Tanuki wedding?
Crashed harder than your mental health after finals.
Frog orchestra?
Vaporized. (more like atomized, but whatever)
Ren?
Still emotionally allergic to peace.
And now?
Boarding a Yokai Train straight into the Spirit Realm, because nothing says “life choices” like hopping onto a cursed interdimensional bullet train with emotional baggage and Crocs.
~~~
Ren’s vibes were gone.
Like fully.
As in left the chat, yeeted themselves into the void, and left him with nothing but anxiety and foot blisters. He dragged his traumatized ass onto the train like he was doing a walk of shame from a breakup that ended in ghost possession.
The Spirit Train’s interior looked like a fever dream produced by Studio Ghibli and cursed by Etsy. Think red velvet seats, neon sigils floating midair, floating koi swimming through the ceiling like they pay rent, and a snack cart that growled if you looked at it funny.
There were posters on the walls like:
“No soul? No problem! Ride the Vibe Express?”
“Passenger of the Month: Not You”
“In Case of Emergency, Cry Louder”
Ren sat stiffly across from Nurarihyon, who was now munching on ghost popcorn and sipping some eldritch slushie labeled “Unicorn Regret.”
“Do not,” Ren muttered, “touch me with that cursed straw.”
Nurarihyon, sipping louder than a mukbang channel, just wiggled his brows.
||RELAAAAX, RENNY. THE SPIRIT REALM'S BASICALLY A VIBE.||
Somewhere in the distance, a disembodied voice whispered “vibe check failed.”
The train screeched.
Literally.
It screeched like a banshee going through a breakup.
A whole-ass banshee walked past their compartment sobbing into a Taco Bell wrapper.
She wailed.
||He ghosted me!||
Ren just side-eyed the camera like Jim from The Office.
They passed tunnels where shadows whispered Ren’s full legal name. A baby tanuki tried selling him a haunted Beyblade. Someone’s dead grandma waved at him from a window. Everything smelled like wet incense and capitalism.
Ren sighed.
Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.
“This place is the definition of 'bad trip.'”
A passer-by yelled at him:
||OH, THAT’S JUST THE COMMUTE. WAIT ‘TIL YOU SEE THE WELCOME COMMITTEE.||
Ren's eye twitched.
“There’s a welcome committee?”
Nurarihyon smiled.
||DEPENDS. DO YOU COUNT POLTERGEISTS WITH CLIPBOARDS AS FRIENDLY?||
Before Ren could nope out through the emergency window (which was just a drawing of one labeled ‘Hope’), the train screeched to a halt.
Again.
Literally screeched. Like a kettle being exorcised.
They had arrived.
The Spirit Realm station was like someone took Kyoto, dipped it in cosmic horror, sprinkled it with Lisa Frank, and then forgot to update the software.
There were QR codes floating in the air that led to cursed YouTube channels. A tentacle offered Ren a brochure that just said “lol” on the front.
Floating buildings.
Reverse waterfalls.
Ghost cats smoking bubble pipes.
One ghost cat winked at Ren. He screamed internally.
A yokai with three heads and a man-bun stamped Ren’s metaphysical passport.
||YAGITSUNE RENJI. WELCOME TO THE SPIRIT REALM. WATCH OUT FOR EXISTENTIAL FOG AND SENTIENT TAXES.||
Ren blinked.
“Sentient what—”
But too late.
A fog of lost dreams swirled past him, whispering embarrassing childhood memories.
“...I was SIX, okay? Everyone pees in the ball pit once.”
Nurarihyon was already halfway down a floating escalator, waving.
||CHOP CHOP, WIGS DON’T STEAL THEMSELVES.||
The path to Wig #2 (which was apparently sacred, cursed, and also maybe a limited edition collector’s item) led them through a labyrinth called the Bureaucratic Maw of Forgotten Things.
Which really was just a DMV run by ghosts.
Lines stretched into infinity. Everyone had clipboards.
Screaming was the primary language.
At one point, Ren swore he saw someone in line holding a ticket from 1784. It whispered “finally” before dissolving into glitter and tears.
Ren, wobbling, whispered,
“I’ve died. This is hell. This is where souls go when you forget to renew your student ID.”
A ghost receptionist with twelve arms slammed a form in front of him.
||NAME. DATE OF DEATH. SPIRIT CODE. BLOOD TYPE. FAVORITE SANDWICH. RECURRING NIGHTMARE. DO YOU BELIEVE IN LOVE?||
Ren stared at her like she’d just asked him to recite the Bee Movie script backwards.
Nurarihyon handed her a crayon drawing of Ren crying on a volcano.
The ghost recipient nodded.
||Approved.||
They were escorted deeper, through an office where clocks melted and motivational posters said things like "You matter... unless the council says otherwise." and “Hang in there! (Literally. Some do.)”
In the center of this nonsense?
Wig #2.
It sat on a levitating pedestal. Surrounded by runes. Bathed in moonlight that smelled like regret and lavender.
Wig #2 glowed.
Majestic. Powerful. Slightly emo.
It whispered.
||hey. hey loser. u got trauma? i feed on that||
Ren, trembling, spat:
“Why does everything TALK HERE?”
He reached out—
||WAIT.||
Nurarihyon pulled him back just in time.
Because the wig exploded.
Not, like, boom exploded.
Emotionally.
It shattered the illusion and revealed the FINAL GUARDIAN OF THE WIG.
It was...
A girl.
Teenage. Pissed.
Dressed like a Hot Topic ad. Eyeliner so sharp it had its own kill count.
The girl screeched, summoning a massive paintbrush katana.
||YOU WANT THIS WIG? PAY WITH YOUR SINS.||
Nurarihyon grinned.
||OH SHIT, IT’S THE SPIRIT REALM’S FINAL BOSS.||
Ren yelped, dodging ink-blade slashes now.
“WHO?!”
Nurarihyon, at a safe distance from this shitshow, said:
||TSUKIYOMI’S INTERNSHIP DAUGHTER. SHE’S BEEN HERE SINCE THE WAR.||
Ren gulped:
“What war?!”
Nurarihyon froze.
He stared at Ren.
Then, he nodded.
||YES.||
The battle was chaos.
Ink bombs. Existential debates mid-punch. Crocs vs cursed Doc Martens.
The girl dropkicked a filing cabinet that barked. Ren threw a stapler at her and it turned into a goose. Nothing made sense.
Ren screamed, leapt off a floating fax machine, and kicked the guardian in the shins with a slow-mo anime zoom-in.
She didn’t flinch.
She summoned a giant ghost eel.
Ren summoned his trauma.
“MY DAD NEVER CAME BACK FROM GETTING THE TOFU—”
The eel wailed in empathy and exploded.
The guardian froze.
||Damn. You really are emotionally unstable.||
Ren cried, drop-kicking her eyeliner kit:
“THERAPY’S EXPENSIVE!”
She gasped. Fell.
The wig hovered into Ren’s hands.
Glorious.
Sacred.
Sticky with ghost glitter.
Ren panted.
"Two wigs down"
Suddenly, the dimension quaked.
A ripple of code.
The guardian twitched.
||Oh no.||
Ren stared.
“What now?”
The ceiling pixelated. The sky cracked.
A voice, mechanical, mocking:
||ERROR. PLAYER TOO FUNNY. STORYLINE DERAILED. SENDING MODERATOR.||
A giant cursor descended.
The Admin.
Wearing a suit made of ones and zeroes. Holding a Banhammer made of anti-meme energy.
||Yagitsune Renji.... YOU HAVE BEEN FOUND GUILTY OF NARRATIVE ANARCHY.||
Ren, flipping him off:
“Sue me, Wikipedophil—”
1,000+ VIEWS, BITCHES!! ???
Y’all are enablers. I love you. Keep smelling like your shampoo’s called ‘Delusion’ and your life’s run by raccoons with degrees in gaslighting.
-
-
-
empathy
deeper. Emotionally. Metaphysically. Maybe into a hell mall. I dunno. I black out when I write.
If your Crocs light up, RUN.
—Your favorite chaotic cryptid