Chapter 160 – The Adventures of a Succubus and an Exorcist

Chapter 160 – The Adventures of a Succubus and an Exorcist

Mikami and I had been getting along as well as a human could with a succubus. Our relationship was strictly professional, but there were times it seemed like she had something to get off her chest. Every job we went out to, however, still left me surprised at how skilled she was at exorcism and the occult. It gave me hope that we might actually fix Kana's onryo problem.

"Thank you for your patronage," the konbini employee said in an overly rehearsed and weary voice.

After receiving the change, I picked up the box of karaage and flew to Menagerie.

"Got you your karaage," I announced on the way in.

"Saeko?!" Mikami threw everything in her hands into the air and almost fell off her seat. She scrambled to pick things up to put away.

"A little too excited for fried chicken," I teased, putting the cartoon poultry-faced boxes on the counter.

As Mikami stuffed things into the drawer, a book in her hand caught my attention. I gleaned the title before it was thrown in. How to Live With a Succubus.

"Th-That was a quick trip." Mikami popped her head up.

"Rules of traffic don't really apply to me, remember? So, reading up on succubi. Did you learn anything?" I asked as the urge to poke fun of her grew.

The occult enthusiast turned bright red.

"I-I just want to be prepared! I've heard of succubus ever since it was discovered that your race exists. Never in my wildest dreams did I expect to shack up with one. Not to mention, the queen succubus," she said.

I entered through a side door and pulled open the drawer, revealing the book Mikami was just reading.

"I'm not actually royalty if that's what you're thinking, but if you want to learn about succubus, you're better off asking me than trying to learn from the fantasy erotica section of a bookstore." Smirking, I plucked the book out to read the synopsis on the back.

It was exactly what I thought it was. A steamy romance novel geared towards men and the love interest is a succubus.

"Okay, enough of that!" Mikami snatched the book from my hand and tossed it into the trash bin.

"What were you trying to learn anyway? If I need to have sex often?" I asked, leaning forward into her personal space.

"Regrettably, I'm into men." Mikami put a hand up between us. "Which! Led me to wonder if you can seduce a hunk celebrity to fall in love with me?"

"I most likely can."

Mikami filled with hope.

"But I won't," I quickly added.

That hope vanished.

"Why not?!" Mikami wailed, then got into my face while rubbing her thumb and index finger together. "Think about it. Do you know how much money we would make by playing cupid and match-maker?"

"What if one day a netorare doujin-level ugly bastard takes a liking to you, and he's willing to pay me millions of yen to make you fall in love with him?" I posed hypothetically.

She recoiled. Hard. Enough to slink into her seat and scoot several feet away from me.

"You... You wouldn't."

"I know a couple of succubus who would just to get a laugh, but not me. Doesn't sound so great when you're the one getting match-made, huh?" I fired back.

"Oh, alright. I just want a nice, young man to like me!" Mikami groaned, then grabbed the karaage container to eat while sulking..

"Have you tried dating?"

"I have! Even e-dating! I've widened my profile parameters and standards so much, but the moment someone learns about my job, they're turned off faster than a hachishaku-sama finding out the boy she's been hunting is actually a loli tomboy!" she cried.

Oddly specific.

Although I did get where Mikami was coming from. If I was just some schmuck going on a date with someone like her and was told that she exorcised ghosts for a living, then only one of two things could happen. They immediately saw a deadbeat lunatic chuunibyou, or believed her and were too scared shitless to want to start a relationship.

And with ghosts and yokai to be so active lately, as well as the spirits that continued to haunt this house...

After giving it some thought, I didn't blame her prospective dates for ditching.

"I'm feeling an intense aura of pity emanating from you directed at me." Mikami glared.

"It's the good kind of pity." I shrugged. "Anyway, how close are we down your list of clients until we exorcise my boyfriend?"

"He's up next. We'll go after lunch. I've been reading up on onryo and how the kami might relate to this case. A cursed dagger from Amterasu... used in a sort of blood ritual to seal away Tamamo no Mae... thus causing the onryo to possess him. It's so odd." She popped the last karaage into her mouth and stared blankly at the wall.

"Most people I tell this to will give me a thousand-yard stare. Not you. Doesn't it boggle your mind that Shinto gods and Takamagahara are out there?"

Mikami's answer came in the form of twirling her finger to direct my attention around the room. If she put it that way, I guess a medium would be more readily accepting of this sort of stuff than a normal person.

Absentmindedly, she folded the container's lid outward to lick the sauce, but since the nose portion of the mask was in the way, she made an awkward show of doing it. When we locked eyes, she quickly stopped and cleared her throat.

"Forget you saw that!" Mikami exclaimed.

"Sorry! Didn't mean to stare, I was just thinking... my girlfriend, Mio, she also likes her food really spicy," I said nostalgically.

"Well, she's got good taste. Flavor over— Wait, girlfriend? I thought you had a boyfriend?" she asked.

"I'm in a poly relationship. Oh, and Mio's also a succubus."

Mikami grabbed me by the collar of my school uniform.

"You're dating two people at once? How is that fair? What about me?! I haven't had a boyfriend in ages! Aaaahhhhh! Damn it all... my golden 20s is wasted on ghost hunting... Some girls are just born luckier than others..." she moped like a baby, letting me go to reach for my container of karaage to eat away the depression of her romanceless life.

Maybe not so lucky with how I botched things up with Delilah and Mio.

I let Mikami have it. Once she finished eating, we finally headed to Kana's house to perform the exorcism. Apparently, he couldn't deal with all the noise and banging while staying at the love hotel, so we compromised with Hana living at his place for the time being.

When I knocked on the door, Hana answered the door.

"Kana, stop! She's trying to help you!" I shouted.

Mio cast a desperate look at me to do something.

I was a succubus. Kana might be possessed, but his body and mind was still human. While constricting my aura around him, I tried to compel him with all my might to get him to let Mikami go.

His fingers loosened enough for her to escape and gasp for breath. She quickly pulled off the prayer beads on each of her wrist and placed them onto Kana instead.

Light returned to the living room, and the candles blew out after being melted down to their base.

"What... happened?" Kana asked, slowly coming back to his senses.

"Whatever is inside you... is strong." Mikami winced as she rubbed her neck. "I need to find another way. Keep those beads on you. It will placate the onryo and stave off spirits for now."

With the exorcism having failed, we helped Mikami clean up and replace the furniture in the room. By a stroke of luck, Mio and I grabbed the coffee table to bring back.

"Can we talk?" I asked her.

"Look, thanks for the spicy fried chicken, but it's not gonna bring me swooning back into your arms and wings. Everytime I think of you now, I see that bitch Delilah. I know she's your mom, but she took away the only people I called family... Sorry." Mio stormed away as soon as we placed the coffee table back down.

Kana held my hand, and I felt the wooden beads on his wrist rub against mine.

"I'm not saying either of you are wrong, but try to think of it from Mio's perspective. How would you feel if someone hurt her, me, or Hatsumi?"

"You're putting on a brave face despite just learning that maybe a thousand ghosts live inside you," I said.

"No, I'm scared shitless. I remember the last time I was possessed. But I have to stay strong for the both of you." Kana smiled.

When we got back to Menagerie, I wanted to ask Mikami about the onryo, but she charged into the storage room to rummage through piles of mess that looked like it all belonged to a hoarder. She tugged on something that seemed firmly stuck underneath a shelf, so I went in to help pull on the handle. We pulled hard and wrenched out an old, ironbound chest which she unlocked using a key hanging around her neck.

The lock clicked open. Mikami opened the creaking chest to a tattered tome within.

"What is that?" I asked.

"My grandfather's tome. That onryo is strong. Really strong. But I'm determined that somewhere in these pages lies the answer. This won't be the end of it, and we'll exorcise Kana for sure next time," Mikami promised me.

Both of us spent the entire afternoon, pouring over the tome and the store for anything that might help. It was getting late, so we ordered ramen delivery and saved the research for later.

"Say, I thought you three were in a relationship? Looked pretty icy to me," Mikami said.

"We're... It's a long story, but we're kind of fighting right now if it can be called that. Mio wants something that I can't give," I explained as vaguely as possible that only stoked her curiosity.

"And that something is serious enough that your relationship is strained over it, hm? Normally, I would revel in a failing relationship. Serves you right— is what I would usually say. But you're my acolyte, so if you need anything, let me know. Just not when it comes to feeding your sexual desires!" she hastily added.

The last part made me laugh. Honestly, some sex might help to take my mind off things. But...

"As someone familiar with the occult, maybe you can help. I'd like to take up your offer from the first day about reading my fortune," I said.

Mikami didn't hesitate. We cleared the counter, but I was asked to be on the customer side. She flipped the sign to close, then brought two things out: the crystal ball and a deck of tarot cards.

Until recently, the supernatural had never really registered in my mind. I'd always been skeptical, passing them off as fiction or just something interesting to mindlessly talk about. Now, however, with a medium like Mikami, I might get answers to things that have been troubling me.

We began with the crystal ball. Mikami's hands hovered above it, eyes behind the mask fixed on the smooth surface that reflected a distorted view of everything in the room. The ball fogged up.

Confused, Mikami replaced the crystal ball with the tarot cards instead. I couldn't believe my eyes when the cards shuffled themselves.

"Cool, isn't it?" Mikami smirked. "Put your hand above the deck, but don't actually touch it. Let them play out on their own."

I did as I was told, and the cards spread out flat on the table to form a pyramid. Three cards arranged themselves in a row above the tip of the pyramid.

"Oh, interesting! This is a new spread I've never seen before."

"What do they mean?" I asked.

Mikami pointed to the first card in the row of three. "The Lovers. Reverse. There is disharmony in your love life. That happens when it's too one-sided, so it becomes unbalanced. Like on a seesaw, one of you has stopped contributing. Now it won't move right."

One of us stopped contributing... Was it me?

She continued. "Next is The World. Also reverse. You're lacking closure somewhere, which explains why the crystal ball fogged up so much that even I can't see. Could be anything in your life, such as family troubles or lack of fulfillment. You have to seek the answers from those closest to you and not be afraid to lay out your emotions to obtain them."

Easier said than done...

There was one card left, and seeing it made me shudder with uncertainty.

"How about the last one? I'm getting goosebumps from it," I said.

"The Hierophant. Also reversed." Mikami's eyes furrowed with worry. "Pretty rare to get this one. It means something new is approaching for you. On the flipside, it might also harmlessly mean rebellion. Not the French Revolution rebellion, mind you. More like upheaval in established orders and a need to steer away from traditional norms—"

The pyramid of tarot cards combined themselves and shuffled again, but left the three cards on the table. I thought this was supposed to happen until I saw Mikami taken aback by what was going on. Finally, the shuffling stopped and another card was drawn on its own, placed reverse on top of The Hierophant first, and then turned sideways.

"I'm guessing that wasn't supposed to happen..."

"No... and that's The Emperor in reverse. It means tyranny. For it to be on top of The Hierophant suggests a clash of two forces. What forces? I can only guess," Mikami said.

In the back of my mind, I had an idea. The only two forces that it could mean, especially after my mom told us about what me staying as a succubus and keeping the Blade of the First Temptress would lead to.

Beatrice.

"Hey, Mikami—"

When I looked up from the cards, Mikami was squirming from being groped by a dozen ghostly hands.

"Mikami?!"

"This is the worst... I gave my prayer beads to your boyfriend, so now I'm open season for these perverted ass ghosts!" Mikami cried.