March 25, 2007. The Ossuary. Continued.
My chest was still heaving.
Genkei and Saiko looked like they'd attended a light yoga class.
Genkei stood with his hand resting on his scabbard and his breathing at a rate that implied the fight had been just as taxing as thinking about having a fight. Saiko had her coin out again, flicking it between her fingers, her ash-cracked arms already dimming back to ordinary skin.
"Zero technique," she announced, pointing at me.
"I killed mine," I said.
"Out of pity," she said. "The spirit got bored of your face and disintegrated."
"I-" I stopped. "It didn't get bored of my face."
"It definitely reconsidered its life choices when it saw your face."
"That's not how spirits work."
"How do you know? You've been a gravebinder for forty minutes."
This was technically correct. I found it no less infuriating for being correct.
"You relied on sparks," Genkei said. Just like how you'd note that someone had driven with no fuel.
"I'm aware," I said. "I had limited options."
"Options are a product of preparation. You had no preparation."
"I had no warning either, so…"
"Preparation does not require warning," he said.
I opened my mouth.
"He's not wrong," Saiko said.
I closed my mouth.
Miu's voice arrived between us. "You're angry at him because he's sharp. You're angry at her because she's loud." A pause. "You're angry at me because I wasn't tested."
"I'm not angry," I said.
"You're frustrated," she corrected.
"That's the same thing."
"Anger is sharp. Frustration is dull." She adjusted her glasses. "Dull edges cut more times before anyone notices the damage."
I stared at her. "You really like saying things that sound like philosophy until I actually think about them."
"That," she said, with something that was almost a smile, "is what makes them philosophy."
Saiko cackled.
Genkei said something under his breath.
"What?" I demanded.
He didn't repeat it.
"He said 'both,'" Saiko offered. "When I said you were listening either too seriously or not seriously enough. He said both."
"Both what?"
"Both," she said.
I pinched the bridge of my nose.
Across the ossuary, Arata and The Head were in their own conversation, low, indistinct, Arata's hands doing the gestural work of someone describing something complicated. The Head listened with his hands folded and his expression giving nothing away.
"Bet he's trying to avoid paperwork," Saiko whispered.
"He seems like he generates paperwork," I said.
"He generates paperwork and avoids it," she said. "That's the real talent."
Miu, without looking up from whatever she was examining in her notes: "He generates situations that require documentation and then documents them in the least possible detail. It balances out eventually."
I stared at her. "How do you know that?"
She looked up. "I've been working with him for five years."
I have nothing to say to that one, fair enough.
"How long have they been?" I gestured at Genkei and Saiko.
"Four years," Saiko said. "Me and Genkei showed up around the same time. Miu's the senior."
"By a year," Miu said. "Though I am not certain the time was used as efficiently as it could have been."
Arata turned from his conversation with the Head and pointed at her. "I heard that."
"It was said at normal volume," she said.
He returned to his conversation.
The Head's gaze briefly met mine across the ossuary, that measuring look again, I couldn't identify, and then returned to Arata.
Saiko nudged my arm. "Don't let The Head freak you out. He looks at everyone like that."
"Like what?"
"Like you're a problem he's deciding whether to solve or file away," she said.
"And which does he usually choose?"
"Depends on the problem." She caught her coin. "You're probably more interesting than most of what comes through here. So far."
"That doesn't answer my question."
She grinned. "I know."
---
Arata clapped his hands. The sound echoed in the ossuary and did something to the floating lanterns, they steadied, brightening slightly, as if called to attention.
"The Head's got a story for you," he announced. "Pay attention. First lesson. Real one."
The Head stepped forward.
"There is a spirit loose," he said. "Not here. Outside, in the city. A wandering entity that resists rest and feeds on fear. You will observe how the Onmyōji approach such a situation."
"With words first," Arata said. "Not blades. Not fire. Words."
Saiko's grin flattened slightly. "Words against a ghost?"
"Onmyōji tradition begins with dialogue," The Head said. "Every spirit, regardless of how distorted it has become, was once human, or in the case of ghosts like this one, was born from a human mind. Humanity does not erase easily. The goal is conversation before confrontation."
"And if conversation fails?" I asked.
"Then," Arata said, with a particular kind of smile, "it becomes a more interesting evening." The Head reached into his coat and produced a book, not from a pocket that could have held it, from somewhere that shouldn't have been there. Black cover, bone-white cords. The title, if there was one, was constantly moving.
"The Catalogue of Chains," Miu said quietly. I filed that.
He opened it. The pages turned on their own, not quickly but with purpose, like something inside the book knew where it was going.
He pressed his fingers to one page.
The ink breathed.
"The Aka Manto," he said. "Red Cloak. Old school. Urban legend. One of the more famous residents of school bathrooms in supernatural folklore."
Genkei's eyes narrowed slightly.
"It manifests in empty restrooms," The Head continued. "Appears in a locked stall. Asks a question: red paper or blue paper. Red means you're flayed. Blue means strangulation until your face matches." He paused. "There is no correct answer. There is only the question. The question is the trap."
"So don't answer," Saiko said.
"Humans always answer," The Head said. "Even knowing. Even afraid. The question fills the silence and the silence is unbearable and they answer anyway." He closed the book. "Your job is to face it without feeding it. To break the pattern of the question."
I looked at the closed book.
"You're sending us to a haunted bathroom," I said.
"To a school with a haunted bathroom," Arata corrected. "There's nuance."
"The nuance doesn't improve my feelings about it."
He stood. "No. But it'll improve your skills." His grin returned, fully. "First rule of dialogue with the dead and ghosts: you have to survive the first thing they say."
Outside, somewhere in the city, a school building sat dark and empty.
In one of its bathrooms, a stall door was probably creaking.
Actually. I don't want to finish that thought