"Yo!" said Akira. "You called?"

  "Hello," said Erina. They were in her apartment. She sat at the table with a coffee at her side, drumming her pen on the open notebook in front of her. Spell circles, tentative rune configurations, and reminder notes on her spells stared back. She needed to optimize her spatial distortion fields—they were incredibly powerful, but also contributing too much to burning out her magic circuits whenever she used them…

  The sound of a cold beer cracking open brought her back to planet Earth. Akira pulled up a seat beside Erina, peering at her notes. "I was making the rounds through Shinjuku when I noticed you changed the entrance to the lab. Swapping locks?"

  "Yes. Since the Association found it, I imagined we wouldn't want them to have such easy access to it."

  "Good forward thinking. Can't let them get their fingers in our goods without permission again. Can you do any more?"

  "I've considered other approaches, but any defense or verification system would be circumvented. The best route is to simply move it somewhere they can't find it."

  "Mmmm." Akira rubbed her chin in thought. "It'll do for now. I'll think of something, then. Anyway, what was it ya needed to call me up for?"

  "I encountered Asayuki yesterday. At the store…"

  "Didja break a mirror in the past couple days or what?"

  "She made me an offer. To exit the Akanaga Family and join the Binding Association."

  Akira paused. She took a slow, measured sip of her beer. "And what'd you say?"

  "I declined," said Erina. Her pen continued to move, jotting down mental incantations with half her attention while the other was with Akira. "I'm indebted to you. I can't go back on that."

  "But what if you could?"

  Erina's pen stopped.

  Akira slung an arm over the back of her chair and swished her drink in the other hand. "Hey, Erina. If I swore I wouldn't take it personally, would you quit?"

  "Could you even allow that?"

  "I'd have to make some effort to claw you back," shrugged Akira. "Position like mine demands it. But y'know, there's a difference between doing it because you gotta and doing it because you wanna. And if you're flying with the Three Equalizers, who's gonna look down their nose at me for not getting you back?"

  "…I see." Erina set down her pen and turned the other way, gazing out the window at the clear blue sky beyond. "…Akira?"

  "I'm listening."

  "Asayuki told me that youkai are born from human fear. As conceptual beings, their sustenance is to continue to feed on human emotion. They—you—are a purpose-made predator on humanity by nature."

  Akira took another slow, long sip.

  "Is that true?"

  "You know you're hearing it from the mouth of the nastiest, most bloodthirsty youkai killer on the planet, right?" snarked Akira. "Lemme give you my take on it."

  She swiped her arm and let her drink spray into the air. Monochrome static flickered, and the tossed liquid slowed to a halt in mid-air. It condensed, then spread into a smooth flat pool hovering on nothing.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  "Fear, huh?" Akira took one of the knives from her holster, testing the tip with one finger. "I'd rather call it respect. You don't have to like or hate or fear a blade to respect what it could do to you—give it caution, carry it with the weight it deserves."

  The floating pool of golden liquid shimmered. It glinted under the light streaming through the window and refracted.

  "Why did people come up with folk tales in the first place?" said Akira. "To scare kids? Make 'em wet their pants? Nah. It was to teach lessons. Explain the rules of the world. Show the people they gotta respect the world even if they don't know how everything works."

  Akira tossed her knife in a careless, lazy motion. It righted itself and paused in the air, tip hovering just over the airborne pool.

  "They say, the best way to bring a people together is to give 'em a big enemy to paint a target on," she continued. "Even if you killed every youkai in existence, you know what would happen? More spawn. Even in today's world, people still believe. They speak of the old tales… light incense for the departed… gather in holy places… pray to their gods."

  "I'm not fully following," said Erina.

  "Good with math 'n spells, but not the best at this kinda wishy-washy stuff, huh?" Akira shot a cheeky grin at her. "Well, we can't all be aces. What I'm saying is, you can't separate youkai from humanity."

  A flick of her hand, and the floating knife dropped through the pool… except it never emerged through the other side of the razor-thin veil.

  "The Reverse is the will of humanity—a conceptual space formed by the collective unconscious, crawlin' with the bugs the people wished to exist. The awe of the world, the wonder of what they can't understand, the respect of the dangers they can't wrap their heads around—that's what we really are, and that's what we really eat."

  "Then," said Erina, "you mean that youkai are predators because humanity wants such an enemy?"

  Akira shook her head, grinning. "Are you sure you're listenin' along the whole way? I'm saying we don't need to eat people or terrorize 'em to keep on living—at least, not in the way Asayuki wants you to think. All it takes is some healthy respect for what you can't expect to control. When a flood wipes out a village, it wasn't put there specifically to kill humans… but since you fleshy kinds always need an explanation for things that happen to you, you gotta put some name on it, right?"

  Erina let that one bounce around in her head for a while. "Then, the youkai born of that flood…"

  "It'll come again whether you like it or not," drawled Akira. "Maybe it's a snake? Some serpent that rushes in and snatches away whoever it touches? So what's a pack of humans to do? Maybe pack up and leave, so they're not around when it comes back. Or stick their houses on stilts and live off the ground, so that snake can't bite 'em. In other words, give it the respect it's due."

  "I think I'm beginning to understand what you mean," said Erina slowly.

  Akira flicked her hand one more time. The floating pool of beer gathered itself up and obediently returned to its can, where she promptly chugged it all down. "Oh, and one more thing, Erina."

  "Yes?"

  The can crushed loudly in Akira's grip and she threw it into the trash over her shoulder without looking. The levity and easygoing smile was gone.

  "Don't get swept up in the Association's pretty white lies," said Akira. "Don't forget—you were born to serve a purpose too."

  Erina blinked.

  "When you start thinking about what youkai exist for, you tell me: Is the thing someone is born to do, conceptually molded for, all that their life can amount to?"

  "That's…"

  "Is the purpose you were born to fulfill all you can ever be?"

  "…"

  Akira shifted her weight, watching the black-haired girl's face carefully. "Pin down that, and you'll have your answer."

  "…I understand." Erina nodded.

  Akira eased up after that and spent most of the afternoon lazing around and chatting idly with Erina. For her part, Erina ended up setting aside her notes and taking it as a day to relax. Even so, those words bubbled in the back of her mind—simmering.

  There were stories, weren't there? Folk tales of adventures and quests. Erina assumed most of them were based in at least some element of truth, in that they recounted the tales of people who once lived.

  But was there such thing as a legend from nothing? A story about a human that never existed?

  And if wishes could create youkai from legends, what would they create from such a fairy tale?

  A lifeform born with an express purpose to fulfill.

  A creature that appeared human at first glance, but whose inner essence was anything but.

  An existence whose first memories were those of the Reverse, having never seen the Surface before then.

  Erina thought about whether she herself fully counted as human, and where she stood on the hazy line between the two halves of the world.