NOVEL NEXT 60: Wait Staff and Weight Staff
“For me?” asked Sasha. I gave a pair of costume wings to her. Everyone had met up for lunch in the dorm, so she had to set down a potato to take the gift. Arnold and Wiki were quickly eating their lunch. It had taken me longer to hobble-fly back to the dorm than I’d have liked, so I joined them to eat as fast as possible myself.
“What do you think?” I asked, right before stuffing a potato in my face. We’d cooked them the night before so that they’d be ready to go when we arrived. I never thought I’d appreciate cold potatoes as much as I did.
“These look fake as fuck,” said Sasha, shaking the wings.
“They start looking a lot more legitimate after they are installed,” I mumbled through a full mouth. With a thought, I made my wings beat once.
Tell her that I’ll install them personally. Patchouli’s voice came in through the magical crystal with a nail in it, which had followed me back to the dorm. I swallowed quickly.
“Tell her yourself.”
“Eh?” asked Sasha.
Your noisy munching is unbearable.
“You’ll have to go to the mansion, but Patchouli suggested I bring them to you directly to make the offer,” I said.
“What offer?” asked Sasha. “I haven’t donated blood, yet.”
“That fee has been waived. Um, Patchouli will probably explain?”
Sasha held up a hand. “She’s already explaining.” Her eyes focused on the crystal. Sasha nodded. “The same way he broke his ankle,” she said, before another period of silence. “I appreciate that.”
“Man, I hate not being a part of conversations,” said Wiki. He was talking to me. “Don’t forget that I still need to debrief you about the Outside World!”
I nodded.
“Good. I need your opinion on a few things.The necessity weighs on me.” Arnold patted his back and gave him another potato.
“What things?” I asked. He shook his head.
“No time, right now,” he said through a full mouth. “‘Wanna do it right.”
“Seems dangerous,” said Sasha to the open air. “Yeah, he told me about it. I’m in.” Sasha stood up from the table.
“Just… just like that?” I asked. I’d thought that she’d grouse, or object, or sarcastically ask what was in it for her. Maybe I’d gotten used to my requests being denied, because all the youkai denied them out of principle. “Not that I want you to change your mind, but why are you willing to do this?”
“I’m partially doing it for the ability to fly,” said Sasha. “And partially doing it to get out of having to work.”
“That’s a foolish reason to risk your life.”
“Shut the hell up, Mario.” Sasha laughed. “The pot isn’t wrong about the kettle, though!” She waited another moment. “Patchouli says we will practice together, both flying and danmaku, so I stand to gain a lot.”
“With Miss Konpaku and Hon-sensei?” asked Arnold.
“That’s right.”
“Nice,” he said. “We’ll be glad to have you.” The others may not have noticed, but I caught Wiki’s sullen look. I tried to think of something to say to make it better, but Sasha interrupted me.
“And she said that you’re about to kill yourself through overwork?”
“No! I just don’t want to give up without even trying.”
“I’ll tell him whatever the fuck I want,” said Sasha. “Anyway, if you think about it, by stepping up right now it’s kind of like I’m saving your life.” She was walking to the door, so I hastened to keep up, a potato for the road in one hand and my crutch in the other. “I’m repaying a debt.”
“That’s not… quite right, because if you refused I’d ask someone else.”
“Who? Raghav?” She pretended to gag. “Anyway, you can thank me later. Let’s go get these wings installed.”
—
I was getting sick and tired of walking to the Scarlet Devil Mansion and back. My left foot was getting blisters; my right ankle continued to ache. My wings didn’t hurt, but I felt heavy with exhaustion.
I’d thoughtlessly followed Patchouli and Sasha all the way to the fairy locker room before being turned back. The wing installation didn’t take long, and then Sasha was on her way to the Fantastic Blowhole just like I had been the day before.
Mercifully, I could sit down inside the library. Patchouli and I watched Sasha walk through the same forested region that I’d already passed through.
The crystal projected an image in all directions, showing what it saw from where it hovered near Sashas’s shoulder. It was like an IMAX, except worse in like ten different ways. (So it was more like a knockoff VR system.) The projected image fell on the bookshelves, ceiling, and floor all around us. The colors were all distorted by the varied background materials and distances involved. It was also projected in three hundred sixty degrees, which meant that I kept having to turn around or adjust my chair to see what was going on.
Patchouli and I sat opposite each other at the table in the center of the room. Nazrin rejoined us so that we wouldn’t have to guide Sasha personally. It was surprisingly hard to give directions through telepathy, at least according to Patchouli. I learned then that the mouse youkai activated her power through the crystal once every several minutes, rather than continuously, so she could mostly read.
“What if she makes a wrong turn?” I asked.
“I’ll give her continuous attention once she is underground,” said the Little Mouse General. “Or maybe only when she comes to forks in the road.” She glanced up at the image, and I looked over my shoulder.
Every time I spun around to look I felt kind of bad, like a short person was behind me at the movie theater. When I waved my hand it didn’t cast a shadow. That was bizarre, so I made a note in my new notebook.
The far wall was covered by a twenty foot tall image of my roommate facing away. Her own body blocked most of the things we might want to see, like attacking fairies, obstacles, or the direction she was going. I kept having to fight the instinct to lean and look around her. I refused to stare at her butt like she was the avatar in some risque videogame.
Sasha still wore jeans, which were now indestructible as they had become ‘part of her identity’, but her black graphic tee had been repaired so many times it was more like a black and gray patchwork coat.
“Demon!” called Patchouli. A koakuma walked up behind us, making me flinch.
“Yes?”
“Fetch Lunic’s Guide to Subterranean Monsters.” The redheaded youkai disappeared into the almost-darkness, and Patchouli spoke to me next. “You should read that while we wait for Sasha to make it to the Fantastic Blowhole.”
“Great idea. Can I get a light to read by?”
“Of course,” she said. Patchouli pulled an ornate lamp out of her pocket and set it on the table. That neither she nor Nazrin needed it suggested that they could see in the dark.
“Is that safe?” I asked. We were in a library, and I was worried about fire. I also wondered about the lamp spilling in the extradimensional space. Patchouli kept a lot of things in there; if they were set alight… well, it would be a bad surprise the next time she opened it, at the very least.
“Hmm? Oh, it’s battery powered.”
“Oh!” I said. “So you have a way to charge batteries? With magic?”
“Solar panels. They, like magic, have an explanation that can be understood.”
“I wouldn’t expect you to use batteries all that much,” I said. The returning koakuma fidgeted uncomfortably as she handed me a book. I scooted my chair around the table to sit next to Patchouli.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m tired of having to turn around to check on Sasha’s progress. Besides, I need somewhere to set this down.”
“I suppose that makes sense.” She turned a page. “My peripheral vision is excellent, so I don’t have that problem.” I had an impish impulse to stick my tongue out at her to see if she’d notice, but I held back. Patchouli was another character who you’d think would wear glasses, but didn’t.
We sat and read next to each other. Nazrin was doing the same, and she scooted up on Patchouli's other side.
“Isn’t this nice?” asked Nazrin. “All cozy in the library.”
“I’m going to get a square table,” responded the librarian.
“I’ve always wanted to be a part of a book club.”
“Book clubs typically read the same thing, and comment upon it to each other.”
“We could do that.”
“How fast can you read?” asked Patchouli.
“Fine,” said the gray-eared youkai as she glanced at our own titles. “I sure do love searching for things as slowly as possible, though.”
“You’re getting paid,” added the librarian.
“I wasn’t being sarcastic. Everyone’s always in a hurry, but when things are good, you should slow down.”
“Tell that to Mister Thorne.”
“CAN YOU TELL ME WHERE THE FOREST OF MAGIC IS?” boomed Sasha’s twenty-foot-tall voice, making the shelves shake. Patchouli adjusted the volume on the crystal by dragging her finger on a magical sigil on the table. That the sound came from the image and not the crystal made about as much sense as anything.
“I could guide her there,” said Nazrin.
“No,” said Patchouli to both us and Sasha.
“Is there some trick to getting there?” This time Sasha’s voice was a bit faint. Patchouli kept messing with the volume, without looking. “A frame of mind, or a password?”
“There are methods,” said the librarian. “Generally, it is hardest to journey there the first few times. The state of mind is a thoughtless, automatic motion… not something that lends itself to conscious effort. However, with practice you can go there thoughtlessly.”
“How am I going to practice if I can never get there in the first place?” asked Sasha.
“You can’t. It is a security measure, in case you have forgotten.”
“Some bullshit to protect the youkai that live there?”
“To prevent humans from going there and eating the mushrooms, actually,” said the librarian. “Nine tenths of them cause excruciating pain or death, and the remainder cause worse things. But please, remain focused on the mission.” Patchouli glanced over at me. “Humans are so easily distracted, aren’t they?”
“Eh? Sorry, I was reading,” I said, making a joke.
“I’m still surprised you can,” she responded primly.
Lunic’s guide was a bit incomprehensible despite the translation magic. I was reading about how there were two kinds of underground youkai: the kind that went to the surface at night, and the kind that had given up on that and waited for humans to foolishly come to them instead. Apparently most youkai started as the former and turned into the latter as time went on and they became “of greater power, so that they are secure in their anchor to the world,” but I was having a hard time intuiting when that transition took place. The book was fond of flowery language and tangents.
I kept reading as it further divided subterranean youkai into classes: those that were merely creepy, and the kind that ate people alive. Bridge trolls were well-classified in that regard. As I read, Sasha continued to walk and fly short distances.
Sasha walked, and battled, and perhaps gained an appreciation for Gensokyo’s beauty. When she’d made it to the Fantastic Blowhole she carefully sat on the edge and dangled her legs. It made me uneasy, even though my brain knew she was… relatively safe.
“Proceed with the test,” said Patchouli. I was grateful that she spoke aloud for our benefit. Otherwise, Nazrin and I wouldn’t have been able to follow the conversation. Sasha tore a big tuft of grass out of the ground.
“Oy! Okina! Save me!” shouted my roommate. That definitely wasn’t how I was taught to do it, but it worked anyway. In a moment Sasha disappeared into a door in her back and the grass blades scattered. The image cut out a second later.
“What happened?” I asked, standing up.
“You saw it as well as I did,” said Patchouli. “It looks like she experienced the same thing as you, and the crystal disappeared with her. The grass was left behind, unfortunately.”
“Why’d she do that?” I asked. The sudden silence and darkness was unnerving. I’d been listening to the faint crunch of her boots, I realized.
“To test that it would work for her, and to test whether she can carry objects. Obviously.”
“Ah.” I said. “Good call.”
“Not everyone leaps in with both feet,” said Nazrin.
“And I suppose you asked Okina to listen to her plea?”
“No…” said Patchouli, slowly. “Sasha did that.”
“Gods, he really is unobservant,” said Nazrin.
“I guess that means our mission for today is done already, then,” I said, hoping it was a true observation.
“I’m afraid so,” said Patchouli. Even so, we waited around for a few minutes. Then Sasha reappeared, falling out of the outhouse onto the grass, and the library was lit by the crystal once more.
“That took forever,” she said.
“About the same time it took for me, from the bottom of the pit,” I said. I remembered the red space full of bubbles. The journey through the realm of red felt like just yesterday–because it was.
“Mister Thorne correctly observes that traversing Lady Matara’s secret realm takes the same amount of time every time, regardless of distance,” said Patchouli aloud. Sasha began to walk back toward the human village. “Nazrin continues to keep most of her observations to herself.”
“Can’t we move the outhouse?” I suggested.
“We should put this thing next to our dorm,” said Sasha at the same time.
“The potty-port is staked deep into the ground,” said Patchouli. “I discussed this with Miss Kawashiro yesterday. Okina’s power of doorways probably cares about the location of the entrance to the Fantastic Blowhole, a sort of doorway on its own. You may not move the device.”
“It’s a porta-potty,” Sasha and I objected.
“No it’s not,” replied Patchouli. “I intend to create a sign that says it is out of order–unless you two are interested in cleaning it?”
We both acknowledged that we weren’t.
“Good. Demon! Create an Out of Order sign!”
“See you two again tomorrow,” said Nazrin, standing up. She left her book at the table.
“Wait!” I said. “Can you help me find my hat?”
“Nope,” said Nazrin, heading toward the door.
“Please?”
“I’m searching for a guy who has enough money to pay me to look for his hat,” said Nazrin. Her rods didn’t move. “That’s weird!”
“... no need to rub it in.” The mouse chuckled and left the library.
“I don’t think she likes you very much,” said Patchouli.
“Me neither,” I said. “The real shame is that she hates Wiki, who is her number one fan!” Patchouli gave me a confused look, but then her expression settled back into its disdainful default.
“The fact that you all know about us already from some diversion in the Outside World is a constant source of consternation,” said Patchouli.
“If it puts you at ease, I only know you because I thought your theme song had the best remixes.”
“How does it go?” asked Patchouli.
“Er, I have no musical talent.”
“That’s unfortunate.” She sighed. “Regarding Nazrin, you’re missing the obvious solution.”
“Work for enough money to pay her?” I asked.
“It is a bit more subtle than that… but not by much.”
–
I spent the rest of the day sleeping. It was great.
I somehow failed to discuss things with Wiki that evening, as well. The human village was having a crisis without Yukari there to supply material aid; he and Miko had been working non-stop to try to ameliorate the total supply shortages that were happening in every resource. He came in very late, just before we were about to call it a night.
Miko and Reimu had escorted him to our door, at least. He bid them goodbye.
“We’ll be lucky if we have electricity before next spring,” said Wiki as he collapsed on our new bench.
“Yukari could be back tomorrow,” said Arnold.
“That’d be lucky! She could explain some things!” He shook his head. “We don’t even know what sort of generator she intended to use, or where it’s located.”
“You could ask Nazrin for help with that,” I said.
“We thought of that already,” he said. “She said it is ‘underground,’ so if you see it, please point it out.”
“Will do. Are you ready for the debrief?” I was eager for it, myself.
“Nope,” he said. “It can wait for tomorrow.”
But it didn’t happen the next day, either.
–
Sasha jumped into the pit and called for help mid-fall. She entered Okina Matara’s realm with considerable velocity, but it bled off before she came back out through the potty-port’s door, right on schedule.
“Done again,” I said. “Three days down. What do we have to show for it?”
“One broken ankle,” said Patchouli. “Only one.”
“We need to be going faster,” I said.
“No,” said Nazrin. “Embrace the slowness.” She stood up to leave, not following her own advice.
“Now is a good time,” said Patchouli.
“No,” I said. “I’m about to go train with the martial artists, so I’d rather wait.” The librarian frowned.
“What do you think will happen if you lose?”
“Nazrin will laugh at me. Besides, you were telling me just yesterday that I needed to get stronger, to make battles easier.”
“Fair,” she said. “I guess I’m relieved you can show patience, when necessary.”
—
Youmu and Meiling were happy to accept Sasha and I for some impromptu training. The ghost gardner handed us each a wooden sword–a bokken–and hastily launched into an explanation about how to make a weapon obey the danmaku mercy rule, where it wouldn’t injure a person it struck.
“It’s far easier if the weapon is a part of your identity,” she said. “However, even if it is not, you can nurture a purity of spirit to dissuade the blade from cutting. If your goal is self-expression instead of violence it will serve as danmaku.” Youmu spoke quickly. I had the feeling she was repeating a lesson word-for-word from something she’d already told the martial artists.
“Actually, we were hoping for flight practice,” said Sasha.
“Oh,” said the green gardener. Her ghost half, which had been hovering nearby, fluttered away. “Practice flying, then.” She walked off as well.
“She’s um, she’s very focused,” said Meiling a bit sheepishly. She had been dozing in a chair while Youmu led her students in swordsmanship exercises. I wondered if she felt guilty. “Perhaps I can help a bit more. My first piece of advice is to jump when you want to fly.”
I nodded. I’d independently discovered that one.
“How high can you jump?” asked the gate guard.
“Um, not at all, currently.”
“Well, my second piece of advice is to fly as much as possible. It gets easier with practice, you see.”
Sasha sighed. “Thanks anyway.” She swung her wooden sword experimentally.
“The thing you have to remember is that everyone in Gensokyo can fly already,” said Meiling. “Learning to fly for us is like… learning to walk, for you?”
“That’s kinda ironic,” I said. “Doctor Yagokoro recently gave me a list of ways to practice walking, so I could learn it again.”
Sasha’s eyebrow went up. “That gives me an idea.”
And that was how we ended up doing physical therapy exercises at our dorm, but for our wings instead of my ankle.
–
Sasha flew in small circles, trying to trace the letters of the alphabet. I was trying to balance on my crutch without my arms getting tired, something that I hoped was the flying equivalent of balancing on one foot with support.
“I’m not sure this is helping,” she said.
“Me neither, but the sheet says my ankle will take weeks of therapy, so.”
“‘M’ and ‘N’ really suck, it’s hard to change direction.” It was hard for me to focus on my own effort, too, as Sasha gently bobbed nearby.
“I think that’s the point of the exercise.” I started to lean to one side, but I corrected in time. I was panting; even staying still took something out of you.
Sasha jumped in frustration, at about the same time I fell over. I yelped; I almost landed on my broken leg, barely managing to twist away in time and hurt my butt instead. I’d been landing on it a lot.
Sasha, however, flew straight into the ceiling.
“Ow fuck!” she said as she bashed her head into the wooden supports above. I gasped from the floor. She settled back down, and sat on the bench. “What just fucking happened?”
“Did you… taste… anything?” I asked.
“No… huh?” Sasha licked her lips. “Garlic, maybe?”
I laughed. “No wonder Lady Scarlet… hates me!”
“Huh?”
“I’ll tell you later.” Probably at about midnight. Yukari might not be around, but I was still scheduling secret conversations as though she were.
I’d be visiting Sekibanki that very evening. I could ask her what my fear tasted like to her. I decided I would thank her once again for stepping in and saving Sasha and I when we nearly bled to death, and maybe I’d ask why Sasha didn’t seem as affected by the transfusion as I was. I had a notebook of questions for the youkai, including some about how fear made flight easier.
I would have forgotten to ask Sekibanki about her part in the attack on Toyosatomimi no Miko (I couldn’t remember that she had been there after all) except for the fact that the rokurokubi brought it up herself.