Fatigue, as defined by the Oxford Learner's Dictionary, is a feeling of being extremely tired, usually because of hard work or exercise.
This definition encapsulates my state with cruel precision.
Yesterday, I killed something. For clarity, let's call it "Blood Sucker A," or BSA for short. The battle left me battered, broken. Though the [MAGIC] of a certain princess staved off what should have been a mortal conclusion to my wounds, I cannot claim recovery. The searing ache remains, a constant reminder of my limits.
Thus, I surrender to the vice of [SLOTH].
Indulging in a bit of rest won't kill me, will it?
CRASH!!!
The violent cacophony of my front door being thrown open jolts me upright. My houseboat trembles as I grab the improvised spear leaning against my bedside table. It's a crude construct, a jury-rigged weapon born of desperation. A mop handle serves as its shaft, with a kitchen knife's blade fastened at the tip using duct tape and hot glue. Two smaller knives are affixed to its sides, jagged and unforgiving. It's an ugly thing, but in a world of supernatural threats, it's better than nothing.
I rush to the hallway, spear at the ready, and peer into the darkness. The lights are off, rendering my enemy a shapeless shadow. If they can't discern my weapon's crude nature, all the better.
I hurl the spear and bellow the name of the false mystic weapon,
"GAE BOLG!"
The invocation is a gamble. I'm banking on the enemy possessing some kind of [SIXTH SENSE], enough to recognize the name and hesitate. Hesitation buys time, time to attack again, to finish the job with blunt force if need be. But my plan unravels as the figure drops to the ground with inhuman speed, avoiding the spear entirely.
Shit, that move is familiar.
That person before me is far more dangerous than any-old [HULDUFÓLK].
Before I can react, the figure closes the distance, grabs my face, and slams me into the floor. The impact sends shockwaves through my skull, rattling my brain like loose change in a tin can.
"Zabaniya."
A low voice whispers in my ear.
Recognition clicks.
"Lancer is dead."
I quip, though the sarcasm barely masks my relief.
Standing over me is my aunt, MADA Alexandersdóttir. Former MMA heavyweight champion, current Gacha-streaming VTuber, and a relentless storm of chaos. Her towering 198 cm frame looms, dyed red hair framing golden contact-lensed eyes. A wetsuit clings to her sculpted physique, emphasizing her absurdly exaggerated proportions. She could pass for an action heroine or a goddess of war.
She grins, perfect white teeth glinting in the dim light.
"Not bad. That throw got my blood pumping. I take it you're still on edge after that school incident? Good. If I'd found you lazing about, I would've tied you to my speedboat and dragged you to the docks by Ibu's place again."
Ah, so that's why she's here.
She claps her hands together.
"Well, you're alive and kicking. That's all I needed to see."
She pivots toward the door, her nonchalance grating.
This disingenuous woman.
"You're in a hurry to grind more Gacha games, aren't you?"
Her laugh booms as she vanishes into the night, leaving only the roar of her speedboat in her wake.
I sigh, surveying the mess she's left behind.
"But I'm so tired. Maybe I should hire a housekeeping service… or better yet, get a maid."
A smile creeps across my face.
Why the hell would I need a maid service when I can just get a maid period?
And not just any maid but a maid to surpass all others.
"You're a genius Hyodo Iki! We're cooking with gas aren't we now?!"
With newfound determination, I grab my phone and message Ta.Na.Ka. His place is a fifteen-minute walk from here. The path is safe enough, with a police box and decent foot traffic. Surely, no [HULDUFÓLK] would risk exposing themselves in such a public area, right?
His dwelling is a repurposed 20-foot shipping container, ensconced behind a weary brick-and-mortar store whose timeworn facade whispers of bygone days. The store's keeper—Ta.Na.Ka's part-time employer and landlord—is a kind, elderly widow who manages a small manga shop in honor of her late husband.
I'm really fond of her, she helps drive me to go pick up the random stuff I buy from people on Hexamil Marketplace to hoard in a storage unit close to the houseboat for inspiration or for DIY.
I arrive at Ta.Na.Ka's metallic sanctum and pull the door open without knocking. A breach of etiquette, perhaps, but between us, privacy is a perfunctory charade. What secrets could that room hold that I have not already seen?
The familiar tableau greets me. A space neither clean nor chaotic, its walls adorned with manga and eroge posters—a shrine to fleeting fantasies. And there, looming at the room's far end, the pièce de résistance: a massive cross, a cosplay prop scavenged from Hexamil's digital bazaar. Its absurdity compelled me to become a daily pilgrim of the Hexamil marketplace, in search of treasures equally bizarre.
At the center of the room, Ta.Na.Ka sits in his natural state: nude, meditating in silence, his body folded into impossible contortions.
"Yep,"
I murmur,
"just as expected."
To an outsider, our interactions would seem irredeemably absurd. Yet those outsiders would misunderstand. Always.
There's a peculiar bond between those who bear compulsions too strange to voice. I cannot condemn him, nor feign revulsion. If anything, it was his defiance—his ability to construct a fragile normalcy around his fixation—that taught me to savor my own. A nectar I now renounce, bitter and cloying, as I take my first steps into the abyss I have long avoided.
Enough rumination. I clear my throat to announce both my presence and my purpose.
"Ta.Na.Ka, this might come as a surprise, but I'm here for the [WHORE OF BABYLON]."
His yoga halts abruptly. He twists his neck to gawk at me, his disbelief almost comical.
"Seriously?"
I nod, unsurprised at his reaction. After all, I had dramatized its departure with the fervor of an eschatological prophet. When I handed it over three years ago, I extracted a solemn promise from him: never to mention it, never to let it cross my path again.
I speak, my voice heavy with the weight of a lie well-practiced. "It's time."
The [WHORE OF BABYLON]—a Hexamil budget 3D printer, closed-type, battered but serviceable—was once my scapegoat. In my ignorance, I had attributed the [DOLLS]' manifestation to its cursed mechanisms. When evidence refuted this, I clung to the belief that severing ties with it severed my connection to the unnatural.
But I knew. Deep down, I knew.
Its mere presence unnerved me, not as a machine, but as a vessel—a grinning effigy of my compulsion, daring me to discard it and suffer its curse. And so, I entrusted it to Ta.Na.Ka, with a story absurd enough to be credible: that printing the [DOLLS] drove me into frenzies of unspeakable vice. It was enough for him to take it off my hands.
Now, standing here, I can feel his skepticism.
"You told me not to trust you if you ever came back for it,"
he says.
"That if you asked, you weren't in your right mind."
"That was then,"
I reply, my voice firm.
"Now, I see things differently. It's time I stopped running."
And so, with words I dare not speak aloud, I accept my nature. As a [WITCH]. As one who weaves his [WITCHCRAFT] from the threads of compulsion and desire, no matter how jagged the pattern.
I cannot tell him this truth. But I can lie.
"Ta.Na.Ka… I loved her."
He freezes. My deception finds its mark.
"I won't say which of the teachers it was, but I loved her. She admired my designs, and I always wanted to show her my own work. But I couldn't. I was ashamed—of how I saw her, of how I saw my creations, of how she might see me."
My voice falters, but I press on.
"Her death... it shattered me. Stripped away the illusions I clung to. I can't run from who I am anymore."
Ta.Na.Ka stares at me, caught between confusion and pity. Finally, he moves to the cross, lifts it, and reveals the [WHORE OF BABYLON], sealed in its mundane tomb of cardboard and tape.
As he offers it to me, I feel a pang of gratitude—and regret.
He offers to carry this weight with me.
"Unfortunately, Ta.Na.Ka,"
I say, taking the box from his hands,
"this is a burden I must bear alone."
I turn to leave, but his hand catches my shirt. His voice, soft yet heavy, asks:
"Have we started the fire?"
I pause, a smile curling unbidden on my lips.
I almost didn't catch that one.
"Yes," I reply. "The fire rises."
I respond accordingly making my exit.
And so, like a young scout carrying a boulder for the sake of his comrades, I trudge over with the the weight of the [WHORE OF BABYLON] weighing down on me all the way home.