Chapter 5: Carrot and Stick
On the morning of Hōzuki's departure from Hell to enjoy his four-day vacation in Australia, Naomi was surprised when he placed a black box on the desk in front of her on his way out.
"… What's this…?" She asked, curious but wary of its contents.
"I got you something to help you with work while I'm away. It's an ID necklace for you to wear, so you won't end up being mistakenly grouped with the rest of the sinners receiving punishment." Hōzuki explained calmly. "Think of it as an early birthday present, even though you're dead."
"Oh, thank you!" Naomi said, pleasantly surprised to receive such a thoughtful gift. "You really…" Her smile froze when she saw the so-called necklace. It was clearly a dog collar! The kind that had a metal buckle in the front engraved with the pet's name and their owner's contact information. Naomi snapped as a vein popped on her forehead. "SHOULDN'T HAVE!!!" she shouted angrily, beaming it him with the speed of a professional baseball player. With lightning reflexes, Hōzuki reached up and snatched it out of the air with one hand.
"… You don't like it?" Hōzuki asked, furrowing his brow slightly. "Hmm… I thought the black would match your outfit, but I suppose the one with the pink sakura pattern would have been better…"
"That's so not the issue here!!" she snapped. "Why do you have to insist on harassing me like this!? Why can't you just give me something normal, like some kind of card!? I am not your dog! You're not my master, you're my boss—!!" she flinched, paling in shock when she noticed how dangerously dark his expression had become. 'Oh, crap!!!' she thought, breaking out in a nervous sweat. She'd been so pissed that she had forgotten to watch for the warning signs!
"Did you forget, Naomi-san? Working under me is your punishment." Hōzuki stated ominously with a scary gleam in his eye as he leaned in close, placing a hand on her shoulder and squeezing it in a vice-like grip. "If you didn't want to be 'harassed' in the afterlife, then you should have made better choices while you were still alive!"
'I-I can't really argue with that…!' Naomi thought nervously as he glared fiercely at her, terrified. 'But why does he have to get so frickin' close!? Quit using your face as a weapon!' she cried internally.
"Oh, what's this?" Enma said when he walked in and saw them together. "An office romance~?" he asked with grin.
'What part!? I'm clearly being threatened here!' Naomi thought, chagrined. But she was sort of grateful to the big boss for arriving when he did, because it shifted Hōzuki's attention away from her.
"Ah, Enma-sama." Hōzuki said with a straight face, releasing her as he turned to face the Great King. "Before I leave, there are a few things we need to go over…"
'That oni…' Naomi thought darkly, massaging her sore shoulder as a bead of sweat slid down the side of her face. 'May you have to walk across a desert of legos! Barefoot!' she silently cursed her overbearing boss with a scowl.
Later that day, Naomi was checking off the places she had already finished inspecting. It was a little nerve-wracking doing it on her own, but most of the minions knew who she was by now after seeing her accompany Hōzuki on his rounds. She was going to be just fine, even without that stupid dog collar!
"Let's see… Fukisho, check… the blood lake, check… All that's left for today is Shugou hell. She said with a sigh. If she remembered correctly, then the chief assistant in charge of this area was a lady by the name of Okō-san… With a brief stop to get directions (she had only been there once or twice), Naomi made her way to Shugou hell. At a glance, everything appeared to be in order around the geisha quarter and red light district… but she was really there to see the torture areas, so Naomi asked around for Okō-san and learned that she was supposed to be in the Place of Great Sufferings, the section where the particularly promiscuous sinners were punished. Passing through the great gates enclosing the torturing territories, Naomi followed the path until she reached a fork in the road, and stopped short.
'… Why is there a giant octopus?' she wondered dubiously, sweat-dropping. That was pretty random, wasn't it…? "I'll just pretend I didn't see that…" she decided, turning to go down the path to the Place of Great Sufferings. She'd have to ask Okō-san about it when she found her. "!" Naomi gasped, surprised when it suddenly reached out and wrapped one of its slimy tentacles around her right wrist. "What the—!?" she said, startled when two more tentacles shout out and wrapped themselves around her legs, lifting her into the air. "Kyaaaah!" she cried, trying to keep her kimono from falling down and exposing her underwear with her free hand. "Hey!! What's your… Eh… W-What are you doing!!?" she shouted in alarm, blushing furiously as two more tentacles began snaking their way down her thighs. 'No way!! Don't tell me this thing is trying to do that!!?' she screamed internally, turning blue with shock. "Oh, hell no!!" she yelled aloud in English, immediately forsaking all attempts to preserve her modesty to pull her riding crop from her boot. Sadist mode: on. With lighting speed, using her full strength, Naomi cracked the crop at both tentacles on her thighs, and then targeted all the ones being used to restrain her. The octopus was so shocked that it immediately retracted them at once, dropping her like a sack of rotten potatoes. Naomi flipped and landed gracefully on the ground, taking up a defensive stance. But the octopus quickly recovered and started reaching for her again. Naomi grit her teeth and tightened her grip on the crop, getting ready to counter another attack, when the octopus suddenly froze. Puzzled, Naomi took a risk and moved her eyes to follow its gaze. Sitting there, on the ground between them, was the dog collar that Hōzuki had given her that morning.
"… Huh?" Naomi said, tilting her head slightly in confusion. 'How did that…?' she wondered, furrowing her brow as she thought back to how suspiciously close Hōzuki had gotten to her before. 'Don't tell me he did that so he could stick it on me somewhere…' she thought, sweat-dropping.
Yes, just as Naomi suspected, at that time, while gripping her shoulder, Hōzuki had tucked it into her obi, and it fell out when she did the flip. Which turned out to be very fortunate for Naomi, because the octopus now seemed to be hesitating to harm her.
"Ah! Naomi-san!" Okō-san called out, hurrying over to her through the strange smoke/mist. "I must apologize! Please forgive me for not coming to meet you sooner… I lost track of time, and…" she trailed off when she got close enough to see that Naomi was covered in marks from the octopus's suction cups, and that quite a few of the octopus's tentacles were red and swollen with pain from being whipped. "Oh dear… has something happened?" she asked, concerned. "You can't hurt this person. She's Hōzuki-sama's new secretary." She scolded the octopus before turning back to Naomi. "I am terribly sorry you had to go through that, Naomi-san, but this kid didn't mean any harm… You see, it's his job to keep the deceased from getting too close to the gates…"
'But I was heading in, not out…' Naomi thought, chagrined. "Ah, well… I guess I'll let it go this time." Naomi said rather charitably. "Since I also managed to get a few licks in… and he didn't get very far, so no serious damage was done."
"Oh, that's good~!" Okō said brightly, looking immensely relieved. "I heard you were a virgin, so I was worried you might have been seriously hurt…"
"Um… where exactly did you hear that?" Naomi asked, sweat-dropping. It was true, but how did she know?
"Hōzuki-sama." Okō answered with an innocent smile. Naomi nearly snapped her riding crop in half.
'That sexually harassing bastard…!!' she shouted internally, blushing furiously, as multiple veins throbbed on her forehead. How the hell did he know that!? Was it in her file? That was just too much!
"Oh my, please don't be mad at him. Hōzuki-sama only told me a little bit about your background because he wanted to ask me to help you out while you're still adjusting to life in Hell~" Okō explained quickly, ending with a friendly smile. "He noticed you didn't seem to have any female friends that you could talk to, so he said it would be good if we could get to know each other."
"… I see…" Naomi said, losing some of her steam. She was surprised to hear that Hōzuki would go through the trouble to do something so genuinely nice for her… though it sounded like he might have told Okō-san too much. But Okō-san didn't seem like the type to spread malicious gossip. Naomi had only met her a handful of times, but the sexy and sophisticated female oni was always very kind and polite to those around her. "Well, um… thank you." Naomi said, suddenly feeling a bit shy. "I think… I would like that." There were just some things you couldn't talk to guys about, and the only other female she really knew was Cookie-san, but she was a dog, so… it just wasn't the same. Okō smiled gently at the blushing girl.
"Oh?" the oni said, suddenly noticing something on the ground. "This is…?" she asked curiously, picking up the dog collar.
"Ah, that…" Naomi said, sweat-dropping as her smile fell. "Um… actually, it's kind of embarrassing, but…" she said with a heavy sigh, and went on to explain its significance and how it came to be on the ground.
"My, my…" Okō said once she had heard the whole story, up to where she had come in. "Hōzuki-sama really seems to like teasing you, doesn't he? But you know, Naomi-san… even if it's embarrassing, I think it might be better for you to wear it. If you had had it on when you came in here, then our octopus-kun wouldn't have attacked you like that." She advised Naomi gently with a smile, holding the collar out for her to take it back.
"…" Naomi furrowed her brow as she stared at the collar with a small frown on her face, but given how dangerously close she had just come to being tentacle-raped, she decided that Okō-san was probably right. With a heavy sigh of defeat, Naomi grudgingly accepted her advice and put the collar on.
Everything went smoothly from then on, and there were no more incidents. And then, four days later, Hōzuki returned. Naomi welcomed him back with Enma and Shiro, and began going over the results of the inspections with him.
"… What?" Naomi asked a little defiantly when he just stood there and stared at her, zeroing in on the collar around her neck. He was staring so intensely… was he trying to pick a fight with her?
"Nothing…" Hōzuki replied calmly. "I just wasn't expecting to see you wearing it so soon after the fuss you kicked up." Naomi flinched in shock upon realizing she had forgotten to take it off.
"I'm not wearing it because I want to!" she said defensively with a hint of blush on her cheeks, embarrassed. "I was just wearing it out of necessity, but now that you're back…" she reached up to remove the collar.
"No, it's still necessary." Hōzuki said firmly, stopping her. "I can't babysit you forever. From now on, you're going to be running errands on your own a lot more often. Making you handle everything on your own for these past four days was my way of shoving you off the cliff."
"Shouldn't it be 'pushing you out of the nest'?" Naomi asked, sweat-dropping.
"A lion pushes its cub off the cliff to make it stronger." Hōzuki stated seriously, clenching his fist. "And when it climbs back up… it pushes it down again!"
"No it doesn't!!" Naomi snapped, flinching in shock. "That's just a myth! Do that, and all you'll get is a dead cub!"
"It's okay, I believe in you." Hōzuki said with a straight face, giving her a thumbs up.
"It's not okay! And you're obviously enjoying toying with me!" she retorted with a vein throbbing on her forehead.
"By the way, I got some good souvenirs…" Hōzuki said, reaching into his bag to retrieve it.
"Don't try to change the…" Naomi's argument died in her throat, and her eyes widened in surprise when she saw the adorable little stuffed koala that he had bought for her. 'So… So cute!!' she thought, blushing.
"For you." Hōzuki said, placing it in her hands.
"Eh? Really!?" she asked excitedly, lighting up like a Christmas tree. "Wow, thank you~! You really can be nice sometimes!" she exclaimed.
"You want me to take it back?" Hōzuki deadpanned.
"No! I mean, Hōzuki-sama is always nice!" Naomi quickly corrected herself, clutching the plushie protectively.
Hōzuki really did continue to send her out on her own. And so (to Hōzuki's disappointment), after a couple of days, Naomi transformed her dog collar into a stylish bracelet.
"Change it back." He ordered sternly, frowning slightly.
"No way!" Naomi retorted brightly with a brilliant-shit eating grin. If she had to wear the damn thing, it was going to be on her terms.
"Tch!" Hōzuki clicked his tongue in annoyance, scowling. It would seem her spine was still intact... If anything, she seemed to be getting cheekier.