Outskirts of Kyoto
-?-
pant *pant*
You know that moment when you're unaware of something, but when it clicks, it's like seeing the world go from black and white to gaining a spectrum of colours you didn't know existed. Well, that's what it was like for me when I realised my very mundane world wasn't mundane at all and that monsters are very much real.
A loud crashing sound quickly snaps me out of my thoughts.
"Damn, that thing is persistent. Ok, existential crisis later, escape now." Bolting towards the back exit of the abandoned building I had been resting at; I begin to think about how I'm going to get out of this alive. A few minutes of running and a plan begins to form: if monsters are real, then surely people who deal with monsters are real too, and if they don't exist, well, then surely getting into the city I'll be able to get help either way.
With a plan in mind and a will to live, I begin sprinting like I'm going for the Olympic gold medal.
Screeeech The six-limbed wolf monstrosity lets out an unholy howl; well, it may look wolfish, but it sure as hell doesn't sound it.
A quick look back shows the monster barrelling through the back of the building I came from; I see its snout flare up as it catches my scent, and it snaps its gaze towards me, frothing at the mouth from either hunger or rage from me leading it on a wild goose chase ever since it first spotted me. "Right, no time for distractions; keep running."
gasp *pant*
Lungs burning from overexertion at what felt like hours of running due to sprinting for my life, I am finally able to see the city. It was a close call, as a few times it almost caught up to me, but I quickly realised it was a mindless beast and was acting purely on instinct to try and eat me. I managed to lead it to a barbed fence, and it tried to lunge for me as I hopped over, only for it to end up getting caught in the fence instead. Seeing that, I wasted no time escaping until I finally lost sight of it.
Taking a deep breath, I slowly begin making my way home. "Thank god that thing was stupid; if it was any smarter, I probably would've been dead."
As I finally leave Kyoto's outskirts and take a step into the city, I feel as though I've just walked through the film of a bubble. "Ohhkay, that was weird. I've never felt that before when walking back into the city." Shaking my head, I put that new feeling to the back of my mind, as I'm entirely too tired from today's events to think about what that could have been. What I really need right now is a nice meal and some sleep because damn if I haven't earned it after what I've just been through.
[SPLIT]
Walking through the gate to the house, I am immediately hit with that feeling of passing through a bubble again. Ok, this is getting ridiculous now. Looking around for what might be causing this feeling, my eyes go wide and my mouth agape. I take in the view of the house I've always lived in as I scream out, "Holy shit, why is there a giant fucking leaf growing out of the roof of the house?"
Quickly opening the door, I run upstairs to grab my phone.
Fiddling with the buttons as I dial my dad's number on this old-style 2008 Powerson phone – yes, for some reason it's called Powerson and not Panasonic here.
"God, I miss my smartphone."
After several seconds of the phone ringing, my dad finally picks up. "Hello, Souta."
"Yes, hello, Dad. Why is there a giant leaf on top of our house?"
"Ah well... it's to do with our heritage."
"Go on, I'm listening."
"I was hoping to be mistaken when I felt the wards flare up, but I guess it's safe to assume you know about the supernatural now."
"Wait, that bubble I felt was a ward, even the one when I was walking back into the city from the outskirts?"
"Yes, they both are. The ward around our house is one that I set up in order to keep other supernatural out as well as hide what the building actually looks like from the mundane people, and the ward around Kyoto is set up by the eastern youkai faction, which is led by Lady Yasaka."
"Wait, who did you say?" Did I mishear?
"Lady Yasaka, why?"
swallowing thickly "Nothing, I was just trying to remember if you said anything about her before or if you had brought her around here one time."
No, no, no, I'm in fucking DxD, the supernatural playground, the place where the protagonist knows more words for boobs than his entire vocabulary.
Letting out a loud guffaw, my father replies, "Oh, definitely not. She's much too busy to pay attention to us, that's even if she knows about us in the first place."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, going back to before when I was talking about our heritage, we are Yokai, or more specifically, you are a half-yokai, and I am a full yokai." He says nonchalantly, like he hasn't just told me I wasn't even human. "The reason she wouldn't know about us is because most supernaturals think our race is a myth due to us staying hidden from view, the only way she might know anything about us, is if your grandparents had set up a deal with her in the past. Heck, most wards don't even spot us when we pass through them. We are what is known as Koropokkuru, a type of fairy yokai who excel at hiding and anything art-related and love all things to do with nature and trading."
"Huh, trading when we like to stay hidden..."
"I mean, it might seem contradictory, but it just means we don't like showing our yokai form to others. We can trade easily in our human forms; hell, people can even know what type of yokai we are. It's just instinctual for us to hide our yokai form because it feels intimate to show it to others, not in the naked way, mind you; it's just showing another person apart from another Koropokkuru takes a lot of trust for us to do so. It's probably why we are so good at hiding; we even have a legend that was passed down to me from my own parents."
"If I remember it went something like this, it is said that a young man once saw a female Koropokkuru while she wasn't paying attention, enraptured by her beauty he swiftly picked her up for a closer look, enraged by this she bit him and escaped to warn the rest of the clan about being seen, after returning to the village the boy wanting to see her again quickly spread the word and gathered the rest of the villagers to find the female Koropokkuru only for them to find nothing at all, instead the young man gained the ire of the villagers for lying, it is said that the village was hit by famine after the traders they used to trade with never turned up again, even forgetting about them altogether except the young man who saw one of them only to never be believed when he tried telling people."
humming in interest I can't help but pick out a little detail from that story: "I mean, as great as that story was, what do you mean he picked her up for a closer look?"
Letting out a weak chuckle, my dad explains, "Well, coming back to our yokai form, we are actually a race of little people; hence, being a type of fairy yokai, we are about 7 inches tall."
"What?" Trying my best to hold it in, I burst out laughing, wheezing, "Are you telling me the reason the race as a whole doesn't like being seen is because they are embarrassed at how tall they actually are?" I was just howling in laughter over the phone now.
Scoffing, my dad says, "You may be laughing now, but wait until you unseal your yokai half; then you'll understand what it means to feel the need to hide when you are in your yokai form."
Grimacing I reply, "Fair, fair. Also, what do you mean, 'unseal my yokai half'? And you still haven't told me what's up with that giant leaf on the roof."
"Patience I was getting there; the leaf is called a butterbur leaf, and it is literally used in the name of our clan, Koropokkuru. It means "people below the leaves of the butterbur plant". It comes from the Ainu language, which is where it is said that we originate from. The Koropokkuru are known to carry the butterbur leaves to use them for hiding and protection from the weather; they are also used for the roofs to cover the pits they lived in, making it easier to blend in with nature."
"The leaf on the roof is a giant butterbur leaf I grew, and what it's used for is to enhance the wards around the house with the concept of what the leaf represents to our clan, which is protection and to stay hidden from sight. This makes the wards stronger than they normally would be."
Letting out a quick 'uh huh' to let him know I understand, he continues.
"As for unsealing your yokai half, I had wanted to wait until after you graduated from school before doing it, but we may as well get it out of the way now. Since you know about the supernatural now, you'll begin naturally seeing it everywhere you go even if you didn't want to since the perception filter created by various high-tier gods working together to keep the supernatural hidden from the mundane has stopped working on you now, and the only way for you to stop seeing it would be to wipe your memory about whatever caused you to know about the supernatural in the first place, which would then allow the perception filter to start working again."
Oh yeah, every supernatural faction basically exists in this world.
Grimacing while letting out a sigh, I say, "Well, it happened while I was taking a stroll through the woods in the outskirts after school until I heard a horrible screeching howl, and when I turned around, I saw a 6-legged wolf-like monster, which I ran and hid from in the abandoned warehouse until it must've sniffed me out. I ended up escaping when it got trapped in a barbed fence, and I know you said not to go to those woods, but it was always soothing to just walk through there every now and then. Now I know why, being a half Koropokkuru."
Sighing, Dad says, "What you saw was a lesser evil yokai; it was most likely a wolf that died from starvation and formed from that feeling of hunger when it died. They usually grow from eating whatever living creature they find, but it will never be able to satiate that hunger, which in turn they grow stronger from the more hunger they feel. Eventually, after it has feasted enough, it would eventually gain intelligence. If this happens, they usually end up joining the East Yokai faction under Nurarihyon, who is known to take in the rowdier yokai. If not and it starts killing humans, then it would eventually end up gaining the attention of the Five Principal Clans, who would set out to exorcise it."
Hmm, I wonder if this is the Nurarihyon from the actual series or from that one anime I watched. I guess I'll have to do some research on the various factions to find out.
"Also, I'm not mad that you went to those woods. I understand what it feels like to be within nature for us. If anything, I'm in the wrong as well. I should have told you about the supernatural sooner, but your mother and I wanted you to have a normal childhood while you still could. The supernatural may have its beauty, but it also has its ugly side too. Just understand that son."
"Was it because of the supernatural that Mum passed away too?"
Letting out a weary sigh, he says, "No, no, she died from the car accident. Amaterasu knows how many times I told her to just learn to teleport with the human magic system, but she was always stubborn as a mule, but that's what I always loved about her. One day she just bulldozed on into my life, and next thing you know, we're married."
"Did she know about you being a yokai?"
"Yeah, she did. I told her after we had been together for a few months, she already had a foot in the door with the supernatural, as one of her best friends was with one of the magician associations. She even tried her hand at some of the magic, but she hated to do the calculations and ended up throwing away the beginner book into the back of one of our cupboards. It's probably why she stubbornly refused to learn to teleport. When I first showed her my yokai form, it was so embarrassing; she wouldn't stop squishing my cheeks and making weird cooing noises. We had a good laugh after she realised what she had done." He let out a belly-deep laugh as he reminisced about the time spent with Mum.
"Now onto the unsealing. In the kitchen behind the fridge there is a safe; the pin is 917432." Quickly I grab a piece of paper from my desk and scribble the number given as he continues to talk. "Inside the safe there is a golden butterbur leaf. Don't worry about it bending when you pick it up, as it is meant to act like a leaf even though it's made of gold. I've always chalked it up to being a magical metal. It has been in the family for as long as I can remember. Your grandparents passed it down to me when they retired from running the store, saying I could run it if I wanted to or just put it away somewhere safe. In the end, I met your mum and ended up forgetting about it until we had you, which gave me the perfect idea to use as a link for the seal on you. All you have to do is grab it and use the passphrase to unseal your other half."
Coughing, and in the most deadpan voice you could imagine, he says, "May the butterbur be with you." "Don't question it, son; your mum told me to make that the passphrase. Moving on, in the safe you will also find a notebook with all you need to know about how the butterbur leaf works and why it is linked with the store. I've not been to the store myself in ages, so it might need a bit of a cleaning up; that's if you wish to take over the old business."
There is something I've been curious about this whole time: "When you say that my grandparents are retired, do you mean they are still alive, and if so, how come I've not seen them before? Also, what about school? If I do end up wanting to run the business as soon as possible, surely school would take up too much time for me to do that."
"Firstly, yes, your grandparents are alive, but it's complicated and involves the use of the butterbur leaf. Just know they retired to a place called Gensokyo, where their hobbies are taking care of a large garden and making various types of alcohol. Secondly, if you end up wanting to run the store, then just drop out. You're smart enough to have graduated already, so just let me know, and I can ask an old friend to put you in the database saying that you've graduated, and they can have a certificate sent out to you. That way the years spent at school won't be such a waste and remember to let any of your friends know you've graduated. If not, then just finish the year you have left at school, and then you can decide what you want to do then. Even if it's joining any of the yokai factions, I'll support you no matter what."
I don't know where this Gensokyo is, but at least I might be able to see them some time.
"Thanks, Dad. I think after today I'm just going to eat, shower, and then go to sleep, and I'll deal with it all in the morning."
"Sure thing, kiddo. I won't be home until next week I'm currently over in Tokyo trying to strike a deal with a tech company for Powerson, Get some rest. Love you, son."
"No worries, I'll give you a call or message if I need anything, Dad. Love you too."
Hanging up the call, I stand up and have a quick stretch, looking down at the paper with the safe number. I shake my head over everything that's been revealed today and put it in the drawer to deal with tomorrow.
"At least it's a Saturday tomorrow."