[author]

Gosh, so much going on with my new project SuperLuminal! I'm writing them on the fly after the last unlike this story which was polished up as much as I and my editors could. I think that story will go more places, but I'll totally finish this book, and I appreciate any comments or other encouragements you want to give!

[/author]

We left the convenience store quickly and I followed Oni along the boulevard. She dragged the umbrella behind her.

*CLICK* *CLICK* *CLACK*

The sound reminded me of ambient train noises, and the racket nearly unhinged me. I was glad that it wasn’t dark yet. Rui fished through her purse and removed her cellphone. She stopped for a moment to quickly tap the screen. I wasn’t sure what she was up to, but a second later she called someone. The cars rumbled past us. I leaned against a nearby fence and watched Rui.

She grinned at me and winked. I heard the phone faintly ring a few times. She seemed to be over my idle comment about her chest. She posed and saluted me with her hand holding the umbrella.

The loli moved on and spoke abruptly into her phone. “Hey! It’s Rui-Rui! I’m in the area. So let’s start your silly game all over again. I’ll find where you are. I need some serious help from you and the time I have right now is very short. I’d appreciate it if you’d go easy on me tonight! Consider it a favor for pretty Rui-Rui!”

She really does think of herself as an idol... I think she must moonlight as an idol on the side besides being a weird little spiritual detective...

“W--Y-You cheapskate! I’ll find you! You bastard! I’ll cut off your balls! DAMN IT!” She cursed like the yakuza everyone thought I was. Wow... maybe I should give her my face when we find it... I’ll take hers instead!

I pictured what she’d be like with my face and that image was incredibly frightening.

She led me up an alleyway, and charged ahead full blast like a rocket! I followed her quickly, lost as to where she was charging so fast!

As angry as she was, I wondered what she’d do to the guy when we found him! She’ll totally destroy him! Then again, she hasn’t been violent with anyone but me, yet. But why just me?

“Marco Polo!” she yelled into her phone.

His name is Marco Pollo? Wasn't Pollo the Spanish word for chicken? I imagined a chicken Yokai. Does it also lay yokai chicken eggs?

“Marco!” she yelled again, over and over as she led me up and down alleyways. She led us to a dead end.

I looked around, wondering if a chicken would appear. She ran in the opposite direction and screamed again even louder, “Marco!!!”

D-Damn... he’s really going to die… This sounds like bloodlust.

I started to feel annoyed by her childish behavior and thought she might have lost her mind. I reached into my fanny pack and removed my phone to show her the time, my time. Twenty-three and five o’clock. We only had fifty-five minutes remaining!

“RUI! Fifty-five minutes! We’re almost out of time! Oh KAMI!!!” I screamed loudly.

Rui paused, and turned towards me. “D-DAMN IT! MARCO!” she yelled into the phone again.

Oh... no... she ignored me!

I fell over and flopped on the ground, wanting to die right there.

Rui charged over to me and stepped on me as she leapt back the other way. “I’ll get you, bastard! I’ll win! Don’t dare to try to cheat me!”

I watched her charge off, noh-groaning. As little as she weighed her foot still hurt. “Move your fucking useless ass, Susumu! We’re going to do this!” she yelled.

Scrambling up, I grumbled as I darted after her. D-Darn it! Am I going to die for the sake of some sort of a silly game she has to win?!

She led me to that same dead end again. Is she stuck in a loop, or what? There’s nothing here! It’s a freaking dead end!

“I’ve got you! This wall here’s too strange! This is where you’re hiding! Why would anybody wall off this alleyway?!” Rui ran at the wall and drew the umbrella behind her like a golf club. She drew it along the ground with a scraping noise like a samurai, causing sparks to fly before she slammed it hard against the lower portion of the wall.

*SCRRRRRRCHHHH*

*CRRRRAAAACKKKK*

The slamming noise echoed all throughout the streets. I stared at her, sighing. Then I slammed my head against a nearby wall repeatedly. “Damn, damn, damn, DAMN!” I yelled. The wall shook a bit but it was probably just my noh-vision shaking due to this self-inflicted head trauma.

“Marco!!! MARCO! MARCOOO!!! You dirty cheating racoon!” Rui yelled, casting her voice loudly into the moonlit sky. I cried. My helmet flooded with tears. I didn’t drown, but it poured down all over me like a shower. She stomped around as she expressed her frustration. This kind of behavior reminded me of what I did when I was really upset.

“Susumu... I’m sorry... it’s a literal deadend..." Rui violently hit a button on her phone’s screen and she slumped as she tottered away. “I’m so sorry... He got me this time..."

I turned my head slightly, witnessing her slow pacing away from me. She stopped then, and fell to her little butt on the pavement, her head slumping over onto one shoulder as she cried. Watching her break down and start crying like that affected me. As crazy as Loli-oni could be, she was certainly strong. If she was giving up, there wasn’t much else I could do but cry, myself. My humanity… And yet, her tears wrung at my heart and I found myself crying all the more for her sake more than mine.

The stress in my body mounted to a level where a primal urge started to nag at me which hadn’t reared its vicious head since this morning. While tears were streaming down my noh-face, my knees started to shake. Rui had joked casually about me pissing my pants, and it was just as though she knew me too well for someone I’d known for only one day. When I’m incredibly stressed out, my body goes crazy. I sweat a lot, and frequently the need to urinate builds up to the point where it can’t be ignored. She wasn’t looking at me because she was sunk deeply into her own thoughts and emotions. Because her back was to me, I sighed and resigned myself to relieve myself on the sly, which I knew was a crude thing to do. No one would see the act, assuming she didn’t look. It’ll be one of my last acts as a human being, so to speak. They’ll remember Susumu was a scary and disgusting weird bastard if they ever found out my last moments were so strange, won’t they?

Despite my sadness and reservation, I pulled down the pants of the bodysuit to let nature take its course. I shot backward as a fireman’s hose went off instead. The wall before me was instantly coated in steaming urine. I slammed into the far wall and was stunned by the force. The wall I’d collided with cracked and crumbled as an outline of my body was created. As the flow slowed and stopped, I clutched at my head, gloomily. I’d managed to leave my mark literally on the world before my death. Why does everything so simple as taking a piss have to be so exaggerated as a noh-face? Is this why Rui called me a drama ‘queen’?

“What... the... HELL! YOU FREAK!” a yell sounded, filling the air with shock and anger. I thought it was Rui, but this voice was deeper than hers and it carried a strange accent.

“HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! MARCO!” Rui yelled aloud, springing to her feet. I surreptitiously pulled up my pants while I wondered why Rui wasn’t bothered in the slightest about what I’d just done. “You’re there!” She pointed with her umbrella at the wall I’d just painted yellow, so to speak.

“D-damn! Polo,” the wall pouted. I noh-gaped. A wall can be a Yokai? Can anything in the world become a yokai? What can a wall resent? Nails being driven into it? Well, actually a wall probably would resent being peed on. Anyhow, how old can a wall grow to be before it would turn into a conscious demon? I need to know more about these creatures and phantoms so I’ll understand them better. But … but .... but how can a wall help me, anyways?!

The wall exploded in a flurry of leaves. The leaves looked sodden, for some reason. A man stood where it was within moments. His ears reminded me of Natalia-sama’s, except they were oval-shaped and his tail was different. The tail and ears looked fluffy with and was peculiarly dotted with black spots. He was like a strange kind of racoon.

Nevertheless, it was hard to see him clearly in the darkness of the alleyway. He had dark skin. I supposed he might be of African lineage. His lips were thick, his hair was dark and curly with this spotted pattern. He wore a hoodie over a tshirt and his hair was bound up in a multi-colored headband. Beneath, he wore something that looked like a skirt. And he looked slightly pissed off.

“Worst day, ever,” he grated.