"I have to hide, or I'll be dead before Uncle even gets a chance to kill me…!" Xio urgently whispered to himself, struggling violently against the invisible, binding force.
Thankfully, the panicked crowd hadn't yet realized that the fake Suji—Heather—was hiding among them.
He was trying to break free without drawing attention, his sole plan to grab Kirihito and flee. But the confusion was a new, cold shiver: Is Kirihito actually killing humans again? And who exactly are these unknown, unsettling dancers?
On the makeshift stage, Suji's eyes narrowed in stubborn defiance. Despite Wùji's intense violet gaze boring into him—a silent barrage of curses and warnings—he refused to stop his announcement.
"There are Special Grade Yokai and Curses present here," Suji declared, his voice cutting through the rising panic. "We must immediately begin an investigation!"
"Tiny spices always pack the highest heat," Wùji murmured, his tone clearly dripping with disappointment. "You've certainly proven that."
Yet, he had no choice now. He had to pivot and respond to the situation Suji had created.
The crowd looked at each other, fear and confusion spreading like ink in water. The air quickly filled with a messy, panicked cacophony of gasps and terrified whispers. Several people fainted outright.
"That man from the restaurant was right!" one man shouted, his voice ringing with fear and validation. "He really was attacked by a Special Grade Yokai or a Curse!"
Xio froze. The man looked familiar—the customer who had sat at the table right next to his and Kirihito's. Does this mean Kirihito did something on purpose at the restaurant? Xio swore he had seen nothing; Kirihito had seemed fine the whole time.
The crowd's fear was heating up, boiling over into accusations.
"It must be that thin young man on the stage!" The same fat man from the restaurant surged out of the throng. His entire visible skin was red and slightly puffy from the tiny snake bites. "He was glaring at me back then!"
Others gasped, holding their mouths in silent horror. The man's suffering was a gruesome spectacle.
"Poor man!"
"Look how red his skin is! This isn't normal!"
"It must be a Yokai's work! If it were a Curse, he'd be directly killed!"
"You're right! Curses don't have this kind of patience. They just strike."
The people discussed among themselves, their panic a slow, steady tide. The air thickened rapidly with negative energy—Fear, Disgust, Anger, Panic—the exact emotional cocktail that Curses feed upon.
On the stage, the dancer Kirihito was partially possessed by the Dark Voice. The voice spoke low, a rasping undertone only Kirihito and the other dancers could hear.
"That fatty is suspecting us. I have to sink deeper into this host body. That Hàngwō man, Wùji, is truly clever."
"Where will you hide?" Kirihito—or rather, the true consciousness, Wèi—mumbled internally. "You are inside Wèi."
"I can easily leave your body if I wanted," the Dark Voice purred.
"Wèi would be happier if you did."
"But I won't leave, because you're bound to me—by things you can't even begin to imagine. Besides," the Dark Voice drawled, casting a predatory glance around, "I've no guarantee I'll get another perfect package of pure soul and Yokai body to use. Hunt one, get one free."
Kirihito looked at Xio from the distance, a flicker of panic in his gaze. "If Butterfly stops feeding me, it will be your fault! You called your weird friends here!"
"Ah, what a shame." The Dark Voice purred quietly, watching the drama unfold. "You've changed—now you 'care' about an insect's feelings."
"W...Wèi has no friends like you except him!" Kirihito desperately reasoned, unsure if his urgency was truly for the 'food,' or if something else was beginning to take root inside him.
"Shut up, boys, and let me think how to keep things on track," the Dark Voice snapped, the playful edge gone. "Because my story has just started, and all of you have an international right to the theme song." He looked at his disappointed friends.
"I was trying to dance peacefully, and you colorful pieces of shit ruined everything," he complained dramatically, lightly striking the backs of the two friends—the Black and White Ribbons.
They simply smirked. The Black Ribbon one, speaking in their native Yokai tongue to avoid the notice of the human crowd—or rather, the cultivators, since they were Special Grades hiding in human form—translated with a chilling smugness:
Gē sē sō'anóm ay sēn hē arínda? Sān oyabas. Naa… Sēyá shi mian hi asiou yoo múta ya gē yō íshī yunaya suhō, ēkō=
"You get to perform and we're absent? That's never possible. Besides… that soul might be quite too pure, making you this peaceful nowadays, bro…"
Hōyá hōyá! Õo gē sē sēn exchange=
"Right, right! If you agree, we can exchange~" the White Ribbon one chimed in, toying with a strand of his white hair, his words a mix of human and Yokai language, his smirk sharp.
Shūu tíó yíndā, wíp fúch=
"Stop daydreaming, Insect-fucker," the Dark Voice replied dryly.
S-shuu se yaa! Wíp si sōkō wō tūō ay sēyē rmno sōū Wèi ya butō dūrá fūki eil setk si yō st ēē syōnō!!=
"St-Stop you all! The insects will hear it and start running! Then Wèi's beautiful dragon fruit desserts at the stalls will be ruined!" Kirihito interjected urgently.
The Dark Voice—still holding a significant share of Kirihito's body—sighed and turned his attention to Wùji.
He's worth staring rnmo adika wui se yaa=
"He's worth staring at more than arguing with you all," he muttered, his eyes fixed on the two cultivator brothers arguing silently with their eyes about running the case themselves.
Wùji picked up only a few muffled words: "exchange" and "worth watching." Nothing more.
When their eyes met—Kirihito's hidden, dark one and Wùji's cold, penetrating violet—a slow, silently sadistic smile spread on Kirihito's lips. He waved at Wùji weirdly, his fingers dancing mockingly.
Wùji felt a sudden, profound shiver run down his spine. His sixth sense was screaming to capture this weird dancer and throw him into the isolating chambers or sealed box realms of Hàngwō. Why does everything about him feel perfectly wrong? Wùji wondered, And why is there no proof to even substantiate that wrongness?
Kirihito's Dark Side chuckled faintly and sadistically. "Ha. I knew he was the one I've been talking about."
His friends lightly leaned against him, their hands around his hips—perhaps something more than just friends. Two others came closer.
"Having fun without us?~" the Blue Ribbon one inquired, making them smirk proudly.
"Oh, no, bro. We are just waiting to see where things go," the Black Ribbon one said innocently.
"Yeah, sure~" the White Ribbon one drawled.
Then, Kirihito wrested a bit of control back into his hand and sharply slapped away the Dark Voice's friends' hands from his hips. They froze for a brief, startled moment.
"That's Wèi's hips," Kirihito hissed lightly. "Not his. Don't.touch."
"How rude a kid's soul you've received," the Gray Ribbon one said with a dramatic sigh, inhaling deeply with the others. "How is it even pure, broken yet unbreakable, in the first place?~ Can't even handle a light touch on the hips."
"Those fears are getting tastier. You all should try it," he added.
"My case is different, you know," the Dark Voice replied, silently drinking the negative energy. He wasn't satisfied by the taste, though.
"It's like soup without salt," the Black Ribbon one said, equally displeased. "Not thick yet…"
"No time to thicken it yet," the Dark Voice commanded, his tone sharp. "Now, everybody silent. We are just some confused dancers standing here. Nothing more. Pretend!"
His friends giggled soundlessly before adopting expressions of worry.
"Hàngwō Sect's Dàozǔ is here, so no worries!" one of the friends said, acting innocent.
"He'll probably save us from the Curses~" the Dark Voice added with a mischievous grin, sitting down casually on the stage edge, letting his feet hang low. His friends joined him. "Ah, my feet hurt from standing without dancing."
"Should we massage you?~" the Blue Ribbon one offered, opening and closing his hands like a machine with a smirk.
"No," the Dark Voice said dryly, pushing his long black ponytail behind his shoulder. "Not after you ruined my perfect performance." He tilted his head, watching Wùji with a feigned innocence.
Wùji blinked, momentarily thrown by their strange behavior. He still had no solid proof to capture them. If they were regular Yokai, their negative energy would be blindingly visible. But they had none—a sign of a Special Grade's ability to mute it. Yet, these men looked too composed to be first class Special Grade Curses, who were usually messy and couldn't maintain a convincing pretense.
He sighed lightly in frustration, his face barely showing the distress that was only visible in the tight intensity of his eyes. He then moved away from Suji. "Move. My turn. You've ruined my Plan A." Wùji said, pushing his shoulder into Suji's slightly harder than necessary, his expression unreadable, and moved toward the fat man.
Suji hissed and grabbed his arm, glaring at his brother with nothing but silent anger. Their personal war had defined their relationship since childhood.
"I'm also an angelic cultivator. Don't forget it, Wùji. Kùmsūn," he said, his jaw tight, as if the name itself were poison.
Wùji paid him no attention and began examining the man's tiny snake bites. He stood before the man, and the crowd automatically parted for the Hàngwō Dàozǔ.
"May I check?" Wùji asked the fat man, offering his hand with a grave expression. The man hesitated, finding the cultivator's expression a little scary, before giving his reddened hand.
Suji huffed and walked away, deciding to start his investigation elsewhere.
"You might be a rabbit who runs fast," he muttered under his breath, a cold resolve hardening his face, "but I'll steadily go on like a tortoise." He melted into the anxious crowd.