The next day’s PMC training was still intense, but it wasn’t anywhere near as bad.

  “Do you want to flip for who gets the shower first?” James asked Mitsue as they slowly made their way back to the dorms.

  “Please be my guest,” Mitsue said. “I still have work to do on the hot springs, so I will collect my tools and head up there.”

  “How do you do it, man?” James asked, shaking his head. “We just got done with training, and you’re about to climb a mountain and dig some more holes?”

  “It is a very small mountain,” Mitsue demurred. “And I will be splitting rocks to line the edges with, using a traditional technique. As for how… I suppose you could say that my childhood teachers were very demanding.”

  “I don’t know how I feel about that,” James admitted. “Studying here is about the same as at home, but PMC training three days a week is wiping me out. And you’re saying this is less than what you went through during middle school?”

  They took the elevator up. James was supposed to be taking the stairs, as a general fitness measure, but he was so tired.

  “I suppose I am saying that, but I would not refer to my childhood training as school,” Mitsue replied. “Boot camp, perhaps. I would not recommend it to anyone I liked, but it did get results.”

  Mitsue entered their room first and started rummaging through the closet for his tools. James stopped, his hand on the bathroom door.

  “Last chance to call dibs on the shower,” he said.

  “I will be fine,” Mitsue said. “I will have a bath while I’m up there.”

  “Oh yeah,” James said. That does sound nice.

  He was briefly tempted by the idea of joining Mitsue, but his aching legs told him he was not going to be climbing up a mountain in the dark.

  Shower it is, he thought, and opened the door.

  There was—

  James stopped. He blinked and shook his head. He looked again. The shower cubicle was still filled with fish.

  “Mitsue—” James started. He wasn’t sure where to go with that sentence.

  Mitsue, did you know that our shower is filled with fish?

  Mitsue, did you fill our shower with fish?

  Mitsue—

  “Yes?” Mitsue asked, holding a bag heavy with metal implements.

  James gave up and just pointed, stepping back from the door. Mitsue frowned and took a look inside.

  “James,” he said. Then he stopped.

  “You see it too, then,” James said.

  “If… you are also seeing that our shower has been filled with fish… then yes.”

  They both stared at the shower. It was the sort with a glass door to stop the water from splashing. It had been wedged closed against the weight of all the fish, which were piled four feet high. The water had been turned on, and a trickle of water was escaping through the crack under the door.

  The boys stared for a little while longer. Then they looked at each other. They both spoke at the same time.

  “Kana.”

  “You said not to use your fridge. I did not,” Kana said, entirely unconcerned.

  “That doesn’t mean you can use our shower to store your spare fish!” James exclaimed. “Use your own shower!”

  They were having this argument at the door of Kana and Harue’s room.

  “Harue forbade it,” Kana said.

  “Yeah, we need to use our shower,” Harue called out from behind the dragon girl. “We can’t have it filled with fish.”

  “You think we don’t have to use it?” James asked angrily. “I had to borrow a shower from Taro!”

  “Sounds like it all worked out then,” Harue said brightly. “If there wasn’t anything else, we need to get back to our homework.”

  Kana looked over her shoulder. “You said we were saving the homework for a special occasion.”

  Harue laughed. “Trust me, it doesn’t get more special than when a boy comes to your room to yell at you for filling his shower with fish.”

  “I see,” Kana said, nodding. “I will get the hats then.”

  “You—” James started, but Kana had gone back into her room. He seethed with frustration. “Just to let you know,” he called, “if you want your fish back, you’ll need to talk to Maintenance.”

  Kana popped back into view. She was carrying a handful of brightly-coloured foil-paper hats.

  “Why does Maintenance have my fish?” she demanded.

  “Because I had to call them to clean out my shower!” James told her. “The loose scales clogged up the drain! And I couldn’t use it because it was full of fish!”

  Kana hissed at him and drew the foil hats back to her chest.

  “You do not deserve the hats,” she told him.

  Harue was still laughing about it at breakfast the next day.

  “Well, I don’t think it was funny,” Suki said. “I don’t want James to smell of fish.”

  “No need to worry about that,” James said. “Yoshiki-san said that the custodial staff were really expensive, but they sure work fast.”

  “And thoroughly,” Mitsue said. “I doubt even a forensic team could find evidence of fish left in our bathroom.”

  “Even so,” James said, pointing at Kana. “No storing fish—any raw meat—in our dorm. In fact, no storing anything in our apartment.”

  Kana looked up from her ichiju-sansai. “That doesn’t seem very friendly.”

  James looked at Harue.

  “What?” she said innocently. “Friends keep stuff for each other! In fact—” she grinned slyly, “—I prefer to think of all the stuff in your apartment as my stuff that you’re just holding until I need it.”

  “It’s not,” James said flatly. Harue just giggled in response.

  “You shouldn’t get so mad over breakfast,” she said lightly. “It’ll ruin your digestion.”

  “Stop annoying me already, then,” James said angrily.

  “How about I do you a favour, instead?”

  “Instead. So you’re not going to stop being aggravating.”

  “That’s how we work,” Harue said with a smile. “We make ourselves useful enough to put up with all the aggravation.”

  James groaned. “That must be the most cynical thing I’ve ever heard. Can’t you just be nicer?”

  “Nope! But how about I find you a sorcerer?”

  “For Suki?” James looked at his girlfriend. He hadn’t had a chance to discuss it with her yet.

  “For me?” Suki asked. “Why would I need a sorcerer?”

  “A sorcerer might know what’s going on with your soul,” he explained awkwardly. “Or help with the enchantment that’s on you.”

  “There’s an enchantment on me?” Suki asked.

  “Yeah, it’s a really subtle one, apparently. Wait.”

  James turned to Harue. “How did you know about the sorcerer?”

  “Eavesdropping, of course,” Harue said without shame. “I was hoping for some sexy-times photos with Aunt Saiako, but you disappointed me in that regard.”

  Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

  Harue’s face lit up with a sly grin. “I wasn’t completely disappointed, though. Who wants to see pictures of James in only his underwear?”

  “Ew! Gross,” Matsuri exclaimed.

  “I am fine, thank you,” Mitsue said quietly.

  “I don’t see what the point of that would be,” Kana interjected.

  “So it’s just Suki, then?” Harue glanced over at Suki, who hadn’t said anything but was blushing furiously.

  “I don’t… that wouldn’t be… good,” she squeaked.

  “He’s glistening with oil,” Harue said, drawing the world out. “Rubbing it into his muscles.”

  “Give me the phone,” James demanded, while Suki made a high-pitched, strangled sound.

  “Sure,” Harue said. “It’s not gonna do you much good, though.”

  She handed him the phone. Instead of icons or a lock screen, all it showed was a cartoon of a fox's face, growling at him.

  “Watch it, it bites,” Harue said helpfully.

  “Just… delete the pictures,” James said, handing the phone back. “Suki and I will get to that when we’re ready.”

  “Fine, fine,” Harue said. She looked down at the phone. “Well, do it, then.”

  The phone responded with a yip.

  “So about this sorcerer,” Harue said. “I can’t promise anything, but I can ask around the Night Market and see if anyone has set up a shingle.”

  “Is it really that important?” Suki asked. “I don’t really mind not having a soul, not if James doesn’t mind.”

  “The other thing I was thinking,” James said, “If we found the right sorcerer, we could lift the restrictions on you.”

  “Oh! That should be possible. Our directives were updated from time to time.” Suki paused. “By the right kind, you mean one that isn’t like my Master?”

  “Exactly. But from what I hear, they’re kind of rare.” He looked at Harue. “Nanamori-sensei was pretty adamant about how contacting one was a bad idea.”

  “I know!” Harue exclaimed. “It’s like she was begging me to help you!”

  “I don’t follow,” Mitsue said.

  “Well, good ideas are good ideas,” Harue said. “But bad ideas… there’s nothing a fox finds more irresistible!”

  “This is a bad idea,” Matsuri said. They had the evening off from training, and so he and James were soaking in the hot spring. While the steaming water felt amazing, it did nothing to relieve James’s anxiety.

  “Don’t say that. Apparently, it just encourages her,” James said sourly.

  “Are you worried about Harue?” Suki called from the other side of the screen.

  “I am not worried about her as much as I am worried about what she will bring down on our heads,” Mitsue replied. “I know nothing about this Night Market, and Harue’s threat assessment leaves much unsaid.”

  “You need not worry,” Kana stated. “Just as Dragons are undefeatable in war, Foxes are unmatched in evading pursuit.”

  “I’d feel a lot better about that statement if you hadn’t been defeated by a sniper bullet last weekend,” James said.

  “First of all, that wound was nothing my regeneration couldn’t deal with,” Kana said reprovingly. “And second, that didn’t happen.”

  “What?” James asked, incredulous. “Are you going into denial or something?”

  “It is impossible that I could be felled by such a meagre blow,” Kana said firmly. “Therefore it did not happen. It must have been an illusion or a false memory or something.”

  “Kana, we were all there,” James insisted. “Someone has developed bullets that can kill dragons… you need to be aware of that.”

  “I do not, because it is not true,” Kana said. “You were probably all overcome with swamp gas.”

  “Kana, dear, you have to—” Suki started.

  But Kana did not. She remained stubbornly resistant to their arguments for the rest of the evening. At least it distracted James from what Harue was up to.

  “I found someone,” Harue told them. She took a big bite out of her tamago tosuto.

  “What did they say?” James asked.

  “Oh, I didn’t talk to him; I just asked around. Word is, this guy has skills.”

  “That’s it? Nothing about what he’s like?”

  “Oh, there are rumours, but there are too many to count, and I don’t know the Market well enough to sort them out. I don’t know who hates him enough to spread slanders or who has been paid to say nice things.”

  “So what’s your next move?”

  “Not mine.” Harue grinned at him. “You’re going to have to meet with him.”

  “Why James?” Mitsue asked suspiciously.

  “Or you, but James is easier to sell,” Harue said with a shrug. “The point is, it can’t be me.”

  “Why not?” James asked.

  “For some reason, nobody trusts foxes. If I reach out to him, he’ll assume it's some kind of con or prank.”

  “Not an unreasonable assumption,” Mitsue muttered.

  “But I don’t know the first thing about dealing with sorcerers,” James protested.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll be going in with you. I’ll just be disguised as the spirit you’ve enslaved to act as your local guide.”

  “Enslaved?”

  “Yeah, sorcerers do it all the time. Sometimes they call it ‘bonding’, but it’s basically magical enslavement. See, the idea is that you’re a sorcerer from America, which explains why you don’t know a lot of the local customs.”

  “That makes sense, I guess, but—”

  “You haven’t heard the best bit yet,” Harue said enthusiastically. “You need to attract his attention, make him think you’re worth his time. So what you do is, you say that you’ve come into possession of a Living Doll and you’re looking to sell.”

  “A Living Doll… Suki’s a Living Doll! I’m not going to sell her!”

  “Of course not, but the thing is, he won’t be interested in a Doll unless he has a way to change her programming!”

  “Uh…” James’s outrage fell away with nothing to stand on. “So if he’s interested in buying her, he should have the knowledge we need? But what then? Won’t he be mad when we tell him we’re not selling?”

  “Well, first, you have to work out if this guy is someone we can trust, or if we don’t want him within 10 kilometres of Suki.”

  James narrowed his eyes. “I’m pretty sure anyone who wants to buy Suki isn’t someone I want anywhere near her.”

  “Maybe he wants to emancipate her, you don’t know,” Harue countered. “That’s the whole point of this stage, finding out what this guy’s deal is.”

  “While lying to him about what our deal is,” James said.

  “Exactly! I knew you’d get this,” Harue said encouragingly. “Depending on how the meeting goes, we’ll work out what to do next.”

  James groaned, trying to narrow down his objections to just one.

  Suki spoke while he was struggling. “This sounds quite hazardous to James, though. If the sorcerer is skilled, won’t he have dangerous magic?”

  “James has his own magic,” Harue assured her. “Our mark will be expecting spells, not jade armour. And ninja stuff is pretty effective against sorcerers.”

  “True,” Mitsue said thoughtfully. “While their magic is formidable, they themselves are only human. And they rarely have immediate answers to smoke or gas.”

  “How am I going to impersonate a foreign sorcerer in my school uniform?” James asked.

  “Oh, we’ll have to find you and Mitsue costumes,” Harue said. “Get you all dressed up.”

  “Dressed up?” Suki asked, perking up. Harue grinned, and James knew he’d made a tactical mistake.

  “Just because I’m enjoying this part doesn’t mean you have to go through with it,” Suki said. She reached up and made a slight adjustment to his collar.

  “But this will help you, right?” James asked. “I want to help.”

  The two of them were standing a little way away from the rest of the group, where Harue, Kana and Matsuri were criticising Mitsue’s choice of clothes. Suki had convinced the Drama Club to let them borrow some costumes.

  Suki smiled. “I can hardly complain about you being a good boyfriend. But even Harue admits that it’s a long shot; a fishing expedition. We might have to repeat the whole thing multiple times before we get anywhere.”

  “If that’s what it takes, then that’s what we’ll do,” James said gamely. Then, more hesitantly, he asked, “Are you really enjoying this?”

  “Yes!” Suki said brightly. “We should go on a shopping date sometime. I want to choose some clothes for you to wear.”

  “That would mean going off the island,” James pointed out. “And I thought shopping dates involved buying clothes for the girl.”

  Suki pouted. “We could do both—or, two dates!”

  “And the danger?”

  “I will take a raincheck— for two dates.” Suki declared.

  “Sure,” James agreed. “But, I don’t know how much use I’ll be choosing clothes for you.”

  “Guys always seem to have trouble with that in the movies,” Suki said, “so I’ll spell it out for you. You check to make sure the dress is done up correctly and that my underwear isn’t showing. Then you tell me I’m beautiful.”

  “It can’t be that simple.”

  “It really, really is,” Suki said.

  “You are beautiful,” James said. The smile that Suki gave him in return made him realise that he didn’t say that enough.

  “And you are very handsome,” she said. “That costume suits you.”

  In that moment, James knew that the sorcerer would be no trouble at all.

  “I can’t do this,” James said. “It’s impossible. There is no way we’re getting away with it.”

  “It’s just a little blood,” Harue said. “There’s no need to freak out.”

  They were standing about halfway up the mountain on the road to the shrine. Out of all of the Torii gates that dotted the island, Harue had selected this one for reasons she refused to explain.

  “It's not like I even drew the talisman,” Harue continued. “Don’t you trust Mitsue?”

  “I am not such a proficient Onmyouji that I feel confident myself,” Mitsue admitted. “Your specifications needed some… creative interpretation.”

  “The talisman has to be bonded with you,” Harue explained. “Otherwise, you’ll drop out of the Night Market if you lose contact with it. It’s just a drop of blood.”

  “It’s not the blood,” James said. “It’s this whole crazy scheme! I only ever acted in school plays. How am I supposed to be some kind of sorcerer?”

  “Ooh, first-time jitters, I get it,” Harue said. “We’ve all been there. You’re going to be fine, I promise.”

  “You can’t know that!”

  “Hmm. Agree to disagree. What I do know, though, is how it will feel for you to go back to Suki after all of that ‘I would do anything for you, Suki-buns’ and tell her that you chickened out.”

  James glared at Harue. “I’ve never called her Suki-buns.”

  “But you want to,” Harue countered. “You want to call her Suki-honey-bunny—”

  “Just do the thing,” James demanded, holding his hand out. Harue grinned and nicked his ring finger with one of her claws. Then she pressed it to a very specific place on a piece of paper that had been elaborately inked by Mitsue.

  “There,” Harue said. “All done. Keep it on you at all times.”

  James scowled as he put the paper into a hidden pocket of his costume.

  “Now for the disguises,” Harue said.

  “I thought these were the disguises?” James gestured at his costume. He was wearing a black mandarin-collar jacket with gold embroidery over tailored black pants. A wide red sash crossed his chest like a bandolier to provide a splash of colour that Suki said was essential.

  “Spirits don’t pay attention to clothes, silly!” Harue said. “That’s what these are for!”

  She held up two oni masks, one red, the other blue.

  “As long as you wear these, most spirits won’t be able to tell you’re human.”

  “Most?” Mitsue asked.

  “The ones that can are too smart to meddle in the affairs of the kind of people that can get these masks.”

  “That’s comforting,” James said sourly. He took the mask and put it on. At least wearing it concealed his face and his emotions.

  “And now a little something for me…” Harue said. Her tails flickered into being, and her uniform changed into a simple, dirty smock. James raised his eyebrows at the metal collar that formed about her neck, attached to about six feet of chain. Her hair became more ragged, and she was barefoot.

  “Please, Master,” Harue said piteously. “Don’t hurt me. I’ll be your guide in the spirit world.”

  She held out the chain to James, who took it gingerly.

  “When you said bonded spirits, I thought you meant something less… physical.”

  “A lot of them are that way,” Harue said. “But some guys like a physical representation, you know? Let the spirit know who’s boss.”

  James looked at the chain with disgust, but took it. Somehow, probably a deliberate choice on Harue’s part, it felt greasy.

  “Do I need a disguise?” Kana asked.

  “No, you’re good, you already lost the uniform. You could show a little more dragon if you wanted?”

  Kana nodded. A pair of branching horns grew out of her head, and her ears became more elongated. Blue and black scales appeared on her neck and the backs of her hands.

  “Perfect,” Harue declared. She put her hand on the gate, and glowing gold characters wrote themselves all over the red posts. “Let’s go for a little trip!”

  Following the others, James stepped through the gate.