One’s Own Time, Part W

Hovels stack upon hovels in ramshackle towers, on either side of a narrow, overcrowded street. In places, slapshod stalls selling stolen goods exist next to dirty mats where people sit selling homemade trinkets, all peering around with wild eyes, fearful of muggers and thieves alike. The struggle to make a living in the unholy crescent of the Devil’s Moon. Sure, there are other parts of this district. The brightly lit taverns, the fighting halls laden with bright lanterns depicting scenes of violence upon the walls in glimmering shadow-art, the brothels and their tempting debauchery. All outwardly beautiful, in a district so colorful that it could put some of the upper-class quarters to shame.

This, though, is the residential half of the Devil’s Moon. Where these people struggle. Where the disenfranchised live, the criminals lurk, and the whores crawl home to sleep. Iku’s strange fixation on finding an apprentice among this rabble is incomprehensible. The story of the pauper who becomes a hero is an excellent story, but any of these people adopted into a position of power… it would swiftly go to their head, being in the position their oppressors had been not so long before.

Power corrupts. And these people are all too corruptible.

Leaping across the rickety wooden bridges above the heads of the throng below, Waffu holds his respected part-time colleague and Overseer ambassador, Aoi, very literally in the palm of his hand. His leaps are a much easier method to traverse this crowded mess. With each leap, he stretches out his canopy to glide gently to the next perch.

With one final landing, Waffu wobbles forward. He overcorrects and leans back, waving his arms in a sudden panic as he nearly falls headfirst backwards into the crowd, which scatters from the large yokai-shaped shadow above them. Only the raw muscle power in his one leg and the iron grip of his talon allows him to maintain his lopsided position.

“Eeee!” Aoi squeals, grabbing onto one of the creaky wooden railings when Waffu nearly drops her from his palm. When he reaches up to get a hold of her again, she squeaks louder, “Waffu! Not there!”

“Ah- I apologize, Aoi-san,” Waffu removes his long-fingered hand from her behind. Aoi lets herself drop down to grab the edge of the walking bridge, then swings herself back and forth until she twirls back up onto the curved surface. Smoothing out her uniform, she reaches down and takes two of Waffu’s gnarled fingers in hand, helping pull him upright.

“It’s fine,” she sighs. “I know it was an accident.” It is unfortunate that Waffu’s cursed clumsiness is such common knowledge. “So why are we here? You still haven’t told me what your plan to find is. There something you know about this neighborhood that I don’t?”

“I thought you might recognize where he are,” Waffu responds coyly. When Aoi sets her hands on her hips, he chuckles, the jagged and impossible mouth on the front of his canopy stretching wide. Waffu closes his canopy, twisting one multiple-jointed arm up around the bottom to point a finger at one of the buildings below them. Aoi leans on the railing, which complains with a creak.

“Ah!” realization crosses her face. “Wait, you think he’d go for it?”

“It is the best option that came to mind,” coiling his leg, Waffu makes a small hop and parasol-glides down to the street level, frightened humans and leering succubi scattering out of his imposing path. Gracefully, Aoi steps down behind him and lands with an agile crouch, walking out the momentum. Together they stand in front of one of the more respectable-looking buildings on the street, in that it has the proper accoutrements to give the impression of an actual business. A wooden façade above the door states, Private Detective.

The unlocked door leads into a small unattended lobby, a bell ringing above Aoi’s head as she leads the way. Waffu takes up the entire door, and standing on his tippy-talons while crouching is required to inch his way inside, each step making an unsettling tapping sound on the floor. Three wooden chairs with cheap cushions set on them line one wall, and a door with the words Detective Hasu inscribed on the glass stands cracked open behind an empty wooden reception desk.

“No appointments, come on in,” a friendly voice calls from behind the door. There’s an eerie, ethereal quality to the voice. Most people would have trouble describing it. Waffu isn’t most people. The good detective sounds a lot like a spirit, something without vocal cords manipulating air currents to produce sound. Most of them can’t even explain the mechanics of how they do it, but the difference is in how omnidirectional it is. A person talks with their mouth so it’s projected in a direction, but a spectral entity, or an amorphous jelly, often speaks in an omnidirectional way. The-

“Waffu, are you coming?” Aoi’s voice startles him from his thoughts and he jumps, perking up. The horn at the top of his head jabs into the ceiling with a crack of wood.

“… I apologize.” Withdrawing the spike from the ceiling, Waffu crouches down and enters an awkward three-pointed crawl through the cramped space of the office, then curls inwards and tippy-taps his way through the door.

Behind a nice wooden desk, the nicest piece of furniture in the office, a cloth-enclosed humanoid figure adjusts stacks of clutter arranged in mysterious pathways across the surface that only he understands. Waffu knows the type. Miko’s section of the Exorcist library is the same. “Don’t worry, not the first client to leave their mark,” the detective’s eerie voice bounces off the walls, coming in from all angles, its own echo. Long, insectoid legs stretch from his back, doing more work in his organizing than the hands that Waffu expects are largely for the comfort of those looking at him.

True to the detective’s statement, there are multiple holes in the walls at about fist-height. Some at head-height.

Hasu’s would be a terrifying appearance if the detective’s reputation in the area hadn’t preceded him. Aoi takes a seat across the desk from Hasu, while Waffu scoots the other chair out of the way and squats, careful not to puncture the floor with the prongs of his canopy. “Good evening, detective,” Waffu greets, stretching a large hand over the next and accidentally knocking over a jar of pens. “Ah, just let me-” he tries to help pick them up, but the insectoid limbs swiftly beat him to it, while the patient proprietor of the establishment shakes his hand.

“Not to worry, not to worry. Small space for such a large fellow, these things happen,” folding his hands in front of him, the yokai locks his many eyes on both exorcists at once. “Detective Hasu is the name, and investigating is my game. It isn’t often we” who is we? “see exorcists come through the office. Is there… something amiss?” There’s an unspoken nervousness in his voice. Perhaps his office has been troubled by poltergeists and he has been too proud to ask for help.

This being his ‘choice’ for their contest, Aoi looks to Waffu to take the lead. He clears his throat and does so, in his usual blunt manner. “I am Exorcist Waffu, and this is Overseer Aoi. Our mutual colleague, Head Exorcist Iku, is interested in the perspective of someone from this district. Someone she can train in her techniques, who will use them morally, and for the good of the less fortunate. I have heard of your charitable work for the poor families in this neighborhood. Would you be interested in meeting with her to learn more?”

Fidgeting in his seat, Detective Hasu’s expression is unreadable, but his body betrays nervousness. “I am… glad that you would think so highly of me,” he starts, in a way that clearly precipitates a very politely worded refusal. “Work is very busy. I hate to turn away clients, but there’s just so many,” he insists, despite the emptiness of his lobby and the promptness of his invitation in. “I just can’t add more to my plate, you understand.”

“I understand,” Waffu politely agrees. Reaching up beneath his canopy, he finds his vestments and fishes around in the pockets, withdrawing a business card. Iku was ambivalent at best to Waffu commissioning them, but if their competitor guild is investing in advertisement and expansion and they are not, they will soon be left behind, moral high ground or no. Gently setting it on the desk, Waffu pushes it towards the detective with one finger, so as to minimize his disturbance of the ordered chaos. “This is our information if you ever need our services. Would you be open to hiring for consultation on future exorcist work within the district?”

“Ah, yes, that would be fine,” the detective answers slowly, hand hovering over a desk drawer. He opens it after a moment’s hesitation and produces his own business card, every bit as simple and economic as the Exorcist Guild’s. “Here is my card. Nice meeting you both, Waffu and Aoi.”

After an exchange of bows and an awkward shuffling out of the building, Waffu stretches back to his full height outside. It’s starting to dim, and he looks around the street warily. The seven-hundred-yen non-alcoholic wine pumps through Waffu’s powerful veins as his heart beats faster. “There could be succubi here…” he mutters to himself, in rightful fear of minorities after dark.

They could easily be jumped, but… having an Overseer is safer- or is it not? Could she become a target of some insurgent element? A slutty sex-yokai with a fetish for uniforms? It’s a small blessing that the ratty rabble are more interested in giving Waffu a wide berth than trying to touch him. “It looks like my idea was a bust,” he says, though he’d expected it was a long shot asking an established businessman to change careers so abruptly. Iku’s entire idea is flawed in its inception, and he’d simply worked to eke out some small chance of success.

“Did he seem off to you?” Aoi asks, setting a hand on her hip and looking over her shoulder. Her horn-flames shift back towards the door inquisitively. “Like he was in a hurry to rush us out.”

“It is not our job to pry into the personal business of random citizens,” Waffu responds flatly.

“Not your business, maybe,” the Overseer answers softly. “But… I guess it’s my turn now,” she claps and rubs her hands together. “So here’s the plan I was thinking.”