~~~

‘Make the cup float.’

‘No.’

‘Go on, make it float.’

‘No.’

‘Do it, do it, do it, do it.’

‘No, no, no, no, no.’

‘Wah, call yourself a mage? You can’t even do the basics.’

‘1,000 mon.’

‘What?’

‘Give me 1,000 mon and I’ll lift the cup.’

The man in the totem hat coughed out a ‘pah’ and swatted a skinny hand at Daiki’s red and white hair ribbons, then meandered off into the crowd.

‘Should’ve stayed at home,’ the mage muttered, finishing his shot of shōchū and raising a tired hand to the pop-up bar owner for another.

Behind him, locals dressed in every imaginable thing related to the Onbashira festival mingled and laughed and screamed and waved cheap totem souvenirs in the air.

And drank like nihilistic fish.

Which was also what the mage had been doing for the last four hours. Since he’d let that trio of lunatics wander off to get killed by the palak monk. Not his fault, really. It wasn’t the right time and attacking a palak demon without doing at least four months of surveillance and contextual research beforehand was suicide.

The new shot arrived and Daiki stared down at its tranquil, relatively smooth surface.

‘No, three and half months actually,’ he muttered, annoyed, running fingers down one of the red and white ribbons.

The shōchū waited.

‘What? Just off the cuff like that? No plan?’

And waited.

‘Yeah, I’m sure grass in the ears has never been tried before.’

And waited.

‘They’re not even that important, the palak monk.’

And waited.

‘Idiotic more than brave.’

And waited.

‘Well, maybe you should’ve hooked onto him then.’

And waited.

‘Yeah, maybe I will. If not wanting to die is something you consider strange.’

And waited.

‘Gods, it’s all premature anyway. Another chance will come along at some point.’

Daiki finally abandoned his ribbon stroking and picked up the cup, downing it in one and then turning to see if there was anything going on in the background that could distract him for a while.

Not a hell of a lot.

Some local men with their chests painted in the festival colours, climbing on each other’s shoulders to form their own totem…then toppling down onto a group of nearby women…and trying to grope them as they got back up.

Fortunately the women were veterans of this kind of event and had totem sticks ready to hit them with. Which could’ve been the men’s plan in the first place as they seemed to enjoy it.

Gods, why do I come here every year? Daiki asked his empty cup. Tradition? Nostalgia for the one guy I managed to hook up with seven years ago?

But he was long dead.

Killed by a panicked bandit, of all things.

And the new batch of potential targets were all drunk and overweight…and totem-building perverts.

In fact, now that I think about it, he thought, turning to the side of the festivities that had a lake view, the only guy even close to attractive I’ve come across recently is…that crude ashigaru.

And he barely even said thank you after I’d saved him from swallowing half of Lake Suwa.

What an insolent piece of-…

Daiki froze, empty cup in hand.

‘Am I hallucinating?’ he asked himself, as about ten metres into the crowd, the same ashigaru he’d just been half-fantasising about was walking close behind the orange-haired palak monk, with a short blade egregiously tucked into the small of his back. And to the sides, the young couple, Miho and the girl…Ayako…both holding one of the toy-sized totems in their left hands.

Putting down his cup and not caring that it toppled over, the confused mage pushed off his stool and….was dragged back almost immediately by the stall owner demanding payment, and not in the form of that trashy occult paraphernalia.

‘Okay, okay…’ replied Daiki, pulling out his money bag and handing over double the amount of his bill.

The stall owner released his grip on the mage’s dōbuku sleeve and told him he’d keep the stool for him all night, but it didn’t land as Daiki was already moving through the crowd of occult revellers, his fingers stroking the red and white ribbons in his hair, telling himself out loud that this was the chance they’d been waiting for.

And he was right…when he said it.

But then something odd happened. One of the revellers in front of the palak monk stopped waving his totem stick in the air and turned abruptly, grabbing the rude-yet-oddly attractive ashigaru by the sleeve and punching him awkwardly in the side of the face.

The oddest part was the reveller himself…a man so frail-looking that he couldn’t have been much under seventy, yet, after his first strike landed and the ashigaru stumbled backwards, he didn’t back up into a defensive posture or try to flee or cower, he advanced confidently and tried to hit him again.

Of course, no ashigaru would be caught off-guard twice and this one used the hilt of his short dagger to put the pensioner down with one strike.

‘What the hell was that?’ yelled Aya, running in from the side.

‘A fucking drunk…’ said Akira, squinting at the old man unconscious on the grass and reacting far too slow as another assault came in from the left.

This time it was a totem stick, the edge of it scraping down his cheek.

‘What the-…’ the ashigaru slurred, backing up and a step and parrying the follow up.

‘Another one, behind you…’ shouted Miho, coming in from the other side.

Akira spun and swerved in one move, making the assumption that the attacker was an amateur, then lashed out with the back of his fist.

It connected hard, too hard…as he realised too late that he’d used his splint hand. Or the hand that had been in a splint two days ago. That was supposed to have been healed by that magical cream from those two lunatics but kept fucking relapsing…

‘Kuso…’ he spat, pulling back again, holding his blade up at the other stick guy.

Normally, that would’ve bought some time, but this opponent was riled up, high on whatever fumes were coming out of that log bucket they’d seen as they’d come in, and the blade was clearly irrelevant as the lunatic stormed forward and poked at Akira’s chest with his stick.

‘Don’t make me use this,’ warned Akira, just as the man leapt through the air and basically pushed himself onto the end of the dagger.

‘This is madness…’ yelled Miho, summing up the feelings of most of the crowd, who’d realised, finally, that this wasn’t a performance they were watching, but a real life and death struggle.

‘He jumped on it, I didn’t-…’ started Akira, pulling his blade out and pointing at the man, who hovered a second, drooling blood, before slumping onto the grass.

‘Wait, where’s the monk?’ asked Aya, looking around the crowd and seeing not a hint of orange.

Miho followed her scan. ‘He’s not here?’

‘The attackers…he must’ve told them to do it. Hypnotised them.’

‘Cunning little-…’ Akira grabbed the finger of a reveller jabbing into his chest and twisted it, then took out his green katana and made his way quickly through the parting masses. ‘He’ll go for the temple, over there.’

Aya and Miho trailed after their sometime ashigaru bodyguard, though it was harder for them to push through the locals screaming for security as all they had were the little totem sticks and everyone else had those too.

Luckily, no one seemed to realise that they were friends of the murderer so there were no physical attacks, and, after seven minutes of wrestling and jabbing and shoving, they finally made it to the quiet shore of Lake Suwa.

Akira was about fifty metres ahead and…somehow, he’d already caught up with the monk.

No, wait…someone else had…another figure pinned on top of the orange-haired trickster, shouting at him to come out and do something.

Hurrying forward, Aya and Miho quickly realised it wasn’t just a random someone, it was the apparent saviour-on-call…the red and white ribbon mage. And for some reason, Akira was trying to push him off the orange monk.

‘He’s mine…’

‘Not anymore.’

‘I caught him first.’

‘Then dropped him.’

‘Give him back.’

‘Not likely.’

The back and forth continued for about two minutes, interspersed with background moaning from the orange monk trapped beneath the mage’s knees, until Akira decided to escalate and point forward the tip of his katana.

‘You’d stab the guy who saved your life?’ asked Daiki, his face genuinely shocked, so much so that he put a moratorium on slapping the monk.

‘Probably.’

‘Over someone like this…’

Akira looked down at what he could make out of the monk, which was basically just a unruly mop of orange hair. It was true, he didn’t particularly want to stab the guy who’d saved him from drowning, which meant he’d have to come up with some snappy rhetoric to persuade him instead.

And if that didn’t work…just wound him a little. A scratch on the leg maybe. Just enough to get him off his prey.

‘Stop fighting, both of you,’ interjected Miho, stepping next to Akira’s blade and instantly getting a kuso right to the face.

‘Both? He’s the one with the sword…’ protested Daiki, losing his grip on the monk for a second and correcting with a tighter knee into his back.

‘He’s right,’ said Aya, moving behind the mage. ‘Stop being a thug and try talking for once. If you’re capable of it.’

‘Gods, all three of you…’

Miho held up his hand, diplomat style. ‘I’m sure we can come to some agreement, if you put your katana away.’

‘Why am I always the bad guy?’

Somewhere in the festival behind them, some shouts started to get louder, closer, the last of them comprehensible. And visible too; a group of revellers telling at least twelve Suwa enforcers that the murderer was over there.

‘No, you’re not doing it here,’ muttered Daiki, seemingly talking to his own hair.

‘What?’

‘Do that and I’ll throw you in the lake…bury you forever.’

‘Who the hell are you talking to?’

The mage looked up, confused momentarily, then angry when he saw the twelve ashigaru advancing along the shore. ‘You idiot, you’re gonna get us all caught.’

‘Then get off my prisoner.’

‘So you can lose him again?’

Aya waved her arms at both of them, shouting that they had to ditch the stupid orange monk and get out of there, head back into the crowd.

‘Don’t have time for this nonsense,’ replied Akira, moving forward and aiming the tip of his katana at Daiki’s arm.

Typically, it would’ve been a simple cut to make, but when there was a sudden rush of grassy sand flying up into your face, it was pretty much impossible.

‘Kuso…’ shouted Akira, dropping his blade and rubbing at his eyes.

Seizing his chance, the mage grabbed the palak monk by the arms and pulled him up…put a hand over his mouth before he could say anything…then tripped on Akira’s katana guard and fell back down again.

‘Beautiful,’ cried the orange-haired demon as he broke free and ran full pelt back towards the twelve ashigaru, waving his arms and screaming at them that he’d just been attacked by the murderers. Seeing a man of the cloth, in peak festival season, was evidence enough for any disciple of the Suwa Clan and the twelve ashigaru continued on, eight of them rugby-tackling Akira onto the sporadic grass, three pinning down the mage and the last one clamping a hand on Miho’s shoulder and saying, between jagged breaths, ‘don’t…too knackered.’

‘Miho, run,’ shouted Aya, her instincts sharp enough to have already taken her ten metres farther along the shore.

Both her intended target and the ashigaru holding him [while also bending over with cramp] heard it, and both of them did nothing.

For the ashigaru, the girl was too far down the shore…and probably a groupie anyway.

For Miho, he felt bad disobeying a security officer.

Besides, they hadn’t technically done anything wrong. As soon as they got put in front of someone with authority, they would be able to explain everything that had happened.

That an orange-haired monk had hypnotised those locals to attack them.

And the festival guy had jumped onto Akira’s dagger.

‘You crazy…fume-inhaling…spiritualist lunatics,’ said one of the other ashigaru, finally rising up from the scrum and leaving enough of a gap for Miho to see that Akira was bruised, cut and out cold.

‘All male gang too,’ added another ashigaru, rubbing his punishment hand and looking down at the unconscious mage.

‘We’re innocent…’ said Miho, his voice a husk of its usual bright self.

‘Yeah, and I’m Kublai Khan.’

‘Err…okay. Is that a clan title or-…’

‘Kuso, a simpleton. Shut him up, will you?’

Miho opened his mouth to say, wait, I remember now, Kublai Khan was the guy who-…but the fist heading to the back of his head didn’t care, and the second, third and fourth fists that followed didn’t either.

Ah, well, he thought, staring down the shore as the void closed in, at least Aya got away. If they’d got her too, I don’t know what I would’ve-…