[open] open 24 hours

[metafictions]

Who ⬤ Kamui and you
What ⬤ The extremely cursed 7/11 night shift
When ⬤ throughout May
Where ⬤ that one Sutoku/Shuten 7/11
Content Warnings ⬤ n/a for now, will update
Notes ⬤ please see Kamui's permissions to opt into having him sense your character's criminal power!

A. convenience store;

[It's 2 am, or thereabouts, and you are on a street where Shuten and Sutoku territory just barely overlap-- so it's a bit of a dodgier visit tonight. However you managed, you've finally bypassed the oni punks squatting outside the automatic doors and made your way into the waiting fluorescent arms of the 7/11, only to find...]

Welcome.

[this guy, dispassionately welcoming you to the store. Like, has he even blinked? It's like they've seated a cryptid behind the counter in a silly uniform. His lack of enthusiasm, his unbroken stare, and the strange presence his silver left eye seems to radiate all combined make this late night convenience store visit feel especially unnerving.

Sometimes, he pauses to stock the shelves, but it always sort of feels like he's watching you. Not that he's a rude cashier, or treating you like you're going to shoplift: he'll ring you up just fine. It's just his terrible vibes. Sorry.]

B. toilet dungeon;

[There's also a public restroom in this 7/11... if you can find it!]

Oh, welcome back. [says Kamui breezily, as his customer emerges from the 7/11 back door for the second-- or third?-- time.] Did you find the WC yet? I'm sorry for the inconvenience, it was cursed last week, so the hallway has gotten longer. You need to follow the directions exactly or you'll just be sent back here right away.

[In one long, breathless sentence, Kamui repeats the directions:]

Go through the door in the back, take a right, go through the fourth door, turn through the first hallway on the left, then keep going straight until you take a right at the intersection, go through the second door and you'll get to a staircase, so go all the way down and through the emergency exit on the right, take the stairs all the way up to the top, and you'll hit a T-shaped hallway, and you'll find the WC just past that.

[He blinks, head canting ever so slightly to the side.]

Please take your time.

C. hani-uhh???;

[There's a haniwa figure that has cropped up right next to the magazine aisle. Fortunately, this is one of Kamui's earlier shifts, so he's not the only employee around and won't be abandoning the register for this-- but they've still got to figure out what to do with this distinctly-cursed looking little guy before one of their oni regulars kicks it over, right?]

Erm...

[Except that, especially with his ability reactivated, it really, really feels like a bad idea to touch the clay figurine. And yet, he definitely can't just leave it there, can he?

Kamui's brows knit together with concern as he stands over it, armed with one of the tongs for hot food. He clicks them together, uncertain, before he crouches down to get a better look at it. He might be poking it with the tongs. Give it a few moments-- he's making up his mind.]

D. wildcard

[here for a vending machine substory task (or another substory)? just wanna generally harass your friendly neighborhood 7/11 cryptid? go wild my dude]

Comments

[paperpusher]

I'll give it a try. My abilities haven't fully come back yet, but... It's worth a shot.

[And he'll happily take a couple free conbini meals as payment, thank you Kamui. He drops the rest of the goods on the counter, then turns back to the rest of the store.]

One sec, I'll just get some supplies. [He doesn't have everything he needs on him, but luckily his abilities have always been very adaptable. He heads back to the selection of pads of notepaper and pens, picking through to see if there's any inks or, barring that, a felt tip marker.] Can you describe anything about the curse? The more I know about it, the more effective the spell will be.

[metafictions]

[He's frankly willing to try anything at this point. It takes, like, ten minutes to get all the way down there like this. Kamui leaves his post, trailing behind Natori as he looks for his pen and paper.]

Essentially, it's extended the hallway to the WC.

[In the stationery section, ink and pens are both available! The felt tip pens have a tiger pattern on the body, in case you forgot that 60% of this convenience store is on Toraguma's turf. Kamui rubs his chin as Natori shops, thinking.]

I don't know exactly when it showed up or what left it. I wasn't at work when it first started happening. But there used to be one hallway that was a straight shot over there, and now, it's... a labyrinth. If you take a wrong turn, the next door you open will open right back to the beginning of the maze.

[paperpusher]

[Natori gives the tiger-printed pens a dead-eyed stare before he turns to inspect the inks. Considering they're in a convenience store, it's better than he'd expected to find. Then again, he supposes it makes sense; he's sure there are ayakashi who come here to pick up calligraphy supplies as often as they come for the standard office supplies. He thumbs absently through a pad of unlined paper to check its quality as he listens to Kamui's explanation.]

Hmm, so it's some sort of space-bending curse, or else a very powerful illusion... Does it impact humans as well as ayakashi? [Maybe it's not really worth asking that question since they're in such a minority here, but it's an old habit.] Well, I guess it doesn't matter much either way. We are in the ayakashi realm, after all. There's plenty of things that would impact a human here even if they wouldn't normally be a problem.

[It doesn't give him much to go on, but he'll do his best. With his arms full of 120-page unlined memo pads and a basic calligraphy set, he crosses the store to the door to the cursed hallway and starts pulling pages out of the pad with a smooth, practiced motion to scatter them on the floor.] Could you prop this open?

[metafictions]

Humans and ayakashi and whatever in-between exists amongst us lost souls. I got lost in there three times before I got the hang of the pattern.

[It wasn't great. Fortunately, he's patient, and very persistent.

He eyes the pages with interest as they flutter onto the ground like leaves; if anything, Natori certainly looks like he knows what he's doing here. The worst case scenario is that they've wasted a few 150-yen memo pads, right?]

Yes, of course. [Kamui nods, pulling the door open-- but as he bends down to stick a doorstopper under there, it becomes clear that they're not alone. There are... little clay guests waiting just at the entrance to the hallway. Three haniwa statues, to be exact, all staring with their empty eyes at Natori as he works.]

[paperpusher]

Oof. They should give you a raise for saving the customers from having to go through the same thing. [Though based on the conversation he overheard, it's not enough for Kamui to simply recite the directions to the bathroom. How troublesome.

He crouches down on his knees to spread the pages out in a carpet in front of the door. When he raises his head, it's to find himself looking into the empty eyes of the haniwa waiting inside the hallway. He tsks with distaste as he sits upright, uncapping baby's first calligraphy set without taking his eyes off the figurines.] --Well. I don't know if they were attracted to the curse or the other way around. That might be a problem.

[The haniwa give off such a gross vibe that he can't imagine anyone not feeling it-- though he's thought similar things about the creatures he saw plain as day growing up, and he was always proven wrong then, so. He sighs and reaches into the messenger bag slung over his shoulder, the one that looks more like a high schooler's bookbag than something that matches Natori's vibes.] Alright, first things first--

[What comes out of his bag is a string of faceless paper dolls, connected shoulder to shoulder like a long white rope. He makes a gesture with his wrist as if unscrewing a lightbulb and the end of the chain plasters itself against the center doll with a light slapping sound. He holds up two fingers and rotates them like he's spooling a thread, and the chain mimics the motion at the same careful speed, winding around the haniwa with a particular delicacy. As he works, he grumbles:] Have you had to deal with a lot of these?

[metafictions]

[He huffs in mild amusement.] I'd ask if I didn't already know the answer. Wherever the curse is coming from.

[Kamui steps back, allowing Natori the space he needs to scatter the paper. At this point, he can't count the amount of haniwa statues he's had to clear out of this place: whether they're the cause or another symptom, he doesn't care, this all needs to be dealt with either way. They feel odd to him, too, and he's certain they would've even without his abilities back.

There's a beat before he replies to Natori, though. He's gotta admit: watching him actually at work, manipulating the chain of paper dolls in a way that really shouldn't be possible, is very cool, actually.]

All week. They're more prevalent inside the hallway, but they pop up inside the actual store too.

[...] I assume that's a bad sign?

[paperpusher]

I don't know if they're necessarily coming from the same source, but they can... [He pauses to search for the word, his hand maintaining the motion to keep the dolls moving; the spell is taking up some portion of his concentration, and he's clearly treating his response as an afterthought.] Feed off of each other? The curse on the hallway is probably stronger when there are some of these in the store, and at the same time the hallway makes it easier for them to show up.

[The end of the paper doll chain plasters itself solidly against the haniwa in the center, now thoroughly wrapped in spell paper. The vibes it gives off are better, but surpressed rather than eliminated. Natori sighs and repeats the initial gesture to get a second chain out of the bag.] Sorry to ask this of you, Kamui-san, but could you dispose of that one? The ward should make it safe to touch. I'd just rather get these out of here before trying to purify the hallway.

[He starts winding the chain around the second one, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose.]

[metafictions]

So it's just a positive feedback loop of curses.

[Yikes. He grimaces, eyeing the dolls that Natori is working on. Lucky him, with an exorcist friend.]

O-oh, no, it's all right. I'm happy to help you while you work, just tell me what I need to do.

[The haniwa's looking sort of like a small mummy now... with its energy suppressed, he even feels a bit bad for it. But only a bit. He crosses the room for a plastic bag from behind the register, then returns to stuff the doll in it just as Natori begins to work on the next haniwa. Already, the room's starting to feel a little better.]

This is really amazing. Do you have to do this for them all individually?

[paperpusher]

Yes! That's the word. [He sounds a little too cheerful about that given the subject of the conversation-- sometimes it's just nice to know that you're accurately conveying the scope of the thing that's making your life/7-11 worse.] You see it a lot, unfortunately.

[For example, sometimes a rival exorcist leaves a curse on your answering machine and the playback causes a seal on a pot to break. Actual things that happen when you're trying to run an exorcist house out of a modern apartment in 2005.]

I'd be able to do all three at once if I had access to my normal abilities and tools. The dolls are the only ones that Tenkohime has explicitly returned to me, so I'd rather use something slower that I know will work than risk exacerbating it with a failed spell circle. [He nods at the pages scattered on the floor and the abandoned marker, waiting for them to clear out the haniwa.] If the spell circle doesn't work on the hallway, it's just a waste of paper. On these-- it could easily cause them to shatter, or backfire in some other way.

[He gets the other two haniwa properly mummified in seals, then gets back on his knees to draw out a large circle on the overlapping sheets of paper.] Okay. Can you repeat the directions for me? I want to build it into the spell.

[metafictions]

I think I understand what you're saying here.

[Sure, it's a bit morbid to think about curses building upon each other so intensely, but he's just relieved to have an expert here to teach him about it. He's listening and nodding to the explanation as he grabs the second and third haniwa-- navigating the piles of paper on the ground with care to reunite them with their mummified brother in his 7/11 bag.]

I've heard rumors that shattering them doesn't end well. [Perhaps as bad as backfiring? He's not eager to find out.] I appreciate you taking the longer way.

[The haniwa recovered, he takes a seat on the ground near-- but not too near-- Natori. Better to stay out of his way a little.]

All right, are you ready? [Slower than his first explanation, he repeats:]

Through the door in the back, take a right, through the fourth door, turn through the first hallway on the left, continue straight until you take a right at the intersection, through the second door, all the way down and through the emergency exit on the right, up the stairs all the way up to the top, past the T-shaped hallway and into the WC.

Did you get it all? I can say it again if you need.

[paperpusher]

Mm, I'm not surprised. There isn't a spirit sealed inside of them, but still. It's never a good idea to break a vessel anyway.

[Y'know, just in case Kamui comes across any other vessels with ayakashi sealed inside them and isn't sure if he should break the thing. Don't break the thing! Don't even touch the thing!

He frowns in concentration as Kamui repeats the pattern, jotting down characters across different quadrants of the circle. They get elevated somewhat in Natori's telling: "right" becomes "east;" each of the numbers are written with the formal characters used for checks, including the obsolete one for "four" that doesn't even get used then; after a brief hesitation, the T-shaped hallway becomes "crossroads." By the end, it's a somewhat abstracted map to the bathroom as represented by single characters and their relative placement in the circle, then made even muddier by the addition of several of his standard characters, both recognizable kanji and not: "exit" on one side, a heavily stylized drawing of an eye on the other. After adding another concentric circle and another smattering of characters, Natori gets to his feet and dusts off his hands more out of habit than anything else.]

Okay, I think I got it. Let's give it a try. [With another gesture, a long, thin ofuda slips out of his bag and into his hand. He steps on the edge of the circle, claps his hands around the spell paper, and starts to recite in archaic Japanese:] Trickster of the aisles, begone. We see you, we see you, we see you. Mislead no more guests; there is only one path.

[As he recites his terrible freeform poetry of a spell, the edges of the mound of paper on the ground start to stir as if disturbed by a small, localized breeze from the point where Natori's hands are clasped around his ofuda. The wind is affecting Natori as well, his shaggy hair and jacket billowing in the breeze, but nothing else in the store-- until the last word, when it shoots off down the empty hallway.] Release!

[The papers still, and Natori's hair settles back into his aesthetically-mussed default. He blinks, frowning slightly as he tries to see if he can sense a change.] ...Kamui-san, I hate to ask, but can you try going down the hallway? Even after your help, I don't have the path memorized to get back if it failed.

[Spoiler, it failed. But at least Natori got to freestyle for a bit.]