The merchant, sipping boba in the background, whispered:
||Limited warranty doesn't cover rodent mines, honey.||
Ren, face blackened like a burnt marshmallow, just muttered:
"...worth it."
Somewhere off-screen, a squirrel exploded.
Again.
~~~
Somehow, after eons, (or seconds, maybe. Who gives a damn anyways?) Ren barely managed to escape that hellhole of an oven.
He went as far as he could on foot (the Yokai Train deserted him, remember?) and collapsed on a bench.
He slept. Like, fully passed out.
Snoring like a chainsaw possessed by a sleep-deprived gremlin.
~~~
At around 3 AM....
Ren woke up half dead, fully burnt, and doubly emotionally violated.
Clutching the sacred wig like a baby koala, he searched around for familiar faces.
He saw a small shop.
It was more like a hut with a sign that yelled "GET YER SAKE HERE, FOLKS!".
But it wasn't the sign that caught Ren's eyes.
He saw an old man with an elongated head chugging down a tank of sake.
Ren facepalmed.
Then he went to Nurarihyon.
"Evening, Grandpa! Is that sake goo—"
Nurarihyon looked up.
Dude was sitting on a floating folding chair with a mug of sake, wearing sunglasses at night, unbothered, unmatched, unfazed.
||TOOK YOU LONG ENOUGH. I'D HAVE DIED OF OLD AGE, HAD I NOT ALREADY BEEN A TIMELESS LEGEND.||
Ren, burnt to a crisp and emotionally broken, waved the wig at him like it's a hostage.
"CAN I GET A DAMN BREAK?!"
Nurarihyon just snorted.
He pulled out a clipboard, and started checking off Ren's trauma like it's a shopping list.
||Volcanic hellscape? CHECK!
Emotional scarring? CHECK!
One sacred trans-wig of salvation out of five? CHECK!||
Then— he smirked.
||WELL THEN. TIME TO COLLECT WIG TWO.||
Ren groaned
"Bro, I don’t even have eyebrows anymore."
Nurarihyon just cackled.
||SOUNDS LIKE A SKILL ISSUE.||
Ren just stared at this maniac, who was finishing the sake faster than you can spell 'alcoholism'.
After finishing the tank and launching it into orbit, Nurarihyon wiped his mouth in satisfaction.
||Aaaahhhh, now THAT'S some satiating drink...||
Ren fidgeted with the wig.
"Okay, uh, so what now? Train gone.... so......"
Nurarihyon froze. (shocked gasps)
He looked at Ren as if he'd seduced his entire bloodline.
||Say, Renny, show me that wig, will ya?||
The merchant, sipping boba in the background, whispered:
||Limited warranty doesn't cover rodent mines, honey.||
Ren, face blackened like a burnt marshmallow, just muttered:
"...worth it."
~~~
Somehow, after eons, (or seconds, maybe. Who gives a damn anyways?) Ren barely managed to escape that hellhole of an oven.
He went as far as he could on foot (the Yokai Train deserted him, remember?) and collapsed on a bench.
He slept.
~~~
This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
At around 3 AM....
Ren woke up half dead, fully burnt, and doubly emotionally violated.
Clutching the sacred wig like a baby koala, he searched around for familiar faces.
He saw a small shop.
It was more like a hut with a sign that yelled "GET YER SAKE HERE, FOLKS!" in Comic Sans.
But it wasn't the sign that caught Ren's eyes.
He saw an old man with an elongated head chugging down a tank of sake.
Ren facepalmed so hard his brain got a concussion.
Then he went to Nurarihyon.
"Evening, Grandpa! Is that sake goo—"
Nurarihyon looked up.
Dude was sitting on a floating folding chair with a mug of sake, wearing sunglasses at night, unbothered, unmatched, unfazed.
Also wearing fuzzy Hello Kitty socks. Why? No one knows. Respect.
||TOOK YOU LONG ENOUGH. I'D HAVE DIED OF OLD AGE, HAD I NOT ALREADY BEEN A TIMELESS LEGEND.||
Ren, burnt to a crisp and emotionally broken, waved the wig at him like it's a hostage.
"CAN I GET A DAMN BREAK?!"
Nurarihyon just snorted.
He pulled out a clipboard, and started checking off Ren's trauma like it's a shopping list.
||Volcanic hellscape? CHECK!
Emotional scarring? CHECK!
One sacred trans-wig of salvation out of five? CHECK!||
Also: dignity? BLARE!
Then— he smirked.
||WELL THEN. TIME TO COLLECT WIG TWO.||
Ren groaned
"Bro, I don’t even have eyebrows anymore."
Nurarihyon just cackled.
||SOUNDS LIKE A SKILL ISSUE.||
Ren just stared at this maniac, who was finishing the sake faster than you can spell 'alcoholism'.
After finishing the tank and launching it into orbit, Nurarihyon wiped his mouth in satisfaction.
||Aaaahhhh, now THAT'S some satiating drink...||
Ren fidgeted with the wig.
"Okay, uh, so what now? Train gone.... so......"
Nurarihyon froze. (shocked gasps)
He looked at Ren as if he'd seduced his entire bloodline.
||Say, Renny, show me that wig, will ya?||
Ren shot him a suspicious stare.
"That's hella sus, ngl. Why, might I ask?"
But Nurarihyon was actively panicking.
||I SAID GIMME THAT DAMN WIG!! NNOOWW!||
He yanked the glittery wig off Ren's hands and observed it carefully for a while.
Probably an hour in, considering how the morning sky’s soft-ass blue was busy shanking the night into submission.
Meanwhile, a distant rooster crowed like it was being strangled by capitalism.
Finally, Nurarihyon, who had sweated bullets, chuckled.
Ren's heart beat was no different from a helicopter at this point.
He desparately asked:
"What?!"
Nurarihyon handed him the wig.
||Renny, my boy, I gotta say this for you.||
Ren paled.
"What do you mean? Out with it! This instant!"
Suddenly Nurarihyon started cackling like a madman. (Oh wait he IS a madman, nvm)
He gave Ren a deadly smirk.
||You're cooked, kid.||
A tree collapsed in the distance.
Ren stared at Nurarihyon. The dumb style. This one: ??
Then he said:
"Figuratively or literally? Cuz I am— wait, I WAS— cuz I was literally cooked a few hours ago. If you mean figuratively though, woohoo! I'm scared"
(said in a disinterested, bored af voice)
Nurarihyon smirked harder.
||Figuratively||
Just as Ren opened his mouth to throw hands (verbally), the sky whispered a new nightmare into existence.
A shadow passed overhead.
Feathers drifted down like cursed confetti.
A shriek pierced the air— like a TikTok filter being blendered.
And then:
Pigeon.
But not just any pigeon.
This one was glowing. Its eyes burned neon blue like gamer rage. Frosted tips on its feathers shimmered like bad life choices. It wore AirPods. It played "Tokyo Drift" at max volume.
Its wings flapped in 240p screeches.
Also it had a Gucci fanny pack and a vape pen.
WHY??
Don't ask.
Ren stared up.
Then down at the wig in his hand—
There was no wig. The pigeon had yoinked it.
Then Ren stared back up.
He muttered:
"Oh [__] me sideways"
Nurarihyon’s eyes widened. His glasses slipped from his eyes and shattered on the ground.
||IT’S HERE.||
Ren yelped.
"What the hell IS that thing?!"
The wind stopped howling.
Nurarihyon said in a dramatic voice:
||That... is the Wind Bastard.||
Ren blinked.
“That’s not helpful at ALL.”
Nurarihyon, meanwhile, continued:
||He feeds on insecurity and static electricity. And right now? You’re practically a buffet.||
Panic.exe booted up.
The pigeon dive-bombed.
Ren screamed, juked left, got yeeted right, and smacked into a billboard advertising spicy chips.
He rebounded off it and tumbled into someone’s backyard.
Their dog barked once and exploded.
His wig? Still clutched it the pigeon's talons like the world’s sassiest football.
He needed shoes.
His footwear had melted in Fuji’s inferno, and his socks were now 95% lava dust.
Then he saw it.
A drying rack.
A lonely pair of Crocs. Neon green. Glory incarnate.
He snatched them with no shame, no regrets, and maximum velocity.
They fit.
Crocs: Engaged.
They made anime power-up noises.
And so...
The chase began.
Ren parkoured across cursed rooftops in some forgotten abandoned town that smelled like regret and expired soy sauce.
Yokai peeked out of alleyways, filming him like he was a Twitch streamer on a meth bender.
Wind slapped him.
Trash tornadoes tried to un-alive him.
One feather landed beside him and detonated like an overcooked microwave burrito.
Ren screamed something unholy, ducked under a falling AC unit, and slid under a shrine gate like a discount action hero.
The pigeon cackled.
It dive-bombed again, blasting dubstep from its AirPods.
Ren had one goal now:
GET. TO. THE. TOWER.
The old radio tower loomed in the distance like a haunted Eiffel Tower knockoff. The wind yokai’s roost.
Ren dashed for it, Crocs squeaking with divine purpose.
He started climbing. Rung by rung. Gasping. Crying. Swearing at gravity.
Midway up, the pigeon swooped.
They met on a narrow beam, 200 feet in the air.
Cue boss fight.
It was a slap fight.
An aerial slap fight.
Ren got slapped off the beam three times. The Crocs? Saved him each time.
Plot armor, baby.
The final blow?
Ren reached into his (practically non-existent for all intents and purposes) hoodie, pulled out that same bag of spicy chips from earlier.
He screamed:
"EAT ASS!"
...and threw it dead into the pigeon’s beak.
The bird gagged.
It burst into glitter. And feathers. And shame.
And one final explosion of wind that made Ren’s pants flap like they were trying to escape.
Silence.
Then...
The wig floated down. Glowing. Glorious.
Slightly greasy.
Ren caught it.
It immediately restyled his burnt-ass scalp into a mullet fade so clean, the gods wept.
He stood atop the tower, lightning behind him, feathers around him, looking like a feral K-pop star post-battle.
Nurarihyon’s voice echoed from the void:
||DAMN. OKAY. U GOT THE DRIP. NEXT WIG AWAITS.||
Ren raised a middle finger to the heavens.
“I JUST WANT A NAP.”
The tower creaked.
Then tilted.
Then—
Ren slipped and fell face-first into a convenience store dumpster.
Freeze-frame.
Cue outro: “Gas Gas Gas” on flute.
End credits roll over a pigeon feather floating into a bowl of (totally not exploding) ramen.
Narrator voice:
"Next time on Yokai Scammed My Soul: Ren tries to buy tissues and accidentally marries a tanuki—"
