Stick it

The way her eyes pierced into his inner depths of his soul, reading every thought flagrantly, irritating him. The feeling of vulnerability like he was only dressed in nothing but his birthday suit, streaking across in front of someone he barely knew.

Yet try as he could, he couldn't block her reading or retaliate for each time he peered into the dark irises of her eyes. A cold vast depth of emptiness reached deep within his core and yanked out memories. So much power in human flesh, yet so fragile.

The energy frequency couldn't circulate fast enough through his twelve principal meridian channels through his soul.

Twelve principal meridian channels, like the ones in Chinese medicine, were key points to regulate the energy frequencies as they twist and turn to flow in to, and out of the bright colorless soul core in his chest.

The energy waves alone took a soul-like look of the veins and arteries moving through his body in frequencies at each channel point. At every point, a shield could be generated, protecting mid way before another point took over.

The meridians could switch according to any form he took if he learnt shape-shifting. It dawned on Alex why Yata's spider brothers couldn't easily shape-shift. He could barely regulate the wave frequency to block her blackish wisps of aether energy, her strongest aura.

Alex squeezed his eyes and concentrated on her penetration point into the small opening as a weak shimmery shield emerged with holes in them.

Her blackish wisps swept into the holes, forcing them to widen. Alex focused on the openings as his eyes snapped open, staring defiantly into her eyes, only to feel the tentacles of her dark wisps swarm around his energy waveform. He could see her in his mind, watching and flipping through it like a book.

"Not bad, but you broke the first rule of shielding your mind. Always avert your gaze or shield the eyes. Those pretty green eyes of yours are windows into the soul," Jinwu said.

Now then she tells him, Alex crunched his face up as Jinwu's blackish wisps withdrew into her human body, causing her to cough violently, as though hacking away at her lungs, enough for him to see the blood seeping out of her mouth.

She wiped her mouth with the sleeve of her olive winter coat, got up, and turned away from him. Her hand fumbled in her pocket for a blue pen-like device and Alex wondered what it was while she coughed a few more times.

The other hand reached in to pull out a packet of iQos Marlboro cigarette packet, which he recognised from shopping in the Japanese convenience shops.

"Maybe you should quit smoking," Alex advised.

"Great," Jinwu rolled her eyes as she popped the cigarette into the pen device as a button lit up. "I have the dead advising me. Let me guess, smoking causes cancer and it will kill me?"

Alex scratched his head awkwardly. "Well, you know… the… um human body…"

"I have a goddamn PhD in the biological sciences taken by this human form. So quit the blah blah blah talk on cancer."

"Yeah, I almost forgot. You are like a celestial crow who can snap the fingers and get anything you want."

"We have to fulfil our obligations to the owning souls which departed their bodies for us to take over. This darn PhD had to be obtained because it's the only way to a university professorship as the previous owner wanted. Fucking kid knew what she wants when she gave up this damn body," she muttered as her eyes rolled and a whitish smoke crept out of her flared nostrils and examined the fingers on her exposed wrinkly hands.

"I even had to use these fingers for manual labor on the computer and the damn laboratory," she continued grumbling as Alex stifled his laugh.

"You," Jinwu pointed at him as she took another puff. "Why did you specialise in East Asian archaeology?"

Alex shrugged. "As a human, it was an advantage in a way since I am half Asian with half crappy language skills. I don't know. Just an interest, I guess, from watching the NHK Silk Road drama with my parents."

"That was one good documentary, with a lot of misinterpreted information," Jinwu replied as she glanced over to Kanghui, Kagutsuchi and Yasomagatsuhi, who were still on the other side, stuck in some sort of negotiation.

"What are they doing?"

"Discussing your future and whether Takamagahara can shelter you." Jinwu shrugged.

"What if I join you instead?"

Jinwu flicked his forehead through the veil of the hidden dimension. "Why?"

"I can be powerful like you."

Jinwu snickered, then her face changed to absolute seriousness. "For every mountain, there is a higher mountain. There are Mount Everests compared to myself."

"Like your kind?"

"Enough of the chat. Just concentrate on shielding your mind. First drill today, regulate your waves until you can generate a shield without holes like Swiss cheese," she instructed as Alex nodded.

She watched him close his eyes as his energy waves begun circulating around his body like a shield. Holes in his defenses were still obvious. With a wave of her hand, the thirteen stone guardians appeared and started their rotation around him.

"Poking him like a pin cushion isn't going to work," Kagutsuchi spoke from the other end. "You need to pressure him."

"Like your time bomb idea?"

"Boost the survival instinct first. Drop him into the deep ocean…"

"And watch him drown? You nearly caused him to implode on his own."

"It's a talent of mine," Kagutsuchi vanished from his spot to appear in front of her in his flaming form.

Jinwu grabbed his hand and dragged him over to Kanghui and Yasomagatsuhi, ignoring the smell of burning in her reddening palm as Kagutsuchi quickly withdrew the flames.

"Don't you feel pain?" He blurted out.

"I do. Ouch," she replied in dripping sarcasm. "He now has aura sight, a gift for fleeing, and I am training him to shield while you three are busy having a gossip here. What's the plan?"

Kagutsuchi thought carefully to himself. These red stones were rare, and he dearly wanted more, but convincing Takamagahara to take a no-name human soul who wasn't even Japanese in life caused him to wince at the imaginary interrogation awaiting him.

Kanghui's Yasu Mawari shrine had lapsed to obscurity, erasing her status as a known Kami, a deity, to become one among the millions of unnamed ones. That much Kagutsuchi knew.

So that's a no go because the only sprinkling of humans who remembered the area as sacred had long forgotten Kanghui and relegated it to one of the many serpent Kami.

Kagutsuchi heaved a big sigh. "The Kannazuki is ten months away. That boy over there has nine months to prepare."

"So now they use the Kannazuki to make decisions?" Arahabaki asked. "Always thought that was some huge party for them to bask in the glory of the crazy human festival."

"No, to announce decisions to everyone gathered in Izumo. Why would you want to know? YOU NEVER ATTEND." Kagutsuchi gnashed his teeth in irritation.

"I thought Takamagahara still has the open policy," Jinwu said.

"More than 8 million of us on these tiny islands on Earth, 1 being to 15 humans. Then, in other worlds, we aren't that big to warrant newcomers. Even Xitian has a ratio of 1 to a million. And probably gazillions if we count the other worlds. Takamagahara is overcrowded from wannabes to primeval beings and every one is complaining," Kagutsuchi rambled in a breath.

"Alternative will be Inari then."

"Full as well," Kagutsuchi said. "Almost everyone in Takamagahara has a shrine on Mount Inari, from small rocks to trees to big shrines. Almost everyone is a form of Inari now. Well, except for me and a rare few. That mountain is now a mall for the Japanese to shop for Kami worship specific to ANY ailment or problem."

Jinwu rubbed her chin as Kanghui leaned on the cold stone pillar of the Torii gate.

"Yōkai registry. I recall Yata, Ao and Shiro, your three yōkai underlings in Takamagahara. Plus Tamamo, who runs with you on both sides. Why not Alex with them?"

Kanghui shook her head as the possibility was considered that possibility. Jiuwei had control of the area on her behalf, and taking something away from the nine-tailed fox himself will only result in a growing resentment, a recipe for disaster.

Besides the Mishakuji who oversaw the territory were not fond of humans, let alone human souls.

"Xitian was a better choice because —"

"There is no 'because'," Kagutsuchi wagged his fingers. "You are here, means trouble came looking for you."

"How much do you know?"

"Enough to say that family feuds are nasty. It's like Tsukiyomi's case. A three-corner fight for power and two won against him," Kagutsuchi hinted at Kanghui's past.

Kanghui finally understood why Jinwu would approach Kagutsuchi. He was everywhere, but hardly noticed as an observer. Kagutsuchi hardly said anything, even in council during Kannazuki, the annual monthly crowded meeting of the Takamagahara primeval beings in Izumo to discuss mortal affairs.

A lightning flashed and struck the ground near them. Arahabaki and Yato appeared with a barrel of sake.

Yato flung a wooden barrel of sake over to Kagutsuchi, who caught and pulled the twine rope off the top in haste. He opened the wooden lid for a whiff to savor the sweet mix of fermented rice and wood. With a hand, he lifted the barrel and poured its contents into his mouth, quenching his insatiable thirst.

"I can sponsor him for the registry," Arahabaki replied.

Kagutsuchi spewed the sake out onto the ground and wiped his mouth with a sleeve before turning to Arahabaki, blinking in disbelief. "They call me mad, but you… you take the cake."

"Monkyakujin," Arahabaki mentioned as Kagutsuchi's eyes lit up brightly.

"Ah, that shrine they insulted you with!"

Monkyakujin was a reference to a god which is a guest. Given that Arahabaki's kind, the Jomon primeval beings were first there before Takamagahara, Kagutsuchi knew Arahabaki never swallowed that grave insult well.

Yato burst into laughter while Arahabaki smirked and said, "Guest god, my ass, I am older on those lands than the bunch sitting in that shrine. So since they took away my name from that shrine and badged it as a guest god, I will stick it up where the sun doesn't shine for them."