Spirits of the Witching Hour

A… girl? Why was there a girl here?

Nagahisa never had the best luck with girls. His brother did. At the very least, Setsuna took Elegy in stride, in a way Nagahisa never quite could. Nagahisa loved Elegy, of course, but it was always mixed with unease, knowing that she might give him a tongue-lashing even when he was right. And that mixture, that ambiguity, never sat well with him.

Oh. Wait. No, Nagahisa realized. There was no girl here. Those wisps of straight, golden blonde hair, that small, pale nose — he was just imagining a woman’s face, because of how still he was. If there had been another person here, let alone one like that girl carrying a pearly white ball, he would have something to reach out to. But no, he was alone here.

Where was “here,” anyway?

That thought made Nagahisa feel cold, a sweatless cold that only existed in his mind and did not reach his skin. He was doing something, wasn’t he? Or maybe he already did it? He was walking somewhere, or maybe sitting down…

No, he wasn’t comfortable enough to be sitting. His head hurt like he’d been held upside down, and his pitch black surroundings were empty but felt suffocating. He wasn’t walking or sitting, but doing quite literally nothing, idle in some sort of aching limbo.

He moved his legs, remembering suddenly that they were there. He couldn’t walk, and he couldn’t sit. Nothing changed around him, but he still felt like he’d moved.

Was he… swimming? In absolute darkness? He wasn’t sure he was breathing, but he definitely wasn’t choking.

“Hey! Over here!”

A girl’s voice, behind him. Not Elegy, not Mirai…

Wait. Vivian! That was Vivian’s voice! He’d met her… today? Yesterday? Recently? That was definitely her.

He pushed against the nothingness to his left. It took effort just to turn and face her. Her green hair, golden eyes, ruby-red dress and perfect skin were visible, without a single shadow, against the pitch black darkness. She gave him a toothy grin and a thumbs up.

“Vivian, what are you doing here?” He asked. “I’ve gotten stuck in… whatever this is. Isn’t that a good enough reason to just move on?”

“Of course not, silly,” she tilted her head and kicked her legs up so she was lying basically flat. Then she started doing backstrokes. “This fix you’re in is temporary, but abandoning you would be permanent! You’d hold it against me, because you have more self-esteem than you think you do. Plus, you’re barely stuck anywhere. I bet Mirai is poking you with a stick as we speak — you haven’t gotten so bad it’s spilling out yet.”

At least in the moment, Nagahisa only heard one part of that. “But I’m getting bad?”

“Qualitatively! Not morally!” Vivian clarified. “You’re just doing that thing you always do when you try to sleep.”

“It’s called having a nightmare, Vivian.”

“But you’re not fully asleep, so wouldn’t it be a daymare? Then again, it’s not daytime…”

“Anyways.” Nagahisa cleared his throat. That felt good. Apparently he’d forgotten about having a throat for a bit, too. At least he didn’t feel thirsty; there was no water to be found here. “...If it’s just a nightmare,’ he continued, “then I’ll just wait for it to end. If I let it get its claws into me, that’s when it feels longer.”

Vivian disappeared, and he heard a funny squishing sound behind him. He turned his head to see her looking down at him, body only half-visible poking out of the inky blackness.

“But that’s just the thing! I think this was a more vivid nightmare earlier,” Vivian said, “but you already tried waiting for it to end. It’s more like… hmm… a really big cobweb that we need to unspin before you walk out the door.”

Nagahisa’s arms suddenly felt sticky. He growled, looking to either side and seeing that the black darkness was now joined by grey strands of something or other. Of course Vivian had to go and say that, and now he was…

Actually, maybe he was being too hard on her. If she was right, and to Nagahisa that was still an if, these “cobwebs” represented something that was here to begin with. She’d just made them visible to him.

“Okay, so what’s the problem this represents?” Nagahisa tried to lift his hand to indicate the cobwebs, but it didn’t work. His hands stayed down.

Vivian drifted to his side, the inky darkness rippling as she moved and making a sound like squishing mud. He winced as she leaned in close, putting a finger on her chin. “Hmm… hands and arms stuck, thin cobwebs… maybe you feel powerless because of something that should be easy for you to solve!”

“I don’t know how you came to that conclusion,” Nagahisa said, “and it also doesn’t narrow things down much.”

Vivian kicked her feet up, and managed to come to a stop with her legs folded as if she were sitting in a chair. “Well, I say ‘should be easy for you to solve,’ but the problem might be tougher than you think, and accepting it is what’ll get us out of here.”

“Us?”

“Yes, us! I really don’t think I could leave without permanently severing my connection to you.”

Nagahisa scoffed. “Well, most demons would take that trade, so I guess I should thank you.”

“You can thank me once we’re done! Now… do you have any ideas what the problem could be, Nagahisa?”

“Well, I’m not happy I couldn’t blow that guy away with a spell,” Nagahisa said, “but that’s not a real issue. I wouldn’t have done it anyway. It would be wrong. Just as wrong as him sending me flying with an explosion.”

“You mean Decarabia?” Vivian tapped her chin. “Yeah, I don’t think that’s the problem here… You haven’t even known him long enough to hate him!”

“Well it better not be about someone I’ve hated for a long time.” Nagahisa’s tone was as grave as a funeral.

“Oh, no, no, no, I don’t think that’s it either!” Vivian waved both of her hands in front of her. “Just a hunch. But, it’s probably not about that other girl, and probably not about Mirai… I mean, you’ve been having a good time with her, haven’t you?”

Nagahisa couldn’t move his arms to reach for the blackness around him. So instead, he used his teeth. Sharp, long – they were able to reach just past his mouth if he tried. So he did – biting down on the inky blackness… and grabbing it between his fangs.

Vivian watched with great curiosity.

Nagahisa pulled his head back like a cat yanking a toy into their grasp, and then pulled his mouth away. The shadows wobbled, danced, and began to take the form he had in mind for them: an image of Mirai, desaturated but clear enough, closer to her teens than her toddler years. She wore her school uniform, not pajamas, and had a soccer ball under one arm.

“This is how I remember her most recently.” Nagahisa looked back to Vivian. “She’s about my age.” Vivian pulled her legs closer together, winding one ankle around the other. “But is that how you remember her most fondly?”

“I don’t know. But I do know that she’s a little different from what I was expecting.”

“Only a little, though?”

“She’s still Mirai.”