Witch and Yōkai

The setting sun was slanting to the west, and it was the best haunting time for Yōkai. Horii was on her way to the shrine. She wore the common white robes and red pants, the traditional witches’ clothing style. A well-crafted ritual fan was held in her hand. There was a small talisman bag tied at her waist. She was a young witch with a straight back and slender profile. With her leisurely steps, the wide sleeves danced slowly.

Along the way, the villagers, who were working on both sides of the road, suspended their works and greeted Horii.

"Lord Horii."

"Have you gone to see Eiko again?"

"Thank you, Lord Horii, for asking me to thank you!"

"Lord Horii …"

The villagers expressed their enthusiasm one after another. Horii looked at them, smiled and nodded before continuing to walk towards the shrine.

…

The shrine was built on a mountain. The mountain was so small that can be viewed as a little hill. A long grey-white stone staircase paved from the foot of the mountain to the top of the mountain and the staircase ended at the entrance of the shrine. Halfway up the stairs, Horii suddenly raised her head and saw Mao standing a few steps away from her against the light.

"You spent too much time!" Mao, who also dressed in a red and white witch cloth, raised her chin slightly. A trace of impatience appeared on her beautiful face. "A simple exorcism, how could you spent half a day?" Horii looked at her with curved eyebrows and smiled. Being honest was really hard for Mao, she always insisted on pretending an arrogant attitude even though she was worried about Horii actually.

If Horii hadn’t seen through her fake self-esteem nature, it wasn't certain that they would have become friends.

"Don't laugh!" Mao always felt that every time when Horii smiled at her, she would appear gentle and helpless, as if she was accommodating a child with a bad temper, which made Mao very frustrated.

Horii walked to Mao and reached out to touch her head. Actually, Horii was clearly half a head shorter than Mao, but doing this was extremely smooth for her. She did this just like how she usually caressed the black cat in the shrine.

"Damn it! Don't treat me like a child to comfort me!" Mao complained discontentedly and patted the restless hand, "You haven't answered why you have been gone for so long!" Horii still smiled and remained silent.

"What are you laughing at? Say something! You can already speak, why are you pretending to be mute?" Horii lowered her eyes slightly. She didn't pretend to be mute on purpose. Because she had been hoarse for so long, and her voice hadn't fully recovered, so it was difficult to utter a complete sentence now.

However, knowing that if she continued to remain silent, Mao would explode. Horii tactfully spread out Mao’s palm and slowly wrote, " Eiko fell asleep and pulled me tightly. So I stayed at Aunt Fujiwara's house for a while longer."

If Eiko hadn't grabbed her hand and she also wouldn't want to wake up Eiko, who had been torn by the Yōkai for days. She would come back early.

Mao looked at her explanation and snorted, "Little girl is trouble." Horii thought that you are only thirteen or fourteen years old, and no different from Eiko, who is six years old. However, she would not tell Mao if that was the case, lest she becomes arrogant again, she would have to think of a way to comfort her. So she continued, "Where's Lord Reiko?"

Reiko was the witch who rescued her from the hands of the monster and brings her back to the village. She was also the teacher of Mao and herself, responsible for teaching them how to become a qualified witch. Most likely, she had also instructed Mao to appear here.

"Lord Reiko is setting up a barrier … I don't know why, but the spiritual power of the barrier has been drained very quickly recently. This is already the second time this month that it has been repaired." Mao frowned as she spoke, clearly feeling that something was amiss. One must know that Reiko was a witch with extremely powerful spiritual power. The barrier she had set up could last at least half a year, but recently, the spirit formation had become unstable. If Reiko hadn't been repairing it, there would have been a monster invading the village long ago.

"Still can't figure out the reason?" Horii wrote again.

"In the beginning, we suspect that it was a monster, but Lord Reiko said that she can't sense the monster energy. Furthermore, the barrier is unstable because of the loss of spiritual energy. There is no sign of any damage."

Mao bitted her lips as she spoke. This was her usual thought-provoking gesture, '"You should know that under normal circumstances, Spiritual Energy will automatically lose. But it seems like someone has accelerated the speed of the loss of Spiritual Energy …Reiko said that this speed might be even faster in the future. She needs to set up another barrier within the original one, otherwise, there will probably be more monsters which invade village just like the one attacked Eiko."

Hearing Mao's words, Horii also frowned. So the barrier was already weak enough to allow monsters to take advantage of this opportunity to enter? She thought that the monster on Eiko was provoked by her when she sneaked out of the village, but she didn't expect that it was the monster that entered the village. The monster had fought with her before, and its power was very weak. However, it was very difficult to discover that it was attached to people, and it would not be easy to peel them off.

"Don't worry, Lord Reiko will definitely fix it!" Mao was the first to regain her senses. She patted Horii’s shoulder and comforted her. Her tone was filled with trust in Reiko. "Let's go." Horii nodded and quickly followed Mao back to the shrine.