and half the youkai whimper like whipped dogs. That seem like any way to live, to you?"
Sekibanki rocked her head back, resting it against the rear of the cage and making it a little easier to keep her expression neutral. "Do you have a point?"
"You're a youkai. Doesn't that piss you off?"
"I'm a rokurokubi," Sekibanki said flatly. "I've spent my entire life well aware that the humans will wipe me out if I make one wrong move."
It apparently wasn't the answer Seija was looking for. The surprise was enough to leave her speechless for a moment, until she continued with renewed annoyance. "And you don't want to get even with them for that?"
"Murdering a hundred people to soothe your own ego isn't really what I'd call 'getting even.'"
Seija's smile returned with a vengeance. "You're not looking at the big picture. These people at the banquet—it isn't a bunch of nobodies. Dunno if you caught the speech back there, but it's invite-only. A real who's who of the human village, all the nobles and big business owners. Except, no youkai exterminators, nobody who's got even a whiff of magic in them. A single night, and the village loses every leader they have. Sends a message, you know? 'Doesn't matter how strong she is, one little girl can't keep you safe from us.'"
Sekibanki stared at her, incredulous. Even among the kind of youkai who ate people, it wasn't common to hear them talking about murder so casually. "... until she starts exterminating you the next day. It isn't the kind of thing she'd forgive, you know. You... you wouldn't even be helping youkai with a plan like that. Before Gensokyo—"
Seija scoffed and raised a cloth, draping it across the cage. The outside world vanished. "You've got until tomorrow morning to make a decision. Think about it this way—Gensokyo's full of predators and prey. I'd think really hard about what side I want to be on, if I were you."
"How does a youkai get this heavy? This girl has to eat bricks or something."
"She does have a really nice garden! Um, I mean, it looks nice, at least. I've never actually grown anything..."
"You'd need to eat a lot of veggies to get this hefty. I'm sticking with bricks."
Sekibanki drifted back to awareness slowly, like she was struggling her way back from a concussion. Her head felt like it was filled with soup. It was rolled back, bouncing along with every movement of her body… and there was a lot of movement. She was surrounded by darkness, bouncing every second or so as she descended the stairs into the tomb. On her sides, Kogasa and Nue were cooperating to barely carry her between them.
She stirred, giving an arm a tug. Kogasa froze, then released it. "Oh! You're okay!"
"Uh? Of course I'm—" She'd needed Kogasa's support, it turned out. Without it, she slouched down, stumbling down a few stairs before Nue yanked her to a stop.
"Hey, come on!" Nue shouted. "We've been carrying you for forty minutes! … if somebody gets to throw you down a flight of stairs, it should be me."
"Sorry. Sorry." Sekibanki steadied herself and straightened up. It took a few seconds longer for Nue to release her, letting her take stock of herself.
She was in one piece… on this end, at least. Overall, not quite as much, since she could still feel her kidnapped head tugging on her consciousness in the distance. The last few bits of her mind were still trickling over, but all the important pieces were present. "I'm fine," she said, in a not-entirely-convincing tone. "I can walk."
"Really?" Nue said. "Seems to me like we just hauled you halfway across Gensokyo because you couldn't. You're welcome, by the way."
"Are you okay?" Kogasa hurried forward to give her a worried inspection. "You just sort of stopped moving back there, and we weren't sure what happened, so…!"
Sekibanki rubbed her forehead. The injury was on her other head, but it seemed like the splitting headache was with her for good. It figured. "They shot my head and took it," she said. Nue opened her mouth for a wisecrack, and Sekibanki quickly added, "My other head."
Nue couldn't hide her disappointment. "Can't walk and talk at the same time, huh?"
"It's hard enough controlling multiple heads at once. Doing it when they're this far apart is..."
"Like cooking dinner with your head in one room and your hands in the next?"
"... close enough."
"Oh! That does sound pretty awful..." Kogasa rested a steadying hand on Sekibanki's shoulder. "Will you be okay?! Is there anything we can do to help?"
"I'll be fine," Sekibanki muttered. "I've had worse."
Kogasa didn't look convinced. It didn't help that when they reached the bottom of the stairs, Sekibanki barely managed to take four steps before she slumped down to lean against the wall. "... I did learn what they're up to, at least."
"What, really?" Nue stepped forward, leaning over her with renewed interest. "What is it?"
"She's getting all of the most influential humans in one place, and she's going to let youkai eat them. To put fear back into humans or something."
A moment passed in silence. Kogasa said, "That isn't very nice..."
"I think that's the idea."
"We… we have to stop her!"
Sekibanki really, really wanted to say 'no we don't.' Truly and deeply, down in her bones. Getting involved this much had been a mistake to begin with, and throwing themselves into the middle of it would just be that much worse. But…
"If everything goes the way she expects, it will be like the old days again. Humans and youkai killing each other over nothing." Sekibanki sighed. "… so yes. I suppose we do."
"Right!"
"And, er." Nue looked between the two of them. "Just how do you plan on doing that? All those youkai coming to the feast are probably on her side, right?"
"And she's holding one of my heads hostage," Sekibanki added. "We don't need to think of anything right now, anyway." She slid further down the wall, and carefully crept across the floor until she could slump down onto her blanket. "I… think I need some rest first."
"Heeey! Akyuu, are you around?"
Marisa had made her landing in the central yard of the Hieda manor, a place so scenic and carefully rustic that she could practically smell the money wafting off of it. After skipping across the tiny bridge that crossed the koi pond, fussing with a lock for a few minutes, and slipping inside, she found herself peering down a hallway longer than most buildings in Gensokyo.
It was empty. Marisa had only been inside the Hieda manor a few times in her life, but the place usually had at least a few servants bustling about at all hours of the day. Right now, though, she couldn't hear much movement throughout the place. It sent a thoughtful little twinge through her. If there wasn't much here for her to investigate, surely Akyuu wouldn't mind if she grabbed a few souvenirs. As rich as she was, she probably wouldn't even notice.
"Yo, Akyuu! If you're here, I'm givin' ya until the count of five, alright? One… two… three..."
A door toward the end of the hall slid open. Akyuu stepped out, looking slightly annoyed. "I'm here," she said. "I see that you've already let yourself in."
"Ah, yeah, sorry. I knocked, but the servants didn't show up. I was afraid you might've been in trouble." Every bit of the sentence was a lie, but Akyuu didn't need to know that.
"Well, as you can see, I'm not. Can I help you?"
"Nothin' major, really. I've just been looking into the whole mess with Kosuzu. There's a few things that're still confusing to me."
"Such as...?"
"Well, like that youkai that showed up at your speech yesterday. That was Sekibanki. Why would she show her face when there's a bounty out for her, d'you think?"
"Who knows. Maybe she was trying to kill the only witness."
"Seems pretty reckless. She's usually a pretty careful youkai."
"Then it was strange for her to eat Kosuzu to begin with, wasn't it? One more strange thing isn't that odd."
"You might have a point. Not even the only strange thing I've heard of lately." Marisa stepped forward and idly swung her broom up over her shoulders, glancing around the empty corridor. "This place seems pretty deserted."
"What about it?"
"Well, word around town is that you laid off most of your servants, huh? People who've worked for your family for generations suddenly out the door, the way I hear it."
"I did, yes."
"So what's the deal?"
"If the servants I let go are gossiping about it, that just goes to show that I was right to get rid of them. As I'm sure you understand, after being attacked and nearly abducted by youkai, I felt like it was necessary to surround myself with only those servants that I can trust."
"Ah, I gotcha." Marisa stretched, slipping a yawn out, and kept her voice carefully casual as she added, "Like that lady in the hood that's been following you around?"
A brief look of surprise flashed across Akyuu's face. She missed a beat before answering, "Like her, yes."
"Funny thing is, I asked some of the servants you laid off, and none of them even knew her name. Said they didn't remember seeing her before a couple weeks ago."
Akyuu reddened slightly. "She's my personal assistant. I don't need to announce every hiring decision I make."
"I guess not. So what's her name?"
Akyuu stared at her. "Excuse me?"
"Her name. Everybody's gotta have a name, right?"
Akyuu's cheeks darkened even more. "I don't see why that's any of your business."
"It's not a big deal, is it? Maybe I wanna make her a birthday card."
"Her name is… Kotone Iida."
"'zat 'koto' with the character for 'harp' or the one for 'song'?"
"The one for harp."
"Related to Mr. Iida up on the hill? With the farm?" Marisa asked, her grin spreading.
"I wouldn't know," Akyuu answered tersely.
"Oh, while I'm at it, just in the interest of being thorough and all... some of the neighbors said they'd heard a bit of a ruckus up here earlier. Everything okay?"
This time, Akyuu froze up. She obviously hadn't been expecting that question. "... a servant cut herself while preparing dinner. It took her a few minutes to calm down." She stepped forward, resting a hand on Marisa's arm and ushering her toward the door. "Now, I should really get back to what I was doing. Is there anything else you'd like to clear up before I show you out?"
"Nah, I think that covers it. Oh, before I go, I figured I should warn you to keep an eye out. Me and Reimu are still figuring out what's goin' on, but we've got a suspicion that those youkai that took Kosuzu have friends in the village." Marisa turned her head just enough to monitor Akyuu's expression from the corner of her eye. "Don't quite have enough proof to start exterminating just yet, but here's hopin', right?"
"Of course," Akyuu said coolly. "You'll be the first to know if I need a youkai exterminator. … have a good evening, Miss Kirisame."
Akyuu closed the door behind Marisa so quickly that it almost slammed. Marisa took a few steps before she slipped her hand from her pocket and released the mini-hakkero, after keeping it at the ready for the whole conversation.
Sekibanki's insistence that they'd been framed, only to show up again during the speech. Kosuzu's strangely bloodless disappearance. Akyuu's altogether weird behavior. It didn't really take an experienced youkai exterminator to realize that something was very wrong with this whole situation.
The talk hadn't proven quite as many suspicions as she'd hoped, but youkai hunting wouldn't be any fun if it was that easy. Besides, she'd gotten a lead, at least. It seemed like a good time to ask Mr. Iida if he remembered having a cousin Kotone. If Akyuu had outright lied... well, life was going to become even more interesting.
Sleeping was easier said than done.
Resting was hard with two heads to begin with. It was even harder when one of those heads was sitting a few kilometers away, on the floor of a not-particularly-comfortable bird cage. Sekibanki started drifting off, only for her jaw to ache on the other side and tug her attention away. By the time she dealt with that, her leg had fallen asleep from laying in the same position for half an hour. In the back of her mind, she was worrying about everything that was happening—for all she knew, tomorrow morning, Seija could rescind her offer and split her head in half then and there. With an amanojaku, that was one of the nicer possibilities.
And all through it, the splitting headache persisted.
Her consciousness bounced back and forth between her skulls like a broken metronome. It made it hard to keep track of the time. At some point, though, it returned to her body and she felt something warm pressed up against her back.
She tried to look back over her shoulder, but that turned out to be a terrible idea. She had one hell of a cramp from sleeping on the floor, and in the total darkness, she couldn't see anyway. Process of elimination, though, was pretty quick when there was only one possibility. "… Kogasa?"
Next to her in the darkness, Kogasa stiffened up in surprise. "Oh. Um. Good evening."
"What are you doing?"
Even in the darkness, Sekibanki could sense her glancing aside sheepishly. "I'm sorry! You were making these noises that sounded like you weren't feeling very good, and you wouldn't answer when I said anything… I was worried about you."
"So you decided to climb into bed with me."
"Hugs always make me feel better! … and you fell asleep without a blanket on. Miss Byakuren says that's a good way to catch a cold."
"I don't think that's my biggest worry right now."
"I guess not, huh..." A pause. "Um, I can move away if you want..."
Sekibanki stared into the darkness, thinking good and long about how she wanted to respond to that. She had to admit, she needed all the comfort she could get right now. Her every last nerve was tense and ragged, stretched doing double duty over the long, long distance between her two heads. Kogasa's warmth was a welcome contrast to the cold of the tomb. In, she had to admit, more ways than one. "It's... fine."
Kogasa nodded against her back. A short while passed in silence before she spoke again. "Are you going to be okay?"
"I won't die. It's... like I said earlier. My attention is stretched between two places. The farther away my other head is, the harder it is for me to concentrate or relax. If it went too far..." Sekibanki trailed off. "I'd rather not find out what happens."
"Oh... it's kind of like that with me and my human shape, too. I get really weak if they're too far apart. Except with me, it hurts if it's more than a few meters. If it gets too far, I think I might disappear for a while. Or maybe I'd die?"
"You don't know?"
"Nope. … it's, um, a little hard to test, you know?"
"I suppose it would be. That sounds pretty inconvenient."
"It isn't that bad! Having a human shape is pretty nice, actually. It helps me get around, and I can talk to people and stuff! … but, um." When Kogasa spoke again, her voice was lower, quiet and ashamed. "I guess the reason I'm over here is that I... feel pretty bad about you getting hurt."
"It wasn't your fault."
"No, but...! Um. Well, you were right before. It's... kinda my fault that you're in this situation. If I hadn't bugged you, you'd still be at home relaxing, but instead you're sleeping in a tomb with a scary youkai holding your head hostage..."
Sekibanki opened her mouth to respond, but she couldn't quite decide what to say. Her first impulse was to agree. She had spent the first day or so angry at Kogasa for dragging her into this. She couldn't stay angry at her now, though. And yet, despite these thoughts, the thing that pushed itself to her lips was the pettiest thought on her mind.
"... I'm still not sure if hugging me while I sleep is the solution."
"Sorry..." Kogasa sounded like a kid who'd been caught with her hand in a cookie jar. "I thought it would feel nice. I can stop if you want..."
"No, er, it feels nice. It's just a little weird. … but nice."
"Oh!" Kogasa's whole body stiffened up in in excitement behind her. "There's another thing I could do! I just remembered!"
"What is it?"
"Here, um..."
Kogasa awkwardly shifted out of position behind Sekibanki. Sekibanki could hear her rearranging herself in the darkness. When she approached again, she cupped the side of Sekibanki's head with a hand and coaxed it up from the floor. Sekibanki complied, confused. A few seconds later, the warm, soft surface of Kogasa's lap slipped into place beneath her head, a natural pillow.
Sekibanki stared up into the darkness, speechless. "A-ah?"
"Humans do this for each other sometimes when they can't sleep, right?" Kogasa's hand strayed up to Sekibanki's hair, stroking it. She hummed a few bars of a lullaby.
"I think this is something they mostly do for children," Sekibanki said, her voice taut.
"Oh, is it...? I can stop if you want..."
Sekibanki felt her blush returning with a vengeance. When was the last time she'd even touched somebody, let alone done something like this? But, she had to admit, warm human contact was a lot nicer than the cavern floor. She gave her head a gentle shake. "It's... fine. Try to get some rest yourself, though, okay?"
Sekibanki awoke to light.
Near-blinding light, actually. She squinted against it, and the edge of the glare slowly faded until she could make out the general details. She was seeing the world through her head in the bird cage. The towel that Seija had thrown over it had slipped down overnight, and the room's single, narrow window was placed just right for the morning sun to shine directly in her face.
She levitated up from the cage's floor, and immediately regretted it. Her injury felt like it had knit together a bit overnight, but it still felt like an iron rod jammed through her cheek, stiff and cold and making everything around it ache. Her two heads played tug-of-war with her consciousness, until she tugged it back in this direction. She felt crappy enough without trying to focus on two viewpoints at once. As blood slowly pumped back in to the parts of her face that had fallen asleep after resting on the cage floor all night, she considered her options. If she could manage to push her nose between the bars, she just might be able to work the latch free. Demeaning, yes, but she didn't have a lot of options. She could almost definitely knock the cage off the shelf if she flew into the wall, but that would just leave her in a cage on the floor. She didn't feel very good about beating a hole in the cage with her face, either. It seemed like a fight that the cage would win.
She was considering how likely it was that she could summon up the energy to try melting the bars with danmaku projectiles… when footsteps approached the door. Her first instinct was to hide every sign of her escape plans, but with no arms or legs, she hadn't exactly accomplished much.
"Rise and shine," Seija called through the door. It opened, and she was soon looming over the cage, her white dress nearly glowing in the direct sunlight. Sekibanki squinted against it, but even then, Seija's confident grin was pretty self-evident. "That was nine hours. Plenty of time for you think about where you want things to go from here."
"Whether I want to join your little conspiracy to eat villagers, you mean."
"You've got it."
"Rokurokubi aren't man-eaters, you know."
"Never a bad time to start." Seija's smile grew sharper for a moment. It seemed to be her equivalent of laughing at her own joke. "Like I said before, the real purpose here is to put humans back in their place. We can all agree on that. You don't want to eat people, you can still do your part guarding at the banquet. And hey, added bonus: if you decide to join today, I won't have to waste twenty minutes trying to find something that can cave in a rokurokubi skull. Assuming I don't decide to keep you around to suffer for a few days first. Haven't really made up my mind, if I'm being honest."
Even without a body, Sekibanki somehow managed to shiver. Seija had made the threat so casually, there was no way to know whether she was joking or not. Coming from an amanojaku, there probably wasn't much difference, anyway. Fortunately, she'd already decided on her response. "It isn't like you've let me much choice," she said, glancing thoughtfully toward the window. "I'll hear you out."
