130th Spell: Symbiotic

While Haru's class was busy flipping to page 73 in their copies of More Yokai and Other Dangerous Creatures by Furu Eru, Ryosei Maki recited the passage from memory.

"'The Harionago yokai appears as a young woman with unruly hair who seeks young men as her preferred choice of prey,'" Ryosei stated. "'Once she smiles at the young man, the Harionago entices him to come towards her. Then once the young man is close enough, her barbed hair strands cut him to shreds. His only means of escape is to run as fast as he can from her and seek shelter immediately. But sometimes a Harionago will pose as a prostitute to produce children as a means of keeping up the population. If the child is female, she will immediately turn into a Harionago herself. Though if the child is male, he may choose whether to become a full Harionago or not since male Harionago are rare compared to female ones.'"

"Not sure how I feel about that," Seita commented.

"'In recent studies by Magizoologists, it's been revealed the hair of a Harionago is a living organism that shares a symbiotic relationship with the head of the yokai it resides on,'" continued Ryosei.

"Symbiotic?" Koi repeated. "What does that mean?"

"A symbiotic relationship is when two separate creatures coexist with each other in a dependent sort of way," Cheng Chun explained. "Like the relationship between Ako-san and Bambō, where both yokai depend on each other in order to achieve what they want."

"What about Kitsune-tsuki?" Sumi asked. "Doesn't the kitsune yokai depend on the human host in a similar fashion?"

"No," replied Ryosei. "That is an example of a 'parasitic' relationship, where the kitsune yokai relies on the human host at the human host's expense which doesn't make it cooperative in the same way as a symbiotic one."

"I still don't get it," said Gumo.

"Kagaya-sensei will explain this better in Care for Magical Creatures later," Ryosei advised. "But the point I'm trying to get across is that because Harionago hair has a mind of its own, it needs to be calmed like any other magical creature so it's easier to control."

"And you think me humming to my hair will cause it to stop moving?" Seita guessed.

"Correct," Ryosei said firmly.

"How do you know this will work?"

"Before I became a teacher, I used to hunt dangerous magical creatures and tracked down a few Harionago during this time," explained Ryosei. "I noticed while watching them from afar that they would hum to their barbed strands of hair while stroking them affectionately. Now I'm not certain if that will entirely work for you, Fumito-kun, but it's worth a try based on my own experiences with Harionago."

Haru assumed what Ryosei meant when he said he 'hunted dangerous creatures' was probably when he was a Kōsen field agent before going undercover at this school. But he kept these thoughts to himself and he and the rest of the class watched Seita quietly humming. It seemed to have an effect on the barbed strands of hair as they shrunk from their long wavy lengths and returned to Seita's normal short brown hair. Only this time, the ends of his hair looked a little sharper than usual apart from the bald spots which were covered in Ryosei's Hair Growth Poultice creating a strange mixture of green and brown colors on Seita's head.

"Should I keep humming?" Seita asked Ryosei.

"Not unless the barbed strands start to wiggle, which you should feel if it happens," Ryosei said. "But I think it's safe to take your seat now, Fumito-kun."

"Maki-sensei didn't even notice how different my hair was," Hikari grumbled loud enough for Haru to hear her.

It was the end of the first long grueling day of school and everyone in Class 201A was leaving the classroom. The broken desks and damaged bookshelves had been repaired earlier by Sayuri Shō during Necromancy, who was strangely more angry at Rikyan than Seita for allowing the classroom to get wrecked without fixing it using the Fixture Spell Kowagu Shìng. But for Haru, Rui, Hikari, and Nayu, the day wasn't over as they had to do extra assignments as part of their punishments for going into the storage house and crashing the enchanted ship Kō-tei onto school property. For the latter reason, Rui's brother Gyoku joined them in the school library as they all filled out various papers with multiple-choice questions relating to all their classes.

"Where's Datsu?" Haru asked Gyoku, realizing he hadn't seen the child-like Zashiki-warashi since they crashed the flying ship.

"He's mostly been invisible since I was inducted into Genbu," replied Gyoku.

"And how is that going?" Rui asked Gyoku. "Do you like it there?"

Gyoku shrugged. "I don't hate it."

"Did you meet Muni Māru?" Haru said.

"You mean the girl with the platinum hair?" Gyoku asked.

"Um, Muni is a guy," Nayu pointed out.

Gyoku looked flustered.

"It's okay, Gyoku," Rui said, trying to comfort him. "Some of the boys in our class made that same mistake when they first met Muni in Primary School."

"Koi and Gumo were especially embarrassed when they found out," Nayu recalled. "It made them think other girls were actually guys in disguise, causing them to frequently peep in the girls' bathroom to make sure there weren't any 'secret perverts' according to them until they got caught by Shō-sensei."

"That sounds messed up," Haru remarked. "I'm surprised they weren't expelled for that."

"Both of their dads have high-ranked positions in the Japanese Ministry of Magic, so they were only punished with a month-long suspension from school," Hikari explained. "It's completely unfair compared to other kids whose parents don't have government positions."

"Like yours?" Rui guessed.

Hikari said nothing further. As everyone else continued working on their questions, Haru looked briefly at Nayu and noticed she was physically less round than usual. But before he was about to ask her, a chilling voice rang in his ears.

"Enemies of Seiryu must die!"

To be continued…