he fact that I had been awake for at least forty-eight hours now seemed to be a non-factor after what had been like a complete rejuvenation when my left eye opened again for good. In fact, all the wounds I had sustained during the day had healed, as if my natural regeneration rate had been sped up for an instant. Thus, I had to surmise that the same extended to my mental state, as there was not a hint of tiredness in it.

When my thoughts finally reached an acceptable conclusion and I took note of my surroundings again - we were flying high in the sky, illuminated only by the stars - I realized that Koishi was sitting on my back. Suika had explained to me once that flying was about as tiring as walking, although one could reach greater speeds by doing the former. Knowing Koishi’s nature, I was sure that she would not tire over the same distance I as a human had not.

“What are you doing?” I did not really mind, but it did feel a little degrading, considering she was straddling my back as if I was a horse.

“I’m riding your back.” Her innocent sounding deadpan response was as I had expected.

“I can see that... I mean, why are you riding on my back?”

“Because I want to.”

I sighed and resigned to the fate of being a flying horse. There was no point in arguing with her, since her inherent inability to comprehend what I considered to be common sense rendered every attempt at talking such futile. Suddenly, she leaned forward and put her arms around my neck, her slender body leaning against my back. She was now effectively lying on top of me as if I was a flying carpet.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m lying on your back.”

“I can see that... I mean, why...” I realized that we were repeating ourselves. Still, I did not mind the change in closeness, as she rested her head on my shoulder. She deserved some comfort after all that happened and if my back gave it to her, I was more than happy to provide it.

“You two-“ Suika started, but I shot her a glare that suggested that she should not break this moment with an immature comment. Shrugging, she grinned to herself and drank some Sake. She was flying beside us in a pose that looked like she was lying on solid ground, propping up her chin on her palm as she lay in a sideways posture. I wondered whether that came with mastery of flying or was just a display of how she projected herself on the world. After all, I had seen people fly in different postures, all at similar speeds before, such as the kasha pushing her cart in a walking stance, while Utsuho had held her arms to her sides like a jet plane. I had my arms stretched forward, taking inspiration from a certain blue and red caped superhero.

Far below us I saw some lights and noticed that they were arranged in a grid - we were above the human village. I felt a tinge of nostalgia but knew that we did not have the leisure to pay it a visit right now. At least for tonight, we had a destination to reach.

When I looked up again, I felt that something was wrong. Ahead of us a circular part of the starry night sky seemed to have vanished, leaving behind pure darkness. Slowing down, I turned to Suika, who seemed to have noticed it as well, as her stance changed. In fact, her expression suggested some unease, which in turn caused a bad feeling to arise in my chest.

“Remember the little girl who killed the humans on our way from the Hakurei Shrine to the human village?” She asked, looking ahead despite the impenetrable darkness. “At night, she’s at her strongest. And without the Spellcard Rules, she’ll be hard to deal with.”

I knew from Suika firsthand that appearance did not matter when it came to strength, but I had assumed that she could deal with anything short of a kami herself. If she said that this particular yôkai was dangerous, it meant that I had no fighting chance at all.

“Let’s circle around. For how troublesome she is, she’s quite the airhead. She can’t see outside of that bubble of darkness she surrounds herself with.” At those words I could not help but remember how innocent she had appeared while eating the two woodcutters. It seemed that mental age did correspond to physical appearance in this particular case, unlike with the oni beside me.

“Oh is that Rumia-chan?” Koishi, who had remained quiet during my exchange with Suika, suddenly perked up from my back and for some inexplicable reason decided to fly off towards the black hole before us. Before either of us could react, she had entered it and vanished without a trace. For an instant, Suika and I looked at each other, before we both wordlessly followed after her.

The second we entered the blackness, I lost sight of my companion; in fact, I lost sight of everything, including my own body. Unlike one’s own room at night, which had an ounce of light even with the curtains drawn, this darkness did not even give the chance for one’s eyes to become accustomed to it. I was actually convinced that not a single photon penetrated this space. Absolute darkness.

“Hey, Rumia-chan, where are you? Come out and play!”

Koishi’s voice was my only guidance, as I followed it through this sensory deprivation; she seemed to have the same trouble with being unable to see. Shouting for a potentially dangerous individual inside her own territory seemed to be very foolish, but for some reason I only thought “as expected of Koishi-chan”. I somehow felt that it would be better for me to keep quiet, and that I did not hear Suika’s voice meant she had come to the same conclusion.

“Oh, a human,” I heard a childish voice whisper by my ear and a shiver ran down my spine at its tone. I spun around, but of course, I could not see anything. “Is it okay to eat you?” The same voice spoke into my other ear. I swung my arm around, but it did not make contact with anything. “You want to play?” Fear crept into my mind and I was reminded of the one time Nue had tried to scare me by taking away my vision and giving me vertigo.

Then I remembered that I had the ability to resist this; I put my thoughts into my left eye and the world around me... remained black. The only difference was that right in front of me I could see a person. It was the same girl I had encountered with Suika that time, her eyes watching me with innocent amusement, as she seemed to gauge how tasty I would be. A more pressing fact was that she was naked underneath the blanket of darkness. However, what drew my vision was not her childish body, but the fact that the bow tied on the left side of her head had an appearance I had never seen in this mode of vision before.

I could see the spiritual energy in her body, which could not even hope to compare in intensity to that of Utsuho or Rin’s, but the bow put the darkness around me to shame in that it seemed to be a vacuum of existence. Rather than black nothingness, it seemed to defy vision itself, as whenever I tried to set my actual eyes on it, my mind’s eye shut down momentarily. The more I attempted to look at it, the more I felt discomfort building inside me.

“Rumia will start with the hands.” The girl’s voice broke me out of my absentmindedness.

“You can’t, Rumia-chan! He’s mine!” Koishi’s voice came from somewhere above me and I looked up to find that she was facing our direction, but clearly not seeing us.

“Ah, is that you, Koishi-chan?” Rumia looked up at the voice as well and began to approach her. Even though they addressed each other with such familiarity, I did not feel comfortable with such a dangerous element getting close to Koishi. Satori yôkai were known for their ability to read minds, but nothing was noted of their physical prowess. While there were many yôkai who had spiritual abilities that did not require them to possess strong bodies, the majority was still stronger than humans. However, satori were not of that majority.

“Can you make this darkness go away, Rumia-chan? I can’t see you.” Koishi, having found the little yôkai girl’s location through her voice, asked her to dispel the power that created a space of darkness.

“Alright.” With a cheerful voice, the naked girl in front of me spread her arms and it was bright again. In actuality, it was still night, but after the pure blackness from before the stars in the sky almost blinded me with their brightness.

Rumia was clad in a pitch-black dress, causing me to think that the night was literally her veil. Koishi approached her and they hugged each other. Suika came up next to me and sighed with a resigned smile, at the fact that the green-haired girl had solved the problem by not treating it as one in the first place.

“How do you two know each other?” I floated up to the two and asked Koishi. Not forgotten was the fact that Rumia had killed two humans before, and most likely many others during her lifetime, but due to the changes to my nature in the recent months, I did not view it in as grave a light as I had before. After all, she was also only trying to live.

“I met her once a few years ago, when I first came to the surface. We’ve been friends since, isn’t that right?” Koishi responded with the hint of a happy expression in her otherwise empty smile. I was glad to see that she seemed to regain her emotions slowly, ever since her outburst after her sister’s death.

“We played around for the whole day, but you just vanished at the end of it.” Rumia puffed out her cheeks and in that moment I could only see her as a cute little girl. “I searched for you for a long time, you know? So it’s been a few years already?”

I was dumbfounded by the timeframe in which these two supernatural beings thought; apparently they had only met one time, but were acting as if they had only parted for a few days. Once again I was reminded of the transience of humans and the way they considered life, and that it was completely different from beings that were virtually eternally young, as long as they wished to remain so.

“Can Rumia-chan come along to see that magician?” Koishi asked and looked at me with upturned eyes. At such a sight I could never refuse, and a detached part of me praised the subconscious girl for instinctively knowing how to employ the weapons she was gifted with. I turned to look at Suika, but she shrugged and grinned at me knowingly.

“Alright, but don’t cause any trouble.” I meant the girl of darkness, but actually looked at Koishi, knowing that she was even more unpredictable than a child.

“Yay!” The two girls celebrated in unison.

Now in a group of four, and with Koishi flying beside Rumia out of her own strength, we approached a flat surface in the distance. It was a quiet lake, reflecting the night sky above like a perfect mirror. Suika had called it the Misty Lake, but that was only the case during most of the day, as the mist dispersed in the afternoon and returned early in the morning.

At the edge of that lake stood what could only be described as a Western castle. Nestled against the opening of the gorge, where the lake’s outflow lay, it seemed to have been chosen for its easily defendable location. Although I doubted that there were any threats from other countries, maybe its status as a foreign entity itself warranted the security. I had actually expected that the magician would be a native and be living in a cottage in the woods.

A set of stairs was leading up to the only visible entrance to the castle grounds, a heavy looking metal gate. Inside, I could spot a flower garden and a path leading to the main building. Rather than castle, maybe it would have been better to describe it as a fortified mansion, but the fact that it had battlements and several crenellated towers suggested that its roots could be found in a country that saw periodic warfare. What I found strange was that there was a giant clock face on the tallest of the towers. It was the first time-keeping apparatus I had seen since coming here.

“The magician lives here all by himself?” An image of a certain magician’s apprentice using sorcery to make brooms, mops and other cleaning utensils move, came to mind.

“Oh no, the bookworm is just a friend of the owner of this castle. Then again, since coming to Gensôkyô she has never left it once and I doubt she has any other place to go to either way.” Suika’s description of that magician properly fit my image of a researcher of the arcane arts, a wizened man with a long white beard, wearing robes in blue, and brooding over massive books, never leaving his study. The fact that she actually did not use a gender-defining pronoun kept me in that illusion.

“Halt, who goes there?” A firm female voice resounded through the night as we approached the front gate from above. Of course, coming at such a late hour would invite suspicion, especially when it was a group of four, which included three girls of varying degrees of “little”, and a man with half black half white hair.

“Hey, gate guard. We’re here to meet the bookworm.” The little oni did not have any respect in her words as she stated her business. I finally spotted the person standing in our way, a woman who looked to be in her early twenties, with long flaming red hair. She wore a green dress that I positively identified as a Chinese Cheongsam, with a deep cutout on the right side, through which her entire thigh was visible. Her body was curvy, on the level of Byakuren or Yukari, but the aura surrounding her was different; she seemed to exude strength, but unlike an oni, it was one that suggested technique over raw power. She was a martial artist.

“I know you. You’re that troublemaker oni.” Her speech had a noticeable accent, now that I heard more of it. I was convinced that she was actually a Chinese woman, although I had to wonder about her hair color. Furthermore, I could not grasp the meaning behind her presence as a gate guard to a Western castle, which was located in a piece of land that had been carved out of Japan from seemingly two centuries past.

“Your reputation precedes you wherever you go, huh?” I remarked cynically, but Suika shrugged it off.

“The matter is quite urgent, so if you could just let us through, it would be appreciated.”

“Do you take me for a fool? I’m tasked with protecting this castle from people like you.”

“The hard way then?” Suika showed a fearless grin. I knew that she was not one to be overpowered by somebody who fought using physical means, and this gate guard looked that part. She lowered into a stance I had seen from martial arts movies before: She stood with her two hands extended forwards loosely, ready to intercept an attack, while tension disappeared from her body. Even I could tell that she was a master of the arts.

Her expression suddenly changed, as she seemed to listen to something intently, before showing slight disappointment and resignation. Then she broke the stance, straightened herself, and looked at us with thinly veiled disapproval. “My mistress has granted you access. Do not overstay your welcome.” With these words she turned aside and gestured towards the gate, which opened on her wordless command. We had been invited inside by the unseen owner of the castle.

“Oh, I forgot to tell you that this is called the Scarlet Devil Mansion,” Suika suddenly said, as we walked through the gate and beheld the blood red brick building behind it. “And the mistress the gate guard mentioned is a vampire.” I stared at the oni in disbelief as she dropped the bomb on me. Just then, the metal gate closed behind us.

Well, it was not like we could not just fly up and out of garden we were walking through. In fact, the gate guard post seemed to be pointless, as anybody could just fly over the wall and break in through one of the many windows of the castle. However, an oppressive feeling of being watched had grasped hold of me ever since stepping over the threshold of the castle grounds. Rather than a sixth sense, it was conviction that somebody was using supernatural means to spy on me.

“The vampire must have sensed that something is going on, too. This makes things easier,” The little oni commented as we walked towards the main door. They swung open on their own as we approached, and a luxurious lobby greeted us. Similar to the Chireiden, in which Satori and her pets had resided, this one featured a red carpet and a massive golden chandelier. However, there was no infinite hallway leading into its depths, but instead two curved carpeted stairways led up to the second floor.

What drew my eyes was not the beauty of the marble statues or the wall carpets with intricate motifs, but the person that stood in the middle of the room. A frilly white bow adorned her silver hair that was loose except for two braids dangling from her temples. Three girls, who were clearly supernatural beings of Japanese origin but had features not naturally found in our people, accompanied me, so I was not overly quick to judge; yet, her blue eyes and facial features clearly belonged to those of a foreigner’s. She wore a white apron over a black dress, which reached below her knees, looking like it was made for doing work in.

She was an English maid. Not the Japanese pop-culture maids that one could find in the Mecca of Otaku-culture, Akihabara, but a real one that did not wear unnecessary frills. She stood with perfect grace, her face a nondescript smile as she welcomed us with a practiced curtsy. “Welcome to the Scarlet Devil Mansion. My name is Izayoi Sakuya, I am the head maid of the mansion. Please follow me, dear guests. The mistress is waiting.” Against all expectations, she introduced herself with a Japanese name, although the fact that she was not a natural born Japanese was clear.

“Actually, we only have business with the bookworm,” Suika dismissed the invitation and stated the reason for her coming. I just thought that it might have been too direct and maybe a little disrespectful, considering we had been allowed in at this time of the night. Then again, the mistress was a vampire, so it was more like midday for her.

“Maybe the honored guests have not heard the first time. The mistress is waiting.” There was only a slight shift in the maid’s tone, but a chill ran up my spine at it. As if acting as an extension for the vampire, said to be a powerful supernatural existence from Eastern European folklore, she made it clear that they had only been allowed in by the grace of her mistress. Defying her will would be unwise.

“Alright, I get it. No need to be so uptight.” If Suika had wanted to, she could have continued to dismiss the matter, but to speed things up, showing our faces to the vampire may have been the faster course of actions.

Koishi clung to me, oblivious of the chilly atmosphere surrounding the silver-haired maid named Sakuya. Rumia followed her example and had grabbed hold of my other arm, although I was uncomfortable with the way she sometimes looked at my hand, while saliva was running from of the corner of her slightly parted lips. Thus, we were led up the stairs and through the hallways, encountering not a single soul along the way, until we ended up in front of a double-winged door. Swinging it open, the maid gestured for us to enter.

Beyond was something resembling a throne room. Banners hung from the pillars that lined the hall, and a red carpet paved the way to the end of it, where a lone figure sat on a richly ornamented mahogany chair. The figure, without a doubt, belonged to the vampire, the mistress of this castle. She was small, only around the height of Koishi, and her apparent age belied the maturity of her expression, as her crimson eyes gazed at us with a look of natural superiority.

“” She said, speaking in English. Although my foreign language skills were as bad as any Japanese’s who had no intention of leaving the country to live elsewhere, I could still understand the meaning of her words. “” That, I did not understand. Luckily, the maid proceeded to interpret for us, or the language barrier could have created some meaningful trouble; Suika had an irritated look on her face at hearing an unknown language.

“Yes, we want to ask the bookworm about the ritual that was performed by a recent group of newcomers. You did the same when you first came, too, but what you did had quite obvious reasons.” The maid interpreted the oni’s words, causing the vampire to show us a smile that put her sharp canines on display.

“” It was a genuine smile filled with mirth, and I found myself forgetting that she belonged to a species that required human blood to live. “” Even through the childlike appearance and innocent expressions, I could feel that she was far older than I. “” The way she worded it did not sit too well with me, but hearing about a younger sister, I instinctively turned to look at Koishi at my side.

“Alright then. I seem to be doing pretty well with children either way,” I scratched the back of my head as I responded. Rumia was still clinging to me, and from my experience at the Myôren Temple with the more childlike yôkai residents there, it seemed that something about me was attracting them.

“” It was a strange warning, considering the apparent age of the girl before me. The question about her age was on my tongue, but I did not dare speak it out loud. “” It did not come as a surprise for me, considering a girl over a thousand years old accompanied me, looking just a little more than a hundredth of it.

“You just thought something rude, didn’t you, Kyôma,” Suika looked at me with slight irritation. I shrugged, feigning innocence.

“” Remilia Scarlet’s smile exuded elegance, making me forget her apparent age; unlike most childlike yôkai I knew, she was far more mature than her looks suggested, more in line with her actual age.

“Please follow me, I will show you the way.” We were led outside by the maid while the vampire watched our backs. I turned to look at her one more time before exiting the throne room, to see her crimson eyes meeting mine. I could see that she seemed interested in me - in one way or another - although I was not too quick to judge it as anything but the look of a predator eyeing prey. Then the doors shut by ghostly hands, cutting our short visual connection.

The inside of the castle was larger than the outside suggested, and held a warm atmosphere unlike the grim crimson facade had made me think. The wallpaper was of a high quality burgundy red and the carpet the color of blood, freshly emerging from a vein, fell in line with the scheme of the Scarlet Devil Mansion, but they spoke of character rather than mere appearances. All the furniture seemed to be of mahogany, and their reddish brown color only further added to the shades of red. Even then, it was not oppressive, since it was not monotonous; plenty of silver and gold could be found in the chandeliers, wall lamps and doorknobs, further accentuating the luxury of the mansion.

“We have arrived. Please take care not to take any books without notifying the staff. It may cost you your life.” Opening a two-winged door, the maid named Sakuya led us in with this cryptic warning. As I looked inside, my breathing stopped for a moment.

A platform the size of the main hall of the Myôren Temple opened up before us, with two mirroring sets of sofas, arranged for reading in a group, standing on either side of the door. Bookshelves reaching up to the high above ceiling, towered behind them. However, the sight beyond the platform was what had taken my breath away. What greeted me was not a room or a hall, but a space that seemed to defy the laws of physics. It was a library, that was for sure, but the sheer size of it could only be described with the word “city”. The library occupied a space easily the size of the human village, all inside the Scarlet Devil Mansion. We had entered through the main gate, as the platform extended into a set of stairs on either side, leading into the depths of this city of knowledge.

“Can you please lead us to Lady Patchouli?” I heard the maid speak and noticed that a girl with red hair, in an orderly office lady like black suit had appeared. A set of black bat wings was folded on her back, suggesting that she was not human either. With a respectful nod, the girl complied and led us down the stairs, along which a bookshelf filled with ancient appearing spines of books, was nestled inside the wall. I looked around in awe, as did my companions, thinking just how many books could be found here.

We walked through winding alleyways made of bookshelves rather than buildings, up and down stairs, always accompanied by books as far as the eyes could see. My image of a wizened man with white hair did not do this amount of knowledge justice, and I could not conjure up anything more fitting, as my mouth hung open at every corner. I found myself wishing for a prolonged life, only to be able to read a fraction of the contents of his library.

The library attendant led us across the city, past others who looked almost just like her, all featuring the same clothes and black bat wings. We ascended and descended many sets of stairs, walked past millennia worth of knowledge in book format, until we arrived on a platform, similar to the one that first greeted us upon entering the library, overlooking the city. In the middle of it stood a table, bending under the weight of scrolls, books and loose paper sheets, surrounded by carts filled with even more books. It appeared that we had reached our destination.

“Lady Patchouli, guests have arrived,” The attendant announced. From beyond the pile of books the rustling of pages responded, before a quiet voice, clearly belonging to a female, spoke. “Who is it?” At those words, the pile of books on the table began to move, floating up into the air and back down to the floor, piling onto the already carelessly discarded ones lying all around. Soon, the person on the other side could be seen, a woman in her early twenties, sitting on a large armchair, surrounded by more piles of books, wearing a loose pink dress reminiscent of a pajama. A night cap of the same color, with a large golden crescent moon stitched onto it, adorned her extremely long violet hair that was tied with numerous bows. If she had stood up, it would have become apparent that her hair was longer than she was tall, and would trail behind her when she walked.

“A half-human, an oni, a satori yôkai and a yôkai of darkness, coming to visit the Great Library of the Scarlet Devil Mansion, in the dead of night. These are strange times indeed.” She looked sleepy, her purple eyes drowsy from reading deep into the night. For some reason, however, I thought that this was how she always looked. “What knowledge do you seek? How may I, the witch called Patchouli Knowledge, help you?”