Birds of a Feather | Soul of Yokai AU

Keep Your Head Up, Yukio

"Hayato, we have to have some optimism." I replied, "Where are we going to go if we don't?"

"Right, right." Hayato replied. "Okay, first, let's settle out the facts. So, Karasu has presumably come from the past with evidence supporting this being Karasu having a dagger that was taken away from him and his victims no longer being dead. And he's causing trouble in the human world with some mysterious vials, although we have no idea what they exactly do."

"Additionally, he hasn't killed any people, though it will certainly happen eventually. Furthermore, he is operating in the shadows rather than in the open." Sakuya stated.

"And he also has a partner in crime." I commented, "Considering that a man was giving Karasu those vials by the Tree of the Gods."

"Makes sense." Yukio stated, "After all, Karasu is navigating the human world relatively easily despite not even being from this time. But if that man disappeared using the tree then they would have to be connected to both the human and Yokai worlds."

"Well... The Gods were able to transport through the tree, right?" I remarked, "Sakuya, Yukio, I have to say something about when Tamen offered me to become a Yokai."

"WHAT?!" Hayato yelled.

"Don't worry! As you can see, I didn't become one." I stated, "Although, I did accept the offer at first but the reason I declined it was because the strangest thing happened."

"What happened?" Sakuya asked.

"Well... How do I explain this?" I fiddled with my hair, "He gave me a kimono in which I had to put on. And I put it on but when I did, I got transported to almost like a pocket dimension."

"The hell?" Hayato blurted.

"Yeah, but there were other people in there but I don't think they were exactly people, they were souls." I explained.

"H-How'd you get out?" Yukio trembled.

"A human girl saved me and encouraged me to escape." I answered.

"That was nice of her." Yukio stated.

"Mhm. But, that's the final piece of this puzzle." Sakuya responded, "That makes sense if you saw some souls. Naturally, he would want to gather them as doing so would allow him to regain his full strength if he collected enough souls.

"I didn't know that but thank you. That helps support my point more." I explained, "But I think that Karasu and Tamen were working together. I just had a very strong feeling about it since well, if Karasu was causing danger and I was aware of it, it would be perfect for him for offer to make me a Yokai so I'd have more power to stop him since humans are weaker than Yokai and Karasu wouldn't target me as well. Tamen did ramble on about me helping you guys. And well, going on Sakuya's point, if Tamen does want to collect souls to empower himself, it would benefit him to have someone working alongside him to gain them."

"You make a very good point." Yukio responded.

"But we're deeper into this mess than I initially thought." Hayato replied.

"Why don't we take advantage of this knowledge, though, now that we have it?" Sakuya smirked.

"How so?" Yukio returned.

"Well, Tamen would have to work extremely hard to only harvest poor-quality souls in order to reach his maximum potential if he wanted souls." Sakuya explained, "It makes sense that he would like the best ones he could obtain."

"What do you mean by the 'best ones'?" I asked.

"I mean a human or part human who has power. Tamen gains any power from the souls he takes. We need someone who's strong and powerful enough to attract the attention of Tamen." Sakuya soon stared at Hayato, "And I think you would be a good contender, Hayato. We all know that you're a Hanyo and Hanyos naturally possess tremendous physical strength that a human or Yokai cannot."