Chapter 2: Playing All Alone
The next day had rolled around peacefully despite quite the long string of events that seemed to have followed the day before. Everything with the Yokai Watch Elder and encountering a powerful yokai, to meeting Whisper, Junior, and Akinori. It was all so strange and weird to such a painfully average girl like Natsume.
It was a nice and peaceful Sunday, meaning Natsume didn't have to worry much about school for today, which was a good thing since she would need all the time she could get to get caught up from yesterday.
The two teen's and their yokai friend's meeting place was a shed by the shrine the Arihoshi family tended to. It was spacious and rather well decorated, but an odd choice it seemed at first.
"So in short, the Yokai Watch Elder I have was a mysterious mirror created by a lost tribe of people said to have close connections with a mysterious race of yokai?" Natsume concluded from the briefing she had gotten, Akinori nodding.
"That's all correct!" Akinori confirmed for Natsume, only for the braided hair girl to have some questions.
"Aren't yokai already mysterious?" Natsume asked, still a bit confused. Whisper floated on in, looking at his Y pad.
"Yes, but there's a race of yokai far, far more mysterious," Whisper began his little speech, before putting his Y-pad away. "They're known as the Fae yokai, a race of yokai from the far west that don't like interacting with humans, and aren't even ruled by the Yokai King Enma himself, having their own rulers instead."
"Huh, far west yokai..." Natsume thought aloud. "Wouldn't they be like cowboys and superheroes and stuff?"
"Perhaps, it's hard to say, nobody's seen a Fae Yokai in eons," Whisper answered with a sincere shrug. "
"That raises a good question, Whisper..." Akinori began to ponder, thinking as well. "If the Fae Yokai are such recluse yokai, how did one of their artifacts end up in our realm?"
"Good question I have to say," Whisper gave an answer to the boy. "Perhaps something or someone ended up dropping it here by accident?"
"Possibly, but what could have caused something to have the Fae Yokai come out of hiding…?" Natsume wondered, not noticing Akinori was busy opening up something on a laptop on a nearby desk.
"You guys sure do like to talk a lot about stuff," Junior commented, trying to get the last crumbs at the bottom of a bag of chips.
"Maybe Usuranura might have a thing or two on it..." Akinori spoke up as he spoke to himself, pulling up a slightly dated looking and sketchy website, but it seemed to provide a wealth of info. "They might have a post relating to it, or at least a clue."
Natsume got up to look over Akinori's shoulder, to further view the site in question and read along any posts. Most of them talked about weird sightings, but most were well over two weeks old and were mundane…
...Except for one.
"Hey, there's a new post that was posted last night," Natsume pointed out, looking at the title. "Hide and Seek Gone Absolutely Wrong"
Opening up the post, the full story could be seen, or at least, part of it.
With yokai and whatnot being in our realm, I wanted to try the age old game of Hide and Seek By Yourself, a way to get into contact with spirits that are still hidden. Everything seemed to work, but something went wrong! There was a horrifying specter! Describing them just makes me uneasy, and they wouldn't give the doll I used back! What am I to do…
Below the post was a small bit of contact info, just an instant messenger client handle and an Email.
"Given this recent sighting, it might be best if we seek this person out and try to get an answer," Akinori remarked with a nod, opening up the messaging client to reach out to this person. "Plus there's only so much text can express sometimes, you know?"
"Right," Natsume nodded, standing up as soon as she saw a location suggestion appear in the messages. "I suppose I could tag along for this case solving, right?"
"Absolutely, with the Yokai Watch Elder, this case will be solved lightning fast!" Akinori agreed, starting to make his way out, Natsume, Junior, and Whisper following behind.
Meeting at a nearby park, the group met up with the poster of the Usuranura post. They were a young girl, around Natsume's age but not seeming to be in her class, as Natsume didn't seem to recognize her at all.
"So...you want to know more about what happened with me...Yeah?" The girl shyly asked, still a bit shaken by the events. "You do seem like someone who can cleanse bad spirits..."
"Sure thing!" Akinori boldly answered, Natsume nodding slightly.
"And I'm...uhh...a friend! And I...can try my best at the very least!" Natsume added in cheerfully, trying to lighten the mood. The girl seemed to smile a bit, before giving a deep breath and getting to telling her side of the story in full detail.
"You see, recently a boy from my class had gone missing," The girl began to explain her story. "Which is odd, since I never really noticed him until he was gone for extended periods of time, like a ghostly shadow..."
"So me and my friends thought he might've been an actual ghost that's no longer living but not a yokai either..." The girl kept on going, getting more and more nervous. "Leaving us to go to an old house to try and play Hide and Seek Alone...Only to be haunted by a horrifying being! We went in one by one, but all came out screaming!"
"Do you happen to know the name of the boy in your class who went missing?" Akinori asked, being rather sympathetic to the situation.
The girl simply just shook her head. "No I don't...He was always really quiet and never spoke up...I don't think I've ever heard him talk..."
"Well whoever or whatever is giving you the trouble, we'll put a stop to it," Natsume reassured as best as she could, looking over at Akinori and Whisper. "Right?"
"Right!" Akinori responded, Whisper giving a hesitant nod.
"If you need to know, it's that large old house between uptown and downtown," The girl informed, starting a smile a bit now knowing someone was hopefully going to take care of the paranormal peril as the group was off with a small "thank you!" from everyone.
It would be hard to miss such an old and spooky looking house, but even then, it took the group a while to get there.
Before the heroic group's arrival, someone was still within the residence, not being bothered by it but seeming to be a part of it almost.
That someone was Touma, the Kigan Gear still firmly attached to his arm and feeding off of his malice.
"Fueling off of everyone's fear is the first step..." Touma thought aloud to himself, thinking in deep thought on an old armchair in the master's bedroom.
"Do you feel anything?" A mysterious voice asked from the creeping shadows, having a bit of a playful feminine tone to it. "Didn't those pests go to the school you went to? Isn't it nice to pay them back for treating you like a shadow?"
Touma took a moment to respond, seeming to process the prompted question in his mind and his clouded heart.
"Yes, it's quite satisfying, though I'd like people to know my name more..." Touma answered after a brief moment of pondering. "You scare them off a bit too soon."
"My apologies, I'll make sure someone can see you eye to eye and know your name before I give them the scarring of a lifetime, master," The shadowy voice apologized, being interrupted by the sound of the front door creaking open and footsteps being heard slowly starting to walk in.
"Why not go greet our guests?" The voice suggested to Touma. "I hope they brought a good doll for me!"
The two seemed to walk down, having no idea who had entered the old abode.
Entering into the old house was Natsume, by herself with her comrades staying nearby but not following her inside. Seemed as by the moment Natsume entered inside, a magical barrier had been put up preventing Akinori or anyone else from entering.
For now, it was Natsume versus whatever evil lies within. She could at least run out if things got too dangerous. She took a tight grip to her Yokai Watch Elder, and with a slip of her thumb ended up activating a nifty light feature.
Unfortunately, that light feature came with a pretty loud sound, echoing throughout the old house.
"Shoot...Shoot!" Natsume cursed under her breath, hoping to have not alerted whatever being haunted this house, or possibly even more. She quickly darted through the house in a panic, trying to find somewhere to hide.
Thankfully for Natsume, she found one of the rooms, closing the door behind her as tightly yet as silently as she could.
It was a bedroom, one that might've belonged to a young girl given some of the old décor and mementos around. Storybooks about princesses and daring stories, some stuff about ballet too, though it was hard to see all in the dark. There was a second door, leading to a closet or possibly as part of a joined room, but it was locked up real tight.
"Okay...I think for now...I'm safe..." Natsume huffed under her breath, but was loud enough someone in another room could hear her.
"...Is someone there?" The voice of Touma asked, something luring him to the room adjoined with the one Natsume was in. They couldn't see each other, leaving Natsume to believe different things.
"Are you the ghost that haunts this place?" Natsume asked, slightly unsure and on edge, but still wanting to know the answer.
There was a bit of shocking silence. To this girl...Was Touma just a ghost? A mere spirit stuck between the life of human and yokai, and ignored by both.
Feeling a tremendous amount of power in his warped heart, Touma ended up lunging his left hand covered in shadow to break down the door in a fit of rage.
"I am, not, and never will be a shadow!" Touma managed to raise his voice, bits of broken old wood flying and dust scattering in the air. Natsume didn't manage to get a look at him initially, but once the dust died down, she did end up seeing the boy in question, the afternoon sun starting to appear through the clouds to give a clearer image of Touma.
And when she did, she felt something tug a bit at her heartstrings. Something recalled into Natsume's mind upon seeing the boy again.
"No way..." Natsume gasped in shock upon seeing the boy. "You're...you're Touma, back in first grade, aren't you?"
Hearing those words made Touma feel something different. Someone...remembered him? It was from years ago...But even then, Touma couldn't remember who this was...Why did they know him?
"Who are you?" Touma responded back with another question, clearly a bit in denial.
"It's me, Natsume, we were friends. We were never in the same class but..." Natsume tried to answer, but the boy used his dark magic to slam a nearby chair into the bedroom door.
"You're lying!" Touma ended up being able to shout once more, making sure his voice could be heard to the girl. "Nobody ever, nor will they ever even care about me in the slightest!"
Natsume had never seen Touma act so violent and enraged before. What happened? What was going through his mind that lead him to this point? For the brief moments they knew each other, he was a good kid, making sure she wasn't hurt or anything…
Alas, Natsume didn't even have the chance to ask what happened, as she already started to notice something dark and evil starting to form and take to Touma's side.
"Madame Cassee! Seize this...this lying fraud at once!" Touma commanded, the shadow making themselves a lot more apparent.
"Hehehe, I'll do my best!" The shadowy figure said, revealing to be a yokai that resembled a broken porcelain doll. Her hair was completely wild, her once nice dress torn up, and the lower half of her face completely broken, leaking out a shadowy smoke. Her dress sleeves seemed to be long, so long that they formed into shadowy hands that had two bright scarlet orange blades sticking from them.
"Now, let's stop playing hide and seek, and focus on tag!" The doll like yokai, Madam Cassee cackled, making the blades on her hands more apparent as she pointed to Natsume. "And you're it!"
Knowing how the game was played, Natsume's only option for survival at this point was running as fast as she could. She was thankful Touma had made the work easier for her by already breaking down the old bedroom door in his fit of denial fueled rage.
Thankfully Natsume was just a hair faster than Madame Cassee, the braided girl zipping up the stairs and finding a tucked away room to try and think things through.
"Alright...let's just hope this thing will work..." Natsume spoke to herself softly and quietly, getting out the strange key Junior had given to her the other day. Quickly she unlocked the watch clockwise, the gentle voice saying "Light!" as she focused, but seemed a new part had started to click into her mind.
"Huh? Friend? What? Am I calling for an Uwansora, right?" Natsume began, spinning the arc around before focusing. "Summoning my friend, Junior!"
After the summoning call, the small spherical yokai made his appearance to Natsume's side.
"...I didn't say those words yesterday, this keeps getting really weird..." Natsume realized, Junior looking over at her curiously.
"So, whatcha needed Jii-tan for?" Junior asked, a cackling being heard as Madame Cassee met up with the two.
"That's exactly why," Natsume pointed out in the direction of the evil yokai, Junior crossing his tiny little arms with a bit of sass.
"Run, run as fast as you can!" Madame Cassee laughed with evil enjoyment in her voice. "You'll all be caught, you're no gingerbread man!"
"Oh yeah?" Junior responded with, transforming into a nice gingerbread man with a cat like face and a big red and white bowtie. He ran down part way down the stairs railing at fast speeds, before jumping off and kicking Madame Cassee in the back of the head.
"Agh!" Madame Cassee yelped in pain. "I thought the only thing gingerbread men were good for are running, jumping, and sliding!"
Junior stopped at the base of the stairs, giving a look of irritation in his baked good based form. "Well, don't be such a big meanie, then!"
"Fine!" Madame Cassee huffed, holding out her hands. "If you wanna play dirty, I'll play dirty!"
The doll-like yokai lunged down the flight of stairs at dangerous speeds, her strange orange claws bared and lunged right into Junior with a loud pop being heard as it echoed all throughout the old house.
"Junior!" Natsume gasped in horror, rushing down to grab the recently reformed yokai, now back in his usual small and round state.
"Oooof….Jii-tan couldn't run like the gingerbread man that time..." Junior commented, a bit dazed as Natsume tried to run off from the evil specter, finding another room to hide themselves in, being a dusty old study from the looks of it.
"Now I think we have some time to try and think about how to take down Madame Cassee..." Natsume spoke in a low tone to her and Junior, the braided girl taking a seat in the old desk chair.
On the desk, there seemed to have been a short but sweet children's book, a bit dusted and old but the contents still readable.
Opening the book, it told a simple but endearing story.
There was once a girl who looked horrifyingly tattered and monstrous, but she had a good and kind soul. People were cruel to her, but the animals around her were able to make her and a dashing prince meet. When the prince offered a dance with the girl, she transformed into a truly beautiful and stunning image that reflected her pure heart deep within.
"I think this is giving me an idea..." Natsume concluded, closing the old book. She looked over the Junior, who was trying his best to pay attention. "And I'm going to need your help."
"Alrighty, what does Jii-tan gotta do, then?" Junior questioned, Natsume whispering the plan into his single feline ear and pointing over to the book. The red spherical yokai took a look, understanding the plan Natsume had given him.
"Come on! We're playing all dirty and you run away!?" Madame Cassee angrily shouted, having busted down just about every door in the old house before finally getting to the study Natsume and Junior ran into.
"You'll absolutely pay for being this big of a meanie!" Madame Cassee made sure the two could hear her threatening voice. Well, for as threatening as a young ghost girl could really sound.
The door to the study was busted open by the enraged doll yokai, only not to find Natsume nor Junior. Thankfully Natsume managed to keep herself absolutely silent in the study's closet, and for Junior, well…
The round orb of a yokai was nowhere to be seen, but instead there was a beautiful doll-sized prince was sitting on the desk. He looked like he had sprang out of the book, with a dashing red coat and beautiful honey-brown eyes.
"Are...Are you a doll left in offering for me?" Madame Cassee asked, her voice being much more quiet and less screechy. "Those children who came by earlier all brought dolls...but they didn't have what I was looking for in them..."
Madame Cassee rubbed the sides of her mostly broken head in confusion. "If only I could remember just what that thing was...I could say you have it..."
The prince doll was silent, but eventually started to move and float up to Madame Casse. He still didn't say a word, just offering his hand gently and giving a look.
While silent, Madame Cassee seemed to have understood the silent language of the other doll in question.
"Do you...want to dance with me?" Madame Cassee asked, the prince nodding as she offered her hand. It was a bit awkward to hold at first, but things went smoothly from there on out.
From there on out, the two began to do a simple yet elegant ballroom dance on out of the study, Natsume eventually coming out of her hiding spot and slowly observing the two from a safe enough distance.
As the two kept on dancing and dancing, Madame Cassee felt something start to lift in her heart, something warm and fuzzy like spring days of an innocent and sweet past. Being with this mysterious prince, the dark feelings that were clouding up Madame Cassee's heart were being lifted, before finally a dark aura had finally been lifted from her as the dance reached it's near end.
"I think...I remember now!" Madame Cassee spoke up, a glowing light coming from her chest. "I remember what I was looking for!"
The shining light became stronger, before completely cleansing the dark aura around the broken looking yokai, revealing her true form. It was a bit hard to see in the dark house, but she looked like a much nicer doll with flowers in her hair and what looked to be large orange pixie wings from her back, resembling the blades she had in her original form.
"That feeling was that of love and joy!" The now purified yokai recalled, before looking around in the dark house. "...Oh dear, how did we end up here? Could we possibly go outside where there's more sunlight?"
"Of course!" Natsume reassured, leading the way out. However, it seemed the magical barrier was still in place.
"Well that's pretty inconvenient I'll say," The doll yokai commented, Junior stepping up to the aid of Natsume.
"Let's show that barrier who the real boss is around here!" Junior commented, turning into a comedy sized mallet and putting himself right into Natsume's hands.
With a mighty swing, the barrier seemed to break, reliving the group of being unable to escape initially.
"Well, that seemed to have worked," Natsume remarked, slowly walking out the old house.
"Thank goodness it seemed my magic ended up working!" Akinori commented, confusing Natsume and her yokai friends.
"Huh?" Natsume questioned in quite the confused tone, giant mallet still in her hands. Akinori crossed his arms and smiled.
"To put it simply, I was getting worried with you taking a while, and I could hear quite a bit of hard hits going on in there," Akinori began to explain thoroughly. "So I focused all I could to try and break the barrier with my magic."
"Initially, I tried to see if there was a system I could hack into with my Y pad," Whisper added in, before shrugging in defeat. "Unfortunately, hacking is quite the tricky process and I simply didn't have time to learn such a thing in a short amount of time."
"Seems it was all a matter of odd timing..." Natsume concluded, Junior turning back into his regular self.
"Oh phooey, I was hoping to break that barrier," Junior complained, before Whisper came to pick him up. "Papa could have broken it easy peasy!"
"Now now, all that matters now is you're here now," Whisper commented, before noticing the doll yokai. "And that mysterious lady seems to have tagged along with you all as well."
"Oh goodness," The doll yokai noticed. It was clearer about her now, as she had nice curly and fluffy brunette hair and a nice but slightly tattered teal dress. She had fair and smooth skin with blush marks, large pointed ears and deep orange eyes.
"My name is Pixie, I hail from the Tsukumono tribe," Pixie introduced herself properly, giving a nice courtesy to the group. "And I am a Fae Yokai."
"Y...You're a fae yokai!?" Akinori yelped in shock, Pixie looking a bit confused.
"That's correct," Pixie confirmed with a nod. "Though originally I was a porcelain doll from long ago, meant to be a gift to a baby girl. But, when that baby laughed, a new soul of a fairy fused with the doll and became the me you see now..."
Pixie ended up looking down a little. "However, I was forced to leave, as the parents thought I was now cursed and leaking with evil. All I wanted was to be a kind fairy godmother to someone..."
"Did that ever come true, as in were you able to find anyone else?" Whisper asked, Pixie shaking her head.
"Sadly no, us Fae Yokai have not been allowed to go to the human world for many years," Pixie explained. "As when you go to the Fae realm, it's nearly impossible to get out unless you're very powerful and know your way around..."
Natsume reached out her hand to the saddened looking Pixie. "Hey, if you want to be my fairy godmother, I can let you do that if that's okay."
"R-Really!?" Pixie gasped in shock, nearly about to burst into tears. Natsume nodded happily, causing pixie to reach out her tiny hand for the human's in joy. "I'm...I'm eternally grateful!"
Upon the two's hands touching in friendship, another strange key like object appeared, having orange markings on it and a depiction of Pixie on one side, and a depiction of Madame Cassee on the other. Pixie then quickly noted the Yokai Watch Elder on Natsume's hand.
"Oh! Seems you have the forbidden artifact..." Pixie gasped in shock. "A powerful mirror spoken as taboo in our circles, one that allowed humans and yokai to connect...How did it end up here…?"
"Forbidden...Artifact?" Natsume asked, before shaking her head upon hearing the last thing. "As for how it got here and why I'm given these key-like things, I don't know, I really don't."
"Those keys are called Yokai Arcs," Pixie explained as best as she could. "They're the literal keys to a yokai's heart, and with that mirror you can either call upon their good, more tame side or their eviler, wilder side."
"So Lightside and Shadowside?" Whsiper asked politely to the little fairy, Pixie nodding.
"Or to us, we call it Seelie and Unseelie," Pixie confirmed, before tilting her head a little. "Though how did you guys get such a thing?"
"I think it has something to do with as more time progressed in a world where most yokai and humans are joined hand in hand," Akinori added into the explanation, rubbing the back of his head. "As it's said what caused our worlds to have a clearer bridge to each other was a collision of a light mirror and a dark mirror some years ago..."
"But if Fae Yokai and humans can't interact with each other easily, how did you end up here?" Natsume asked, Pixie looking confused.
"I'm not sure, I just remember minding my own business back home, when a dark shadow ended up taking me away...and I don't remember anything beyond that..." Pixie tried to give her answer. "Last thing I remember was being in a dark cage in a dark tent, the only light I could see were from my own wings and two other Fae Yokai, one of the Mononoke Tribe and the other of the Omamori Tribe..."
"Don't worry, we'll help you save those other Fae Yokai," Natsume assured for the little fairy. "And we'll make sure whoever is behind this will pay for their actions of hurting your friends!"
Determined to help Pixie out, the group ended up calling it a day, now knowing they had a possible lead on the Fae yokai and the origin of the Bright Light Mirror. However, how this tied in with Touma and the Kigan Gear was still a mystery to the group, and one that needed to be solved.
Even if Natsume saw someone like Touma become so darkened in his heart, she was unsure about bringing it up right now. After all, he was a childhood friend and all, and she didn't know Akinori and Whsiper prior. Maybe it was best to keep silent about the whole thing…
Elsewhere, back within the dark tent of the Onimaro Circus, the group of evil yokai looked pretty displeased, as Touma just sat on one of the seats from the ring.
"You absolute fool! You buffoon! How could you let such a thing happen!? I gave you such a good chance to keep hurting people but you lost that yokai I had given you!" Shiki-Sharu yelled loudly, causing Touma to wince a little at the sheer volume of the noise the angry monkey was making.
"I managed to scare off some rude classmates of mine," Touma answered, trying not to be too bothered by the loud scolding of the monkey. "So I wouldn't call it a complete failure."
"Either way, these yokai are your chances," Shiki-Sharu explained, holding up two more dark looking Yokai Arcs. "You've lost one chance, so now you only have two left."
"And if you manage to lose all three..." Jibunkageki began, seeming to hold a whip tightly in her hands. "The Kigan Gear will make sure to pay the price for the greatest crime of wasting my absolutely precious time!"
"So don't fail this time or next time, kiddo!" Shiki-Sharu yelled, making sure Touma could hear his words and feel them.
Touma only nodded, understanding what had to be done. Though with his encounter with Natsume, someone who could recall him from his youth, it left things feeling a bit off. It was just a minor feeling, and probably just mere paranoia, nothing to worry about.
Besides, he has to get back at those who wronged and refused to know him. He had to prove to this city and possibly the world he wasn't an irrelevant shadow...