PACT DICE FAN DOC: Oni

and Oni Mages

By Lsclr.

Why play an Oni Mage?

You’re interested in: alienation from social

structures,
interrogating the idea that the status quo is a
justifiable solution to the Hobbesian War Of All
Against All,
causing problems and getting away,
the power of violence as a problem-solving tool,
and the limitations of violence as a
problem-solving tool;
You love anime and eyeliner and you hate
explaining yourself to other players,
You love to activate your secret technique, which
has a name like “Infinite Fury Blood Flame Fist”,
by slicing open one of your wrists and coating
your hand in your own blood and then setting it on
fire,
Or “Scattering The Cherry Blossoms Under The
Light Of The Waning Crescent Moon”, which you
can only use after sincerely apologizing to your
opponent and urging them to stand down.
You have east asian parents and/or are gay
anywhere where that isn’t normal, and therefore
have complicated feelings about
assimilation/rebellion and the repurposing of
aesthetics, Orientalist or otherwise, for purposes
of both those things
Or you think ninjas are really cool and have
enough self-awareness to not be weird about it to
real people.

Suggested Schools: Conflict x Interactions

Relevant & Related: Spirits, East Asian Others, ‘true’ Oni, Kitsune
(Nogitsune subtype), Komainu (Adversarial)
 INDEX

Gathered Pages - Excerpts

Oni, Past and Present
Oni Mages
Oni Practice

Appendix 1: Oni Spells (like fifteen of them)

Appendix 2: NPC Oni
Appendix 3: Two Short Stories From A Finished Campaign

WOULD-BE EDITORS: Thank you for your suggestions! Google Drive’s

comment system rejects them depending on where I happen to click I
think? But your comments are very much appreciated.

Lsclr on discord - lmk if you have any thoughts!

Gathered Pages

Grandfather, I am pleased to announce that your decision has finally

begun to bear fruit. The adaptation of my practice to the Woo Hsing
has been strenuous, true, but I find the Eastern paradigm and its
emphasis on conversion rather than abrogation a far better personal
fit.

As you have so often lamented, I have little taste for combat, but with
the techniques I have learned here I believe I could best even Simon
four times in five. This is in no small part thanks to efficiency - the use
of shing and kee cycles cuts Ralke’s factor down to an astonishing
3.5 per iteration, even taking multiple cycles into account - but due to
metaphysical flexibility. 3.5! Surely you would agree with me that the
astrological calculations required are certainly worth that! A high
Ralke’s means duels between Empedoclean Elementalists so often
come down to oppositional counters, and thus pure power, but
Chinese Elementalists have multiple options: opposition by the
overriding and promotion of the generative. I suspect other
transmutational avenues are kept from me, though I do not begrudge
the keeping - any self-respecting family of Practitioners understands
the value of secrecy.

Your concerns as to the overly casual relationship between

Practitioners and Others here in the Far East have thankfully not
been borne out thus far - the Others I saw at the night market (a
well-chosen slice, to be sure, but the choosing of such a slice does
indicate a deference to propriety) were bound to exacting standards,
as demanded by the overseeing family. An acquaintance of mine has
told me that things were once different - that once, Others were
bound less strictly than women - and remain so further south and
west; but here modernity and Man’s domain have come, and
doubtless shall expand. As local Practitioners are reformed by us,
they in turn reform Others, creating a safer world for all Humanity.

Historically, lacking the foundational Three Rituals, it seems these

Chinamen have had to make do with other means of Claim. How I
wish I could send you the details on their Demesne-equivalent! The
requirements are far more stringent, but the ability to pass down even
pseudo-demesnes through family lines has such potential for us,
though so much is so different here. I find myself longing, however
briefly, for home.

But I digress. My progress has been swift, certainly, and aided by

capable hands - hands seemingly experienced in the adaptation of
Practices built upon different spiritual foundations. In answer to a
question of mine, I was once shown a five-tiered statue called “Goh
Rin Toh”, brought from Nipon, with relevance to Spirits Elemental and
Necromantic both; the poor apprentice who brought it forth to me was
later whipped. When I asked about Niponic Practice, I was told that
the Chinese system of Four-Colored Courts (a misnomer, certainly, in
the case of the Fifth - though the parallels to the Solomonic are
fascinating) had failed to take root there, with the court in Heian-Kyo
and a few port regions as chief exceptions; Spirit Lords and their
Spirit Kingdoms are largely content to control their local domains,
drawing their power from shrines and routine. Practice is pattern, and
so this comparative emphasis on the Spiritual has resulted in several
lines of Practice centered around ritual purity, as well as differing
standards of ritual purity for those practices requiring it, such as
diagnostic and Heraldic work - useful in context but ultimately
provincial. It seemed to be the view of my interlocutor that such
decentralized power structures were to blame for a spate of recent
rebellions - which hopefully will remain confined to that island nation.

As ever, your faithful grandson,

Niles Corbett

P.S. Any further money you could send my way would be much
appreciated; I find it can at times be difficult to be understood here
and coin is the universal language.

Correspondence between Leopold and Niles Corbett

Precise Date Unknown (185X?)
Corbett Family Archives

Information on the Others now referred to as True Oni is extremely

scarce, especially in Western circles, as modern scholarship must
now contend with multiple highly-competent historical attempts at
erasure by various opposed ideological agendas. A few details,
however, are consistent: True Oni could be brought about by Spirits in
places where Humanity encroached too far as a defense mechanism,
although they themselves were not Spirits; True Oni, in their defense
against humanity, were extremely capable combatants heavily
associated with karmic retribution, rage, and grudges; the process for
the creation of a True Oni required eight days and in some cases
involved two humans, one willing and one unwilling; and despite their
initial allegiance to the Spirit Kingdoms, many True Oni were largely
treated as glorified guard dogs, created in moments of duress and
then forgotten or cast out. Over decades and centuries they found
each other and bred true, although their numbers were always low, in
many cases blending in with humanity or journeying to those Spirit
Kingdoms where they were welcome.

Of course, those cases where they did not blend in with humanity or
journey to Spirit Kingdoms are the most notable - and bloodiest.

Maynard’s Compendium of Subversive Others (Ninth Edition) -

Floyd Maynard (2008). Enchiridial Press.
While there must have existed Others from which the Oni took their
name, those Others now referred to as Oni have their roots in the late
1800s. As Japan scrambled to modernize, Japanese Practitioners
saw opportunities to raise themselves up at Others’ expense.
Previous traditions of claiming land, which often required generations,
generous donations and karma, or a willingness to grant land from all
parties in an area, could be shortcutted by aggression with the
Western Demesne ritual; great families divided areas between
themselves and bound every Other they could find in them as
demonstrations of power and claim, driving Others into Spirit
Kingdoms that weren’t designed to support the refugees and that in
many cases didn’t want them. Independent Practitioners and smaller
families who might otherwise have kept to the previous status quo
were incentivized to take advantage of Others by the need to
compete, scarcity of resources, and direct social pressure.

Associations of Practitioners in China, variously pressured and

emboldened by the consolidation of power in Japan, fearing for their
independence and seeing opportunities, clamped down - often
turning on and binding Others previously occupying higher positions
within those associations. Japan, Britain, France, and Russia all had
their sights set on Chinese land, and Chinese Practitioners went to
extremes, even forcibly binding City Spirits in attempts to ensure their
own survival and assert control.

The Oni arose from the backlash - first in Japan, and then elsewhere,
absorbing and arming incipient rebellions. Others as diverse and
opposed to each other as Goblins and Faerie agreed to share their
power: if Practitioners would bind a Goblin with refinement and purity,
how would they bind a Goblin so drenched in glamour that it stopped
being a creature of filth? An Elemental might be corrupted by the
Abyss to give it staying power; a Borrowing Hag might suicidally carry
a payload of violent Echoes inside her heart, released only when she
was bound, that would easily pass through a binding meant for a
visceral Other. “Oni” was a uniform rather than a typing that could be
used to bind them.

If Practitioners held the right to take trophies from defeated foes,

those trophies would be cursed; if Practitioners would power workings
with power taken from Others, that power would be poisoned. Since
Practitioners relied on truth, they cultivated obscure Rules of
Discourse; since the Practice relied on rules, they cultivated
conflicting rules and exceptions.
 The ensuing rebellions tore their way through East Asia for years,
particularly in those regions where Practitioners’ grips were tightest;
the repercussions were felt across the globe. Although the Treaty of
Matsumae Oshima put a formal end to the main conflicts, it was
signed with full knowledge on all eight sides that it would only bind
the signers. While many Oni now exist in uneasy truce, many others
continue to carry out their mandate: that Practitioners who would
exploit Others be put to the knife.

Does this make you uneasy, Practitioner? Knowing that some

shadowy collective beyond your reach might bind or kill you for simply
making your living in a manner they deem unsavory? Does this strike
you as unfair or unjust?

Now, perhaps, you can begin to understand why so many Others

chose rebellion and death over subjugation.

- Selected Interviews with Bayt al-Hikmah Animus Collective

(2013). Interview conducted with [Name Withheld],
Pearl Guardian Animus, “Fleeing with the Sillok” subtype, by Macian
Early.

Oni in the Present

If the Other is to be defined as that distinct from humanity, the Oni are
those who have embraced that label.

The Oni themselves were once more conventional Others. In the late
1800s, powerful families of Japanese Practitioners came down hard on
Others, who revolted, sharing power among themselves and changing their
labels. Hostile bindings exploit symbolic weaknesses - but the Oni changed
themselves and their fundamental affinities in ways that made it much
harder for bindings to get a grip on them.

One of these measures is a characteristic Oni relationship to names. Oni

typically eschew or hide their ‘actual names’ as an anti-binding measure,
instead introducing themselves under titles, nicknames, or codenames with
phrases like “Call me ___ “.
Practitioners typically consider Oni bitter and violent. Oni typically consider
themselves the prisoners of an unjust system, and most Practitioners the
beneficiaries if not the upholders of the dominion of humankind over
Others. Not all Oni actively carry on their endless war on the establishment,
but it casts such a long shadow that all are aware of it.

Pactverse morality is often gray, but most Oni are in most cases a different
shade of gray than their targets. They aren’t wrong: Practitioner society is
awful. They are, however, desperate, and the desperate are increasingly
likely to make deals with metaphorical, if not literal, devils. If Practitioners
are often willing to sacrifice innocents, human and Other, for their own
power, Oni are often willing to sacrifice innocents for a chance at toppling
Practitioners in power. Remember also that active Oni are typically willing
to kill.

ABILITIES

Oni magic is subtle and tricky, typically to make up for a lack of brute force
and weakness in direct confrontation. It often makes use of status effects,
triggerable conditions, and specific rules associated with the Oni or Oni
Mage in question. In seeking to subvert the Practice, which is bound to
convention, they made a lack of convention into one of their conventions:
Oni tricks gain bonuses when they surprise the spirits, rather than when
they adhere to pattern. Broadly speaking, this emphasis on up-front
surprise often comes at the expense of the long term: Longevity is often
traded off for Puissance or Access, and activation is often immediate, with
costs paid beforehand or after. That said, this isn’t a hard and fast rule: Oni
Practices are exceptionally varied, and some may specifically play on that
expectation by emphasizing long-term effects.

More on this later, of course, under the Oni Practice heading.

INTERNAL ORGANIZATION

A Practitioner defines themself and their approach to the Practice via

Implement. Each Implement - each approach - is opposed by a loose Sect
of Oni. For instance:

Oni of the Lens Sect work against Sight, Augurs, and perceptive Practice.
An individual Lens Oni might specialize in using connections to rip the third
eyes of spying Practitioners wide open, in the collection and application of
memetic images, have a rule that they can only be seen without the Sight,
or veil themselves in a cloud inviting Practitioners to see through it, layering
effects like Nettlewisps, Goblin shock pornography, and Styan homunculi
that lash out at those trying to perceive them. Oni of the Wand Sect may
collect, shepherd, or channel the abilities of Aware and Unaware, natural
blind spots for Wand-Implement practitioners, who focus on the Practice
over the innocent world; Oni of the Chain Sect may specialize in
self-immolation, the redefinition of names and identities, or Konchak-style
nested forms as anti-binding measures; Oni of the Blade Sect may be
near-unbeatable at swordplay, spray corrosive or cursed blood from their
wounds, or specialize in ranged combat or sword-breaking techniques.

Individual sects may have different organizational structures, though most

Oni tend to be grouped into cells. It’s rare but not unheard of for an
individual Oni to go without contact for years at a time; information security
is paramount when operatives can be bound.

Unlike most other Practices, which can be passed down between

Practitioners or stumbled upon, Oni Magic is typically taught directly, by an
individual Oni or Oni cell.

Example Oni will be included at the end of this document.

ONI APPEARANCE

Concealment - Willowy Wisp hides her body behind shadowy robes and
her face in a ball of marsh light. In the dark, twelve or more orbs of fox fire
move slowly and inexorably toward her targets, leaving them scrambling to
set up defenses or get away - and unprepared for her knife in their back.

When North American Practitioners need to put a face to a nebulous threat,

the mask they typically associate with the Oni is a deep red hannya, a Noh
mask signifying a woman turned monstrous by rage and hatred. Masks are
simply the most obvious demonstration of the motif of concealment: Oni
may wear gloves, veils, cloaks, capes, long flowing sleeves, hats, helms, or
even sunglasses. Clothing isn’t the only way to conceal oneself - Oni often
hide in shadow, smoke, behind screens, or within boxes.

History/Context/Previous Status Quo - Meng Luo is a harsh policeman,

a harsher Binder, and a loving father who made one mistake: letting his
serial killer son go free. Harvest’s Hand Descending stalks him through
Dream and reality for months as a shadow-faced figure with a crescent
moon scar on his forehead, evading Meng Luo’s protections, which only
trigger if he intends to attack or do harm. His image invokes Iron-Faced
Bao Zheng, an incorruptible magistrate willing to sentence his own uncle.
The message is clear: Bring your son to justice or be confronted by your
own failing forever.

Eventually, Meng Luo cracks, leading the hunt for his son himself. But
imprisoning the only person he’s ever truly cared for turns him harder still,
and he alienates local innocents and Practitioners alike. With his son
locked away and local Practitioners ill-disposed towards him, Meng Luo’s
practice will never be inherited - and so when he dies, all those bound
Others will go free.

Oni have a tendency to prefer old (pre-1600s) East Asian clothing and
weapons, aligning themselves with periods and areas where the
relationships between Others and Practitioners were less exploitative -
although ramshackle syncretism is also common, especially among weaker
Oni working with what they can get.

Going back even further, markers of savagery - fangs, horns, claws - are
often accentuated or invoked in ornamentation, in keeping with Oni
alignment with the Spiritual and the natural world against humanity.

Bondage - The Oni bites down, and the wooden gag splinters. Slivers of
wood pierce his lips and cheeks, red blood welling from each over his pale
blue skin - and yet his voice is clear and smooth. “A rule for you, Law
Mage: any living thing that hears my voice dies.”

Oni often wear markers of imprisonment, binding, or restriction: manacles,

chains, collars or harnesses, rope, blindfolds, lotus shoes, scold’s bridles,
etc. Removing or breaking them may trigger some magical effect. Scars,
tattoos, and brands, especially those of binding diagrams, may also be
worn visibly or even flaunted as markers of adversity overcome.

Contextual Perversion - The Oni known as Sore Thumb manifests in a

group of four or more humans, Others, or objects, always conspicuously
different from the crowd and always accepted: A well-dressed socialite at a
house party, a chihuahua in a pack of hounds, a needle in a haystack or a
perfectly average Faerie.
A pre-Meiji era noblewoman’s sealant-blackened teeth, considered a
marker of beauty and hygiene in her time, would shock and alarm most
modern humans. The Other is defined as that distinct from humanity, and
the Oni embrace that label, often defining themselves as that which a
specific cultural instance of humanity rejects.

Rather than the inversion typically associated with Lost, where something
normal (a businessman) contrasts with something strange (being
constantly on fire and never being burned), some Oni mess with cultural
signifiers and expectations more maliciously, othering themselves by
breaking taboos - passing food directly between chopsticks to demonstrate
disdain for ritual purity (which interacts interestingly with those Oni who
align themselves with forces of purity condemning humanity), wearing
visible tattoos in public, or breaking rules as basic and unconsidered as the
Western rule that mens’ shirts button on the right side and womens on the
left, for example, so that sharp eyes may understand that something is
wrong without knowing what.

Oni deliberately eschew the idea of centralized human morality so often

used to justify conquest, framing their own morality as internal, based on
that of higher powers or of other status quos relative to that of those they
oppose - and so they often appear as foreigners. North American Oni tend
to wear East Asian clothing; Oni in East Asia may mix, pollute, or twist
cultural signifiers in deliberately offputting ways, often employing Western
signifiers to that effect. Adherence to old sumptuary laws becomes a
reminder of the meaninglessness of norms; shackles and other articles of
bondage may serve this purpose as well. This yen for the taboo is why Oni
is so often mistranslated as ‘Demon’.

Sect - His sister, always the family favorite, had five weapons finished at
his age, so Michel decides to go for quality over quantity. Quenching his
sword in this impudent stranger’s blood will be the capstone of the ritual to
empower his very first magic sword, five times as strong as hers.

Besides, his opponent carries only an empty scabbard. How hard could
restoring his honor be?

While Sect may influence appearance, Oni have a vested interest in being
difficult to identify. Appearance alone typically will not give enough details to
determine a Sect, in the same way as it will not be enough for binding.
There are links, but they’ll usually be highly abstracted and only identifiable
retroactively: a Scroll-sect Oni might wear clothing the color of flame and
 char to symbolize burnt paper and the destruction of knowledge, or an Oni
of the Knife might have a face on the back of their head, making them
harder to backstab.

Rank: Isaiah watches as his master pours their visitor tea, trying to figure
out who’ll be giving the orders. Is she pouring the tea graciously for a
subordinate, respectfully for a superior, or because the visiting Oni’s arms
are permanently bound in a straitjacket?

The title of Oni is one to be earned. The finer levels of internal Oni
hierarchy aren’t easy for outsiders to discern without clear signs, like a
student pouring tea for an elder - although the Oni penchant for perversion
may in some cases occlude even these. Still, there are rules.
Higher-ranking Oni are typically more ornamented; noble Oni typically have
more armor, tools, and weapons than they could physically carry floating
around them, and the kind of spiritual claim and weight required to have
those weapons float are heavily associated with that nobility. Highly-ranked
Oni might also have their possessions carried by a retinue of lesser Oni, or
be carried themselves in a palanquin.

Oni of the very highest ranks tend to remain secluded in pocket realms,
which can often be considered extensions of them in the same ways as
floating items are for weaker Oni.

What few True Oni remain occupy a highly privileged spot in the ranking
system simply by virtue of what they are, with their ties to karmic
vengeance - though this may not necessarily translate into having actual
social power. The kanabo, a studded iron war club, is or was considered
emblematic of them; the leader of a particularly strong cell of Oni might
bear one ceremonially.

Oni Mages

Although families of Oni practitioners do exist, and the occasional Oni

Mage is inducted via discovery of a magic item, North American Oni tend to
prefer lone students or small groups. Oni and Oni Practitioners are often
considered at minimum subversive, if not fully transgressive, and are
therefore likely to be at a social disadvantage when interacting with the
Practitioner establishment. Less charitably, isolated students tend to be
alienated and easier to control.

It’s harder for groups to pack up and move, so enclaves (often but not
exclusively families) of Oni Practitioners may only act against distant
targets and avoid angering those nearby, who will usually be at minimum
suspicious. The Lord of Long Beach has been known to shelter Oni Mages
in exchange for favors, stockpiling them as insurance against the political
turmoil of surrounding Los Angeles; a rare few others have followed his
example, though most prefer to keep specific families as trump cards.

Friction with Practitioners of more respectable Practice is often a

headache, but Oni Mages may also need to deal with other Oni Mages.
There’s a common understanding that failing to guard items - or even
spells, with certain tricks - from other groups of Oni Mages makes one
unworthy of them. Many Oni encourage this practice, and see it as a way to
keep their students sharp; some may even cultivate multiple groups of
students and pit them against each other, as insurance against internal
dissent.

Relationships between Oni and Oni Practitioners span a wide spectrum.

Some Oni seek out those they see as doomed, using them to inflict
maximum amounts of destruction on the establishment as they spiral
downward; some Oni take on only idealists. Most Oni lie somewhere in
between, teaching students they hope will use their skills for the better with
the pragmatic understanding that they may need to one day turn on them.

Initiation rites for Practitioners vary by sect, but commonly involve sacrifice
- a would-be Oni Mage might have to seal away a spell or destroy a
personally significant item or relationship.

TEACHER: “Ishiba-Date and his followers understood a certain level

of individual freedom as a requirement for maintaining the
compromise of social order, Death as the ultimate denial of that
freedom, and killing as a hideous yet necessary act. They took
human initiates far from the war and gave them Unaware targets who
abused authority: magistrates who held towns in strangleholds; petty
murderers; husbands who beat their wives hard enough to break their
bones; children who imprisoned their elderly parents and parents who
imprisoned their young children. Ishiba-Date’s sect required initiates
to watch their targets for a year, kill them or let them go free, and
watch their victims for a year and a day afterward regardless of their
decision. Killing and not killing both have a cost.”
 STUDENT: “Did it work?”

TEACHER: “It was a beautiful idea.”

STUDENT: “But you haven’t had me judge somebody like that.”

TEACHER: “‘All power lives at the edge of the knife.’ Ishiba-Date’s

sect was wiped out not by purge but by attrition. If they’d been able to
replenish their ranks more quickly, or spent those novices’ years on
combat training instead of righteousness and ideological purity, they
might have survived, and the world would have been better for it. I
told them to take up their swords, but the poor doomed idiots refused.
Observe, student, the race to the bottom: the sword kills everything
but itself.”

Bianca was born to a family of Whirlpool Wardens tasked with sealing a

Primeval Beast deep offshore. When her mother slipped up on a routine
inspection, an Oni was there, and saved her in exchange for a magic item,
safe passage to shore and an agreement not to act against each other. But
an unexpected change in Lordship and an unstable current Lord have left
the Wardens without the backing and infrastructure they need to keep the
Primeval contained. Kayla’s mother wants a combat specialist she can
trust, and whose loss won’t weaken the all-important wards - so she offers
Kayla up as an apprentice in exchange for a few favors, expecting her to
eventually betray her teacher and return to the family with new skills.

Natsue’s parents were on vacation when her mother called her in a panic
and told her to leave a plate of food in the basement she didn’t even know
their house had. She’s repeated the chore every Thursday since then, even
though her parents refuse to tell her anything more. That’s not the only
thing she can’t discuss: her parents might be fairly progressive for their
social circles but it’s been made obvious to her, after her father stumbled on
a deeply embarrassing search history, that the attraction to women she’s
discovering will not be tolerated.

And then one Thursday, when it’s long since become routine and her
parents are gone, she goes down to the basement and there’s a woman
with her mouth sewn shut sitting calmly in a black iron cage.

By luck, fate, or Karma, Francis escaped the clutches of a mental hospital

run by a coven of Rapacious Practitioners - but his innocent life and Self
were nearly destroyed in the process. No matter what he does, he can’t
 seem to get anybody else to care about the hell on Earth that some part of
him will never leave: the local Lord expressed a willingness to allow them to
keep operating as long as they keep things tidy, and Francis is the first
loose end in a hundred years; local Practitioners buy from them; the local
Alabaster regards their actions as a mercy. Desperate and Unawakened,
he calls out for power at any price, and an Oni answers.

Oni Practices
Oni practices tend towards Combat and Interactions, although specific
tricks and Sects can fall almost anywhere on the chart. Even Peddler Oni
will usually have some kind of magical way to make a getaway.

Conflict Deals Visceral Immaterial Divine

Conjure Smoke and Mirror
Prices Candle Clock
Tools Borrower Oni Peddler?
Realms Trickpocket
Interact Oni Specialist Snarler Black Hat Trigger Puller Spotlight Stealer
Lore Butterfly Wing
Protect Unsealer

Smoke and Mirror Mages summon copies of themselves from

mirrors, each just real enough to do damage and inflict effects when
destroyed. With experience, they can pull copies of other things from
the Mirror Realm, a dark interstitial space lit only by the views from
reflections.

Candle Clocks want something - typically vengeance - badly enough

that they’re willing to make a contract with an Oni at the cost of their
eventual life for it. They trade oaths of servitude for access to Oni
tricks they fuel with their own blood, not expecting to survive.

Borrowers, also known as (K)Nickpockets, perform rituals with

various tradeoffs against long-term claim (swearing to never claim a
Demesne, for example) in exchange for vastly increased short term
claim temporarily, ‘borrowing’ magic items they have even the
slightest claim on for long enough to turn them on their owners and
reap the associated karmic bonuses. Who owns the knife you threw
through my arm? It’s covered in my blood, and it’s in my hand now, so
it’s mine for the next few minutes - long enough to kill you with.
The Trickpocket or Bandolier makes use of linked inro and other
sagemono - containers acting as portals, to each other or to
‘hammerspace’ extremely small pocket realms - to infiltrate, catch
and deploy effects, and escape the seemingly unescapable. A mirror
subvariant is known to exist.

Butterfly Wings are more a methodology than a specific practice -

Oni stalkers and snipers looking to cause maximum change with
minimum interference. They stake out and research targets, taking
advantage of their routines and preparing countermeasures to their
defenses, before striking exactly once, with a knife or well-placed
word.

The Unsealer deliberately binds their actions, body parts, and

capabilities as defensive measures - in exchange for power when
those bindings are broken, by themselves or by others. Hold a
diagram-covered arm in the way of an enemy sword, so that the blow
unleashes a retaliatory gout of flame, pull off an eyepatch to see
weak points, or open a mouth that’s been closed for a year to give
your words more weight.

Snarlers subvert, snarl, and reassign Connections, often using

knives, needles, or fingers to manipulate threads into cat’s cradle
patterns - or knots. Often work with Innocents and Aware, making
them a natural fit for the Sect of Wands. Particularly dangerous
against Practices like Collectors or Puppeteers, who need specific
arrangements of connections.

Black Hats take advantage of the difficulties Practitioners and Spirits

have adapting to Technomancy, with an emphasis on sabotage and
the destructive - infecting biological organisms with computer viruses,
draining power batteries, and creating threats that reshape
themselves.

Trigger Pullers, also known as Everters or Enantiodromists, reveal

and awaken shadow selves in humans, gaining information and
forcing targets to confront desires made Other while bypassing
certain protections against harm.

Balance Tippers, Spotlight Stealers, or Centers of Gravity work

with Spirits like showmen, prepping them for certain tricks and
against others. They may emphasize spiritual significance in the form
 of literal weight or use spotlights and shadows to draw and elide
Spirits’ attention.

Oni Mages are the specialist practice, dabbling in all kinds of Oni
tricks at significant cost to their non-Oni practice.

Complicating this, of course, is the fact that Oni Mages often tend to
dabble, both between subschools and in other branches of Practice
entirely, both as cover and in seeking different attack vectors to make them
harder to ward against.

Oni magic is subtle and tricky, typically to make up for a lack of brute force
and weakness in direct confrontation. It often makes use of status effects,
triggerable conditions, and specific rules associated with the Oni or Oni
Mage in question.

In seeking to subvert the Practice, which is bound to convention, they made

a lack of convention into one of their conventions: Oni tricks gain bonuses
when they surprise the spirits, rather than when they adhere to pattern.
Broadly speaking, this emphasis on up-front surprise often comes at the
expense of the long term: Longevity is often traded off for Puissance or
Access, and activation is often easy, with costs paid beforehand or after. It’s
not that Oni spells with great longevity don’t exist, but why make the Spirits
maintain a stone spike that speared upward from the ground when that
power could be expended in other ways? A fireball is more efficient than a
beam of fire, and Oni are mindful of costs.

One starting point when creating Oni practices is to consider Practices

available to nearly all Practitioners and twist them. Practitioners speak
Truth, and so Oni might be able to lie in certain circumstances; Oni might
offer up poisoned blood that causes rituals to backfire, profit from
gainsaying among Practitioners by scooping a little extra Karma off the top
for themselves, or have names or other characteristics that make them
difficult to bind. Oni Awakening Rituals may take place in secret, and
involve promises to the Spirits to later surprise and delight them for their
trouble.

More esoteric Oni practices may involve specific fields: the “recoloration” of
glamour; the justification of weakness via research into Heroic bloodlines;
the manipulation of Spiritual flows for adverse effects (this last proved
problematic enough for Practitioners that it became a factor in the
proliferation of Komainu).
Example Oni Spells

Missile/Sword:
Black Dart/Black Blade - Throw an Oni Knife with a nasty effect.
Draw Blood - Draw a weapon from blood - yours or your opponent’s.

Breach:
Eclipse Step - Mark out and walk the lines between light and shadow.
Teleports Behind You - Just what it says. tch. Nothing personnel, kid.
Unstoppable Strike - Strike that tells you if you can break the target and
rewinds if you can’t.

Empower:
Cut Sleeve - Flip Coup and claim tokens with a share of the target’s power.
Set Snare - Set traps with Ofuda

Deflect/Pacify:
Ayatori Reversal - Catch projectiles in loops of string.
See/Slip Shackles - Let the Bound off the leash, but only temporarily.

Obscure:
Kagome Kagome - Stun pursuers if you know their names.
Fade Into Mist - Flee into the Spirit world, to heal, escape, or ambush.
I Wash My Hands Of This - Undo battle damage.

15 Oni Spells, and ideas for more, below!

 fl
Black Dart/Black Blade
Missile/Sword (Conflict, Basic, Trick)

Throw an Oni knife with a deleterious effect.

The Practice: Oni have a tendency to employ sharp projectiles: thowing

knives, darts, shuriken, needles, quills, or even shadows. The effects those
projectiles apply are as varied as the projectiles themselves and the oni
who teach these tricks - in fact the projectile is more accurately understood
as the vector for some other oni trick effect, although the physical and
metaphysical force of a knife to the face certainly shouldn’t be
underestimated.

Alternately, with the Black Blade variant, the effect is loaded onto a sword.
Black Blade only applies for one swing, but if this option is offered instead a
player should get a modest reward in exchange for the more difficult
application - maybe an extra step up in one arcana, or an extra Executions
option?

Application is simple. Hit something or someone with a knife. One quick

action. Power may scale with time since last use, or with the number of
people present who don’t know the knife’s effect. Just because the
application is relatively quick doesn’t mean these should be treated like
normal projectiles, however. Potency decreases rapidly if you try to spam
them. Think of them more like trump cards - and be careful when you use
them.

Here’s an inexhaustive list of possible effects with varying levels of power.

Pick appropriately, GMs.

Pin a target in place by hitting the shadow they cast.

Poison on unarmored hit - The player should have a supply of

poison-specific antidote freely available if this option is chosen.
Recall the projectile to hand to hit a target between the Oni/Oni Mage
on its way back (possibly carrying their blood on it, which can then be
put to other uses)

Projectile explodes if stopped; explodes twice as hard if picked up.

Useful against claim and connection-based practices. Especially
nasty against those skilled enough to catch a projectile out of the air.

On hit, forcibly overcharges then burns out Practice currently being

invoked by a Practitioner or item. Particularly effective against power
batteries. Karmically appropriate. Slow practices that can’t be
overcharged.

Get to look at the target’s character sheet.

Seal away one of the target’s practices.

Reverse coup; coup counted against you by the target instead is

reversed.

Targets who cannot move or defend themselves take more damage.

Targets who are in the midst of practicing, performing an action that
can be interrupted, or otherwise preoccupied such that they will not
move are maimed.

Deals horrific amounts of extra damage if it hits a target monologuing,

specifically.

Knives deal Karmic rather than physical damage.

Invoke the effects of a target’s negative karma on hit - ie, the GM

throws a problem in their way. May not be physical - an urgent social
connection or business deal might choose that time to call, and if they
fail to pick their phone up they’ll lose a relationship or opportunity. A
magic item might fall, free to whoever or whatever picks it up first. etc.

Both parties, thrower and target, get pushed away from or dragged
together on hit. Thrower’s choice. If it’s been long enough, one might
even get teleported to the other.

Projectiles have sharp shadows, which burrow through barriers when

the projectiles proper cannot.

Knives have an echo - a second later, a second knife will follow the
line the first was thrown along.
 Knife will turn once in midair and head for the target, making it harder
to block with directional blocks, bypassing cover, and just generally
being really anime. Ideally it turns in midair and strikes during an
opponent’s turn or after you’ve thrown another so they can be hit from
two sides.

Arcana:
Puissance - Magnitude of effect. Damage, status effect
chance/intensity.

Access - Number of knives (+ cost?) preparable per downtime.

Keeping knife number low does make them feel stronger… not quite
sure but this is the best I can think of for now. Throw should be quick.

Longevity - “Stickiness” of effect; ease of evasion; ease of effect

circumvention.

Executions: Number of known effects. 4-5 at Supreme?

Advancement: More effects can be learned. Further/stronger effects

may result from arrangements of knives: two knives may have razor wire
strung between them; three successive thrown knives may lock a target in
the triangle between them. Further development might even include the
ability to tag a single knife with multiple effects. Effects might be able to be
loaded onto swords or bullets, or gain bonuses to hit based on coup.

fl
Draw Blood
Sword

Pull blood blades from wounds - your own and those of your enemies.

The Practice: An open wound is touched with the hand and blood is
drawn out in the form of a blade, at cost to the Self of the wound-haver.
 If the sword is drawn from the opponent, it will bypass certain wards and
protections keyed to them. When the sword itself contacts fresh blood, it
refreshes its timer (governed by Longevity).

The sword’s damage should be tuned by the DM to give the player an

incentive to use this beyond just always having a sword available.

Arcana:
Puissance - Damage done from a draw. From a target, at Supreme,
the wound explodes with blood, inflicting a high level wound - at
Worst, the cost in Self is drawn from the user. From oneself, at
Supreme, damage is negligible and can be near-immediately healed
from a self-inflicted wound made for this purpose. At Worst, the user
may need to roll to keep standing.

Access - Difficulty of Draw Justification. At Good, can be performed

without direct contact with the wound from a foot away as a normal
action if eyes are locked with the targets - at Supreme a weapon
coated in blood will do the trick (yes this does count the sword itself.
Pulling more blood swords out is the kind of cool behavior DMs
should promote.). At Worst, a blood-covered hand must enter the
wound in question and stay there for a turn.

Longevity - How long does the blood blade stick around? A few
actions? A few turns? A battle? A day? Forever?

Executions: Can you do other things with that blood? Load it into a
gun? Form it into different shapes? Empower another weapon?

Advancement: ???

fl
Fade Into Mist
Obscure -

Enter the Spirit World in a cloud of mist to escape, reposition, or ambush.

The Practice: Produces a cloud of mist/smoke, and the practitioner can

elect to enter the Spirit World. If they do, they may be more vulnerable to
some practices, if the enemy looks for them there, but they are otherwise
undetectable to conventional sight and Sight and can choose somewhere
nearby where they reappear. One cannot generally take offensive action
while in the spirit world, and must remain there for one round before
reappearing. (Resting to restore Effort/binding wounds/preparing other
Practices is encouraged). Size of cloud and distance of movement before
being revealed greatly increase with puissance and time between uses.

Activation should be quick and relatively easy; the cost might be in

preparation, downtimes, or come later. Place thumb to forefinger and blow
a cone of smoke - or throw what seems to be an egg down on the ground
to break it - or cut a temporary portal between realms that mist pours out of,
clap your hands together loudly and smoke billows from your palms - etc.
Flavor for the player in question: Mist and Smoke are easy defaults but
there’s no reason that Flame or other elements wouldn’t work (as long as
the emphasis isn’t on damage. If it is, weaken other parameters
accordingly). Follow your weeaboo heart.

Arcana:
Puissance - Cloud size, movement distance, recovery time between
uses.

Access - Access: Are there conditions for activation? Spirits may

take offense to this trick if performed multiple times. How irritated
might they be, and how hard might they be to appease? Not sure
about this one - might just require downtimes for appeasement per
use beyond the first - but it’s a neat downside. Of course, you can
always just go with supply costs.

Longevity - Time the smoke sticks around and how difficult it is to

remove. Amount of time that can be taken in the Spirit World to
prepare and heal.

Executions: What can you do with the smoke? Can you make it go
high or stay low? Can you see through it and even let allies see
through it with you?

Advancement: Smoke can be used as a vector, carrying curses, forming

phantom shapes, dragging targets into the spirit world with you, or
solidifying. Lean into the elemental side, exploiting the ability of Elemental
Practice to override/nullify? Smoke can also make it easier to hit your
opponent: bonuses to hit when aiming through it, or maybe it just lets you
see through as if it were clear. Maybe even drag opponents into the Spirit
World? That borders on Realms practice but Oni should be a little
unpredictable…
 fl
Ayatori Reversal: All Things Are Bound By The Red
String Of Fate
Deflect/Pacify.

Catch and redeploy ranged attacks in a loop of string.

The Practice: Whai, Ayatori, Fan Sheng, Na’atl’o, Cat’s Cradle – string
games have a deep and widespread history, and their symbolic significance
and ease of working make them a worldwide if not particularly common
means of invoking practice.

A loop of string is the most basic diagram: an enclosed circle/an empty

field. If properly prepared and deployed, an Oni or Oni Mage can “catch”
spells (limiting by type depends on practitioner expertise/DM limits) and
hold them before sending them back at their caster. Reconfiguring the loop
by reconfiguring the hands changes that effect to a nearby one (fire to
electricity) or an opposing one (fire to ice). Extra karmically appropriate to
use it against somebody who launched it at you/their ally. Primarily a
defensive practice.

Certain string figures are known to employ the mouth or even the feet -
locking movement speed or requiring one to not speak during creation
might be a useful drawback - adding it might make the spell better. If one
were to somehow acquire multiple arms, surely the efficiency of this spell
could be vastly increased.

This spell, or something like it, may be a key spell for a Trickpocket or
Snarler - though of course Oni of any variety may have something similar.

Arcana:
Puissance - What counts as a catchable spell? It should be targeted,
not AoE, and visible - but with sufficient Puissance the loop might
stretch wider than it could. How much of the spell’s power can be
returned? Rows at lower power, columns at higher, at very high can
be customized beforehand for schools?

Access - DC of the dex or wits (DM decides) roll to catch a spell.

How many hands does this take? How fast can you transform the
effect, and how many hands does that take?
 Longevity - How well is the caught spell contained? How many loops
can you carry? At Worst, power actively decays the longer the loop is
held. With lower arcana, the player might need to roll each turn to
keep it contained.

Executions: Executions: Number and kinds of shifts you can do to

the practice caught. At worst, the practice might need to be fired at
the exact same enemy who sent it at you. Moderate might let you
skew things just a little - fire to lighting against a fire elementalist, to
bypass their protections. At Good, caught offensive practices might
be returned with oppositional affinity: fire to ice or water; purifying to
accursed.

Advancement: Caught loops might be wound around spools to create

power batteries that can then be expended to ensure a later attack hits
against the opponent who launched it at you. Spy on an opponent, work out
their means of attack - and then, if you’ve seen their technique, and you’re
right, you might catch their sword in the red string between your fingers, or
red ropes might extend from “offstage” and bind your opponent’s sword an
inch away from their head while you remain perfectly calm.

fl
See Shackles/Slip Shackles
Sight/Deflect, Connections

A pair of practices typically taught together. The first allows the Oni
Practitioner to gain information about summoned Others; the second allows
them to temporarily call those Others off in specific circumstances.

The Practice: A ritual is performed (giving up unearned authority over

others, both Other and Human), after which the Oni Practitioner gains the
ability to See connections of hierarchy in the form of leashes, ropes,
reaching hands, snakes, puppet strings, chains etc linking a controlled
target to a controlling force/representation thereof. Tautness of line
indicates tightness of connection. Loyal targets won’t be affected and will
probably just attack anyway. With even low arcana, The Oni Practitioner
can discern compulsion - is that statue Other on watch forcibly bound or a
loyal Stone Lion, which would attack you for being an Oni without being
commanded?

To Slip Shackles, the Oni Practitioner must then be physically positioned

between the controlled and controller, feel out the line between them, then
hold something with an edge on that connection and flick sharply upward or
downward. Only compelled connections can be broken, and the connection
break is ALWAYS temporary, in keeping with the Oni tendency to sacrifice
longevity, but if it’s loose enough, the controller won’t know while it knits
itself back together. The compelled will have a brief reprieve, and can
speak freely if they are so inclined (depends on intelligence, nature of the
bond, and other factors), before returning to their duty/pursuit.

It should be clear that this can only be pushed so far. A Lost forced into a
role by the Paths might gladly take a chance to sit down and chat;
separating an Incarnate Force from the bearer it’s consuming is basically
impossible. What’s the difference? The Paths are not as metaphysically
close to the individual Lost, whereas the Incarnation and bearer are nearly
indistinguishable. Consider also that the controlled will likely be punished
by the controller for even momentary lapse, and may choose to not
cooperate in fear of that punishment.

An extremely useful practice for a Snarler.

Arcana:

Puissance - How far away (physically and metaphysically) from the

Controller does the Controllee have to be for the Slip to work?

Access - What counts as an edged object? What counts as a

compelled connection - can you only let Others slip or can this be
applied to humans, Aware or Innocent? Do you need to be
empty-handed during, or even incapable of attacking the Controlled
once Slipped?

Longevity - How much time do you have? Just a sentence

exchanged with the controlled? How strong is the snap-back on the
connection - strong enough to alert the Controller?

Executions: How much can you tell about the bond? Is it a formal
contract, and can the Oni know the terms? What are both parties
getting out of the contract? Where was the contract made? At Worst,
you can’t even tell if the bond is compelled or not.

Advancement: If you’re being pursued by two or more Controlled and

you manage to get between both and their controllers, tie a knot in their
crossing connection lines to tie them up and make it harder for them to find
you (this also makes it harder for them to get alerted, since the connections
 aren’t being snapped.) Jump and walk on connection lines. Maybe, with
sufficient development, possibly even temporarily evade your own
obligations…

fl
Eclipse Step
Breach

Walk paths merely insinuated, along vines, flowing water, the lines of light
and shadow, or the edge of a knife.

The Practice: Mark out a path and cross physical barriers. At the most
basic use, crossing through glass windows without breaking the glass. With
more advanced use, can pass through walls if the moon shines on either
side, or go from the ground, up a wall, to a rooftop. On a battlefield, these
pathways allow one to move without difficulty through some hazards and
avoid attacks of enemies while moving along the path. Works with mere
gestures and focus if the moonlight and shadow are both pronounced (and
if the practitioner’s abilities are sufficient). If they are not, can take time in
advance, typically with a blade held out and a means of creating a path of
light or shadow- the blade may be held up, the light reflecting off of the
edge to draw a line, which Eclipse Step can then be used with. May take
several rounds, depending on ability and environment. Oni Mages and Oni
can cross this path naturally, but others generally only do so with practice.

Also you should get bonuses and coup for moving on an effect the
opponent set in place, because that’s cool.

A DM may want to start an Oni player off with a non-shadow version of this
trick - reflavor accordingly.
Arcana:

Puissance - How long can you stay on the path - this applies both to
distance and time. How many rounds in combat will you avoid attacks
along that path; how far can you go per use? At Worst, you can’t
break from that Path yourself if your opponent happens to be waiting
at the end.

Access - How easy is it to activate? Does it require an incantation

overcome with a visible sign? Is there a period between activations
and if so how long?
 Longevity - How easy is it to disrupt with Practice? Is a resistance to
disruption imparted along your path, beyond the basic?

Executions: What kinds of features can you follow? Just lines of light
and shadow, or paths along breezes, smoke, flowing water, blood,
flames, tree roots, or even electrical lines?

Advancement: Go further, take people with you, follow lines made of any
single material (surf the edges of a diagram without falling in) or skate more
obscure boundaries - cliffs, edges of homes or demesnes, or realm
boundaries?

fl
Rule of Four
Ritual, Basic

Define yourself Other, and play by different rules.

The Practice: Practice is founded on patterns, and one of the most basic
patterns of Western Practice is the rule of three. Ritually declare yourself
separate from the world of practitioners and operate on a different rule.
Third hits against you won’t stick quite as heavily; attempts to break an
opponent’s rule of three will be easier. Knives will fly better, and the
universe will contrive to let you in to sabotage the third ritual diagram
attempt that that pesky Astrologer is trying to use to take control of the
town. Curses nailed in three times against you can be upended and sent
back to the cursewright.

Gain bonuses to hit after your opponent does the same thing twice. Be
aware, though: if you want to nail something in, justify a curse, or ground a
high-level diagram, you may want to use Four instead.

In some contexts, including but not limited to East Asian necromantic

practices, astrological practices associated with cardinal direction, and
certain Western elementalism practices, Four is an expected number. In
such contexts, an alternate ritual exists where one then comes to be
defined by three.

Arcana:
 Not sure what Arcana would even mean for this? You can try plugging
them in if you want, of course - Access for cost; Executions for
control, etc.

Advancement:

Also not sure if this would do anything.

fl
Teleports Behind You - Tch. Nothing Personnel, Kid
Breach, Oni, Chronomancy, Trick

Teleport behind a target.

The Practice: Teleport behind a target who has seen you. Very hard to
do when you’re visible, easier with a distraction, easier with a greater
karma differential, easier when you’re out of their field of view after being
seen.

Declare what you’re going to do to the spirits (the dm); your target gets a
chance to guess or figure out where you are and block the strike. This spell
can only be used to teleport behind someone if a path exists that you could
theoretically easily take to get behind them easily. Of course, a target can
only be chosen if being seen.

Add bonuses for distractions, karma differential, and/or especially

disappearing from the target’s sight. If anybody else is watching the target’s
back, subtract one. Effort pips can be expended to make this process
easier.

Roll with advantage to strike immediately after teleporting.

Works surprisingly well as a means of escape, if done quietly. Teleport

behind them and just… walk away.

Can be reflavored as Teleports In Front Of You - if so, grant a chance to

inflict shock in exchange for the opponent’s check being lower (easier to
react to somebody in front than behind.)

Arcana:
 Puissance - How many times do they need to see you to teleport?
Supreme - a glimpse, silhouette. Enough that they might think “Huh?
Was there really a person there?”; Good; Be clearly visible; Moderate
- enough attention must be paid to identify you; Poor - Enter and
leave their field of vision at least twice; Awful - three times; Worst -
You have to yell “Behind you!” and be heard as well as seen.

Access - Access: How hard is the ATH roll to teleport?

Does trying take effort pips - and if so how many, and do you get
them back if you fail?

Longevity - How hard is it to stop you from doing this? Does others
watching the target’s back provide a noticeable penalty? Can you get
past protective practices?

Executions: At Worst, you must immediately perform a melee attack;

at high Longevity, get extra time to prepare.

Advancement: Teleport through physical objects or wards, if a condition

is fulfilled? Get into Demesnes? Explode into blinding fireworks at your
destination or departure point? Get extra bonuses for using this in melee
range? Chain teleports?

fl
Unstoppable Strike - Let It Be Put To The Sword
Breach

Cut anything you can - and rewind time so that anything you can’t is
something you never tried to.

The Practice: An unstoppable strike is a strike that cannot be stopped.

An unstoppable strike is a strike that needs to be presented as

unstoppable.

In other words, if that strike were to fail, the universe could not accept its
use. The universe rewinds to the point before the user declared and used
it, and the user is given the knowledge that the thing it was used to cut was
too strong for it. Precognitive techniques like this typically incur a Karmic
cost - Karmic costs for this one are far lessened, due to the focused scope
and Oni nature of the spell.
 More simply: once per combat?, attempt to break something you can
physically hit. If it’s too strong, you retroactively didn’t break it, but you get
details on its strength, and you and the GM rewind to before your attempt.

If this technique is used to break or stop something in view of an opponent,

that category of thing can be destroyed again with another swing of a
sword/arrow for free - a fireball, if cut once, will be cut again with no effect;
a ring with five wound slot charges, if its shield is broken once, will have the
remainder expended.

If this technique were used to kill an opponent, another use is granted

without needing the cooldown.

Arcana:
Puissance - How much stronger than a normal one of your strikes is
it? (DMs, you’re going to need to figure out how to quantify this :)
maybe x steps above you on a y point scale, with x and y scaling with
arcana value? Have it tied to metaphysical weight/social coup as
retaliatory? You shouldn’t be cutting gods with this - it’s meant to
dramatically no-sell a single defense or attack and force the opponent
to rethink their strategy.)

Access - How hard is the Social roll to pull this off, and how many
times can you retry per “failure”? At Worst, no survivors beyond
ambient spirits can be allowed to perceive this trick. At Supreme, try
the trick up to three total times or when it first would cut through
successfully, whichever comes first.

Longevity: How much information do you get on failure? Moderate

might give you a yes or no on if you have any other options that could
break or elide the cut defense or attack, in addition to the roleplayed
cut.

Executions: What, exactly, can be meant by Category Of Thing? A

specific attack? A swarm of bees? A specialty, subfield, or field?
(Heat Elementalism, Echo-bound weaponry, Immaterial Practices?
Use clues to sync it to particular targets?, incentivizing research
pre-battle)?

fl
Cut Short - STFU
???, Reflavorable for Sharks
 Stop people partway through their sentences, and hold them to account for
what they said.

The Practice: An edged weapon is held and visibly slashed through the
air as the target speaks, cutting their sentence short. “I’m going to kill you
unless you give me what I want.” becomes “I’m going to kill you.” The
spirits will hold the target to their word. Particularly dangerous with oaths.

Can and should be used to interrupt incantations, invocations, and

monologuing - may give bonuses to next rolls to hit?

Judicious use, especially against the same target, will see the Spirits upset
with the Oni Practitioner. Can be warded against.

In play, I would assume the DM finishes the sentence, and then the player
decides where they cut it. Dangerous in multiplayer, especially PvP - plan
accordingly.

Arcana:
Puissance: How many words can you cut off a sentence? Plus two
per rank above Worst? At Worst, you might have to interrupt
immediately.

Access: (???)

Longevity: How many sentences ago can you go back and use this?
(not sold on this one)

Executions: (???)

fl
I Wash My Hands Of This
Obscure

Fix all the damage you did during a battle - leaving your opponent on the
Karmic hook for all the damage they did. Key Spell for Interactions X
Divine.
 The Practice: The Oni Practitioner clearly says “I wash my hands of this.”
to restore the damage they, and only they, have done and reset their
condition. Declare the area beforehand to draw innocents near the border
but keep them out, perfect for revealing your opponent in compromising
situations. Especially fun when it looks like you’ve lost a fight, but the
Unaware happen to stumble in on your opponent with your knife to your
throat, forcing them to back off, and you can then pin all the damage on
them, honestly saying that they just showed up and started destroying
things and attacking you.

Cost is lowered if Spirits in an area like you.

Arcana:
Puissance - Degree of disconnection created. At Moderate, physical
damage to you is healed; at good, physical damage to you and your
equipment is reset to the state it was at the beginning of the battle; at
Supreme, all physical and metaphysical damage to you is gone. Be aware
that resetting definitionally includes the loss of coup, claimed boons/items,
etc.

Access - Think of this as control I guess? Determines ability to cut off

deleterious effects and Others while restoring everything to normal,
replacing some of the wreckage your opponent has created and
charging them correspondingly lower Karmic costs in exchange for
overruling certain of their effects. Feel free to move this to Executions
and put something else here.

Longevity - How permanent is the effect? At low Longevity, the

damage will tend to reassert itself over time, even if the Spirits no
longer blame the Oni Practitioner - a once-broken wall will break
down for other reasons. At Supreme, the environment will be
resistant to physical and metaphysical damage for a time; the
attention of the Spirits will make everything there work a little better.

Executions: How much control do you have over whether innocents

show up? At high executions, govern the spiritual flows that people
tend to follow like a conductor; at Worst, people will only show up
when you don’t want them to.

Unnickable name
Ritual.
Set and guard a True Name.

The Practice: Ritual that, once completed, inflicts chances for minor but
stacking Karmic penalties on those who call the Practitioner by anything but
the designated complete name, nicknames included (pronouns not
included), at the cost of setting one apart from the social fabric. A name
with insufficient connection to the self cannot be used. Strengthens the
connection between Self and that precise form of name such that
identity-stealing Practices are weaker.

The theoretical framework underlying this ritual is the anchoring of the

Name and Self against opposition, and so opposition should exist. Practice
is about the manipulation of symbols, and the most important symbol is the
name; those with names forced upon them, by residential schools,
unaccepting families, or abusive marriages, understand this instinctively.
Without such opposition, the spirits will consider the opposition in question
that applied to the Oni, which serves to tie Oni Mages performing the ritual
further to the cause. In such cases an extra cost should be paid.

The practitioner must introduce themselves or be introduced under their

actual Name to trigger the effect against a target. More effective in
Japanese, due to origin and cultural expectations around the use of
suffixes. Messes with binding attempts a bit - attempts to bind must use the
chosen name and thereby cede coup to the one who has chosen that
name. However, it also prevents the use of aliases, which many Oni prefer.

Performing the ritual requires one downtime (roleplay it!), the construction
of a specific diagram, an official document or register entry containing the
name which no longer applies, a blank version of that same document, and
a means of creating a flame. The ritual itself may involve declaring oneself
other and Other; defining oneself against. DMs may want to use this as a
Milestone-type achievement for character development and may award
bonus Self/Morale/Karma appropriately.

Arcana:
Puissance - Likelihood of light karmic damage triggering per
incorrect name usage - give the player a little bit of input when/how?

Access - At Worst, introduction by another is necessary to trigger the

effect? How bad are the social downsides, and do they apply to
Innocents, Practitioners, and/or Others?
 Longevity - How strong are the upsides? How much of a boost to
Self does this ritual provide by anchoring Practitioner to Name? How
much resistance to name-based targeting is granted?

Executions: Can some targets be excluded from the effect? Does

this strengthen when used with disguises? Can the effect be put off,
building karmic potential until a revelation/statement of name applies
all the karmic damage at once? In edge cases, will the Spirits rule in
your favor?

Sleeve Cut - Tomoe’s Revenge

Empower, Coup and Claim

Draw extra coup against opponents who count coup against you, and draw
a share of their power in any minor tokens you steal.

The Practice:
Take from those who have taken from you. When Coup is counted against
you, start a timer - and if you count coup against the coup-taker in that
time, it counts double. Coup can be ‘cashed out’ by cutting a small piece of
the opponent’s clothing, which will be infused with a share of their power. In
a pinch, a lock of hair or finger may work.

A Practice often associated with Borrower Oni Practitioners.

Be aware: if the spell name is known, Chinese Practitioners or Others may

note that cut-sleeve is a Chinese metonym for homosexuality and regard
users as correspondingly irresponsible.

Arcana:
Puissance - Amount of power taken in a token. How many spells can
it fuel? What’s it worth?

Access - How often can the spell be used? Successfully defeating an

enemy reduces this timer.

Longevity - How long after opponent’s coup does the bonus apply?
 Executions: What kinds of power can the stolen bit come in the form
of? At higher Executions, if you take enough, draw it in the form of
glamour, Elements of Creation or an empowered stolen magic item;
at lower Executions, power may come with restrictions on use.

Set Snare
Empower, Trap

Seal an attack in place in an Ofuda and then break it to activate later.

The Practice:
A short ritual, and the slash of a sword, an arrow in flight, or other more
esoteric means of attack is sealed in place within an Ofuda, to be activated
with a snap of the fingers or other quick gesture at the time of the
Practitioner’s choosing. The Ofuda containing the sealed attack will float in
the air and cannot be moved (bar enough force, which will break it, and
also trigger the attack), and will be non-specific under most Sight. Oni
Mages often stand in front of the Ofuda, dodge and then counterattack,
conceal the Ofuda behind cover, etc.

In addition, the spirits agree that jumping off an Ofuda hanging in the air is
extremely cool.

Arcana:
Puissance: How much stronger (or weaker, at Worst) is the stored
attack?

Access: How much time does this take to set up? At Worst, a
downtime in the specified location while unseen is required; at
Supreme, a slash can be stored in a location-locked Ofuda in a quick
action.

Longevity: How hard is the telltale Ofuda to destroy? At Supreme, an

impact strong enough to break the Ofuda will also release the effect

Executions: How much beyond basic slashes/shots/Oni stuff can be

held? Curses? Glamour? Even Summons? Can you make them
break off weaker impacts?
 Advancement: At Basic, only one object or attack can be time-delayed
at a time. (if this is a starting spell, give the user 2-3) More Ofuda; making
Ofuda harder to see, down to only a ripple or shadow; adding effects on
break; breaking on Coup or other pre-determined triggers, or having the
opportunity to; attaching Ofuda to things instead of just having them float in
space,

l
Speak Blue Truth - I Lay Bare The
Truth of the Witches’ Banquet

??? Oni? Fae? Law? can be flavored to several practices.

Wound opponents with conjecture.

The Practice: They say a powerful group of Others known as the

Voyager Witches would hold their bloody banquets in pocket realms where
even lies were permissible - and that they would give even innocents the
right to tear them apart in turn, so long as they could unravel their riddles.
This is a weapon against those who would seek to obscure the truth.

Speak a conjecture in blue words attacking your opponent. Blue Truths

must reveal information that would seriously shame your opponent or
secret failings of theirs.

“You called this meeting about the missing spellbook hoping the
Council would condemn someone else, but [you’re the one who stole
it in the first place!]

“Damon, you can’t get away with hiding the truth any longer!
[You and Henry killed Gareth, because he saw you doing something
you weren’t supposed to!]”

“Mom, Dad, you gave me that spellbook expecting me to use it to

bind her, even though you made a deal and you gave me up freely.
[You tried to get around that promise you made, didn't you?]”

The Blue Truth demands response; refusing to answer it is as good as

admitting guilt, and the guilty are punished. Opponents who fail to respond,
or who are successfully wounded by true allegations, will be wounded by
piercing stakes of blue light in accordance with the metaphysical blow dealt
against them. If a blue truth is wrong, lose a point of Recovery; your
 opponent counts Coup against you. If you’re wrong three times, lose a
point of morale and a point of karma (or more based on Executions).

The traditional answer to the Blue Truth is the Red Truth, written in blood. If
the opponent knows this, uses their blood to color their words red, and
denies the blue truth conjecture with an appropriate red truth, immediately
lose x Morale and x karma as appropriate.

Shishiku, my student… I see you escaped the fall of Utsunomiya

Castle. All the pieces are coming together.
[You’re the reason it fell, aren’t you? All the remnants I’ve gathered
here believe you betrayed the Spider Lily Rebellion to the
Practitioners after us in exchange for your life.]

Tch. You’re wrong, old man.

You’re wrong, old man. You sent me on a risky mission that night
before, and when I got captured, you tricked everyone else into
thinking I defected. But you’re the one who sold us out, and I’m here
for revenge.

A spell often employed by and against Spotlight Stealers…Basically, it’s an

Umineko No Naku Koro Ni reference.

Arcana (In Brief):

Look I don’t know either. I wrote like fifteen of these things…

Puissance - Damage dealt?

Access - Ability to invoke consecutive Blue Truths on failure?

Longevity - ???

Executions

l
Further Oni Practice Ideas
 Empower - Slow a projectile down to walking speed but give it a power
boost, a homing attribute, and make it advance slowly through barriers.
Use both defensively and offensively.

Empower - Once per combat, take an extra turn. If the opponent isn’t dead,
incapacitated, bound, or in your power at the end of it, lose massive Karma.

Deflect - Capture anything in the sheathe of a sword (any prepared

container, but the sheathe is cool because you can thumb the tsuba to fire).
Key spell for Trickpockets.

Missile, or Deflect? - slowly shifting tattoos of nature on the arms - drifting

clouds, twining vines, flowing rivers - can be traced up or down on the arm
to move the corresponding elements towards or away in bursts.

Mark - (Nail Down?) Trace spiritual flows and use nails to anchor them in
place, making attacks more or less likely to move along the vectors you’ve
set in a prepared space. Whoever removes the nail pays the Karmic cost
for the distortion.

Breach, Advanced Ritual - As long as you’re not being actively watched,

you can be assumed to have escaped.

Spell that scales with number of points of contact to ground, increasing

gravity

Spell that lets you cut an object behind something without breaking it

Spell that gets one enhanced use out of then breaks an object

Advanced ritual: There’s always a way out - as long as you’re not being
watched, assume you escaped

r
Example Oni Patrons

Tomoe, Blind Archer - Sect of Lanterns.

Red hannya mask under a white blindfold. Blue-gray skin, black

long-sleeved haori jacket (inside embroidered - red and gold, heavily
 decorated), female archer’s chest guard underneath, japanese style
greaves, chained together near the ankle, large asymmetrical floating
longbow.

Tomoe wears a lacquered red hannya mask, seemingly bound to her

head with a white blindfold. She tends to look slightly downwards, so
that the mask expresses wistfulness. Although she will ask to be read
written words and act in other ways that imply blindness, it is just an
act - she can see through it. Blue-gray skin, mostly visible around her
neck and at her hands.

She carries several small lacquered boxes and a hearing horn at her
waist and a quiver at her back; a large asymmetrical longbow floats
behind her.

When viewed through the Sight, she looks almost exactly the same –
her hannya, however, will be facing the viewer, no matter where
they’re viewing from and is tilted in a way that implies mocking
laughter, and she may make a remark about staring being rude. If a
practitioner continues to stare after having been explicitly warned
away, the version of her in their Sight will begin to move closer to
them, looming larger in their field of view and becoming visible even
without their Sight on. If the practitioner continues to stare and
doesn’t take ablutionary measures, the illusion will place her hand
over their eyes, sealing their sight away – and leaving them easy
targets for her arrows.

She has some ability to control the version of herself imprinted in the
Sight - capable of misleading in very very dangerous ways.

Of course, when she uses smoke bombs, a Practitioner’s natural

response is to turn their Sight on and search for her.

May grant a weaker version of this effect by ritual?

Tomoe seems surprisingly easygoing for an Oni - not evasive,

exactly, just intent on whatever her target is and lacking malice
towards anything else.

This is, of course, an act.

One of Two, Widow-in-Mourning/Venom Cultivator - Vessel Sect

 Visibly depressed blue-skinned and horned middle-aged woman in a
white funeral kimono holding a clay jar. She tends to curl up in the
chest cavity of a massive empty suit of axe-bearing oni-stylized
samurai armor, which floats around her. Wears a ceramic mask of a
woman weeping (she also cries beneath the mask).

“One of Two” refers to her nature as half of a pair: red and blue, yang
and yin, Zenki, who walks in front, and Goki, who walks behind. Her
other fated half, her husband, is dead, and she’s extremely upset and
bitter – although this typically presents itself as depression and
fatalism.

She’s not great at direct combat but she doesn’t need to be - the
giant floating suit of armor around her, her late husband’s, takes care
of that for her. If it (the remnants of the Oni Who Walks In Front) locks
on to a target, she has the right to teleport behind that target (and
then she usually stabs them with a poisoned knife).

Her strengths are in poisons – while she’s working to create a single

perfected kind of venom, she has a deep understanding of spreading
contamination, curses, dosages, ancient Chinese poisoning, etc –
recently she’s become interested in memetic others. She clutches a
gu jar, which she intends to smash and commit suicide with
eventually. Decades of cultivation and refinement have left the venom
potent enough that a tiny fraction of a drop can be added to practice
to make it spread and contaminate.

Seven-Sworded Branch, Sword Unsealer - Blade Sect (Shichikyojin?)

Wooden skin, heavily grained (mokumegane, smithing technique for

layering metal like wood), and a messy mullet in darker wood. A
monk’s regalia and saffron robes belie roots in shugendo esotericism
and hint at his former nature as a Tengu. In disguise as a human,
he’s a jeans and tshirt kind of guy - often keeps his stuff in an
excessively modern hard instrument case, and his hair up in a short
ponytail.

Outwardly relaxed, or maybe even a little lazy; in reality, decades on

decades fighting Practitioners have left him exhausted, although he
does enjoy the occasional duel. Has a swordsman’s ability to read
 killing intent, and tends to become interested in things despite
himself. Tends to have weird specific hobbies as a result.

As an Other, he has been transformed from a Tengu into a sheath -

his function is to hold swords within his body and draw them forth
from various body parts.

Each of the seven swords he bears has a unique appearance and

ability.

1. Against Prosperity – drains fortune/credit score/money on

hitting an opponent or their armor or sword, costs 100$? per swing.
Swordguard looks like a yen coin.
2. Against Cultivation of Crops – when plunged into the
ground, entreats the spirits to prevent the ground from being affected,
ensuring it can’t be manipulated during combat/have circles drawn on
it. Sheath is tied off with rope.
3. Against Fortune in War – explodes on a sufficiently strong
impact; hilt must come in contact with blood to reform blade. Can be
drawn in such a way that flame or smoke is launched instead. Red
always-warm handle, with red tassel.
4. Against Music – Imposes verbal silence once drawn, (at
the cost of a heavy karmic or wound penalty?). Black lacquered
sheath.
5. Against the Peach Tree – Cuts better the older/more
historically significant the target is, up to a point (it won’t kill anything
too strong, of course) – bad at killing most humans, since they’re too
young. Very good at killing humans, once-humans, or human-derived
whose lives have been extended, such as echoes or Heartless.
Gray/white handle, cold to the touch.
6. Against Popularity – Cuts social standing rather than
flesh – also weakens the social standing of the bearer. Weaker the
more people are watching. Gold handle.
7. Parity – a very short sword. Cuts memory of the
encounter out of innocents rather than harming them. Empowers Oni
when fighting multiple opponents if a duel is refused. (+x to all rolls?)

The real trick here? Each sword’s effect applies so long as it’s unsheathed.
His fighting style involves lots of drawing, switching, and throwing swords –
with both hands at full strength – and negotiating the complex series of
effects being turned on and off. A Collector may recognize that a significant
portion of his power comes from having completed a Set, or a War Mage
 might demand a trophy - but each of the swords have nasty drawbacks,
and so they inevitably find their ways back to him.

r
Two Short Stories

Kayla shoulders her way up out of the station’s stale air, holding her duffel
bag in both arms.

It’s been a long fucking day. She tries and fails to console herself with the
thought that at least she won’t have to go to Louisiana. At least, she thinks,
she saw her dad.

And requested access for family contacts, books, and magic items that she
isn’t going to end up actually using. That’s going to be an awkward
conversation.

And dragged him into a subterranean court handing out highly erratic
karmatic sentences. That’s going to be a really awkward conversation.

Well, things could be worse: he doesn’t know she’s gay. Hopefully, he never
will.

She cuts right, into an alleyway, out of the sodium streetlights; shucks her
jacket, crams it into her bag with everything else (her thoughts, her chalk,
her knives), and lets her bag hang off her shoulder. The night air is still and
tepid – and she knows she’ll be sweating later.

As a girl alone at night, she should probably at least act a little jumpy.

Not that she isn’t the tiniest bit afraid. But it’d take a particularly skilled
Practitioner or an Other with a hold tight enough to bypass Oni tricks to
catch her – and Others that prey directly on humans are likelier to leave
Oni and their students alone anyways, since they typically hunt the weak.
Almost anything going after humans in a city, where humanity is most
ascendant, understands and fears the strength of human order.

And if somebody or something did catch her? Well, she has her knives.

Would she be this unafraid as a Finder? She wonders. Lost Magic is

notoriously flexible, and Finders are one of the few classes of Practitioner
even slipperier than Oni Mages.
There’s a fire escape, but that’ll be loud, and it’s out of her reach – so she
jumps for its shadow instead, on the opposite wall.

Eclipse Step.

Now that she knows the trick of it, running three stories up isn’t that much
harder than running the same distance flat. She hops a few rooftops, glides
along a power line, and traces a rain gutter down; it’s a block or so from
there to the bridge, where she slaps a connection blocker on her bag and
looks around.

Tomoe is already here, sitting on a bench, popping chips in her mouth

under the basket hat she wears sometimes. But then, all she had to carry
was her inrou.

“Tonight’s training,” she says, “is simple. Get to the other side of the bridge
without getting hit.”

And then she’s gone, if she was ever even there.

Simple doesn’t mean easy. Far from it. The bridge is empty – but that just
means neither of them has to worry about bystanders.

She takes inventory: knives in her bracer; more knives, loop of cord, cloth
strips, cell phone, and climber’s pouch of flour in utility pouches; bow,
arrows, Innocent-specialized connection blocks and markers, water, and
energy bars in her bag.

She leaves the bow – counter-sniping Tomoe is impossible, and not just
because of her skill level – but takes a plastic water bottle, not her
aquaflask.

Next, she checks the terrain.

There’s a slight downriver breeze across the bridge – left to right. Support
structure shadows lattice the train tracks like the lines of a diagram, but
there’s no real cover aside from the support structure itself.

School is full of busywork; her family barely seems to care about her
anymore; proving her loyalty to the Lordship has been a fucking hassle.
Everything that should be easy ends up being harder than it needs to be.

But this isn’t supposed to be easy. Just simple.

That feels good. That at least somebody’s honest with her.

If she’s being honest with herself, here, at this moment, she doesn’t want to
be a Finder. She doesn’t want to put up with the puzzles and whimsy and
family paperwork right now. She wants to sink her teeth into a simple
achievable problem and she wants to kill it.

Her first move is easy.

She marks out her path along the support beam shadows – straight,
straight, left, and then a hard right, to the intersection by the right edge–
and executes.

Eclipse Step.

She’s fairly safe as long as she’s eclipse stepping, but she can’t keep it up
forever. Tomoe doesn’t bother wasting arrows – which means that her next
arrow will arrive at the worst possible time, just as Kayla finishes her step
sequence.

She’s almost at the intersection, scrambling to map her next path out, when
Tomoe makes her move.

If Kayla’s senses and reflexes weren’t primed by Eclipse Step, she couldn’t
have seen the arrows – even with what feels like time dilation, they move
fast enough that dodging takes everything she has.

But they aren’t aimed at her.

Three arrows are buried in the three shadows she could have taken
forward. The fourth will be the final point in a square, sealing her in.

It’s also a question. How will you escape?

This time, at least, she already has an answer. She lays her water bottle on
its side, so the water inside it flows out, creating a path over the implied line
between two of the arrows.

When she reaches back for it, though, there’s a still-buzzing arrow right
through it – Mm? You got through. Now do it again. – and three more in
front of her.

Well, that’s why she brought the plastic bottle.

Tomoe’s going easy tonight. If she’d used one of the previous three arrows
as part of the second square, Kayla would already have lost.

If she’d just had that cedar amulet. She doesn’t have three hundred dollars
(or, technically, the ability to make one if she did, yet) but she does feel like
she should get at least some combat familiarity with it, and wouldn’t it be
nice to be the one pulling a trick out on Tomoe for once?

She’s up against the right side of the bridge, now. Going forward or
backward will get her locked in a square, and in the time it gets her to get
out, another square will be placed around it and so on until she admits
defeat. The shadow to her left extends all the way to the bridge’s left side,
and won’t really leave her with any further options.

So she goes up, instead.

Her combat boots clank on the bridge girder; her hands trace the seam
between light and shadow as she runs straight up it.

Apparently that’s good enough for Tomoe to hold her fire. But that seam
doesn’t go straight up; as she runs higher and higher it gets closer and
closer to the girder’s edge. She’ll have to jump at the top, to grab the beam
across the top of the bridge Which is fine. She knew that going in.

Two more steps.

She kicks off and upward, reaching for the handhold, but only one of her
hands lands. She’ll swing her legs forward and up then, with her sideways
momentum – cling to the beam with all four limbs –

But all she succeeds in doing is swinging into a backflip and losing
purchase, twenty-five feet off the ground. She sees Tomoe standing on the
girder, with an arrow aimed down at her –

And then gravity kicks in.

She has time for one thought as she falls. It’s a Finder thought, not an Oni
thought.

Without boons or mitigation, a fall from 30 feet gives 50/50 chances of

serious injury, especially if she lands right on her spine.

The rest is all sensation: her hair streaming up past her face; the dust-dry
feeling in her mouth and throat; the weightless sensation of falling, so
familiar from nightmares.

She closes her eyes reflexively. There’s a feeling like someone is holding
her, very lightly.

And then impact.

A sudden jerk as all her downward motion stops. But she isn’t dead, or
injured. Or maybe she is, and this is what being dead feels like, or a very
very important nerve was cut. She risks a glance.

She’s floating, mere inches above the asphalt. Her shadow is pincushioned
with arrows; enough to distribute the force of stopping across her whole
body rather than any one point.

She can hear Tomoe’s footsteps rushing over. Something about the tilt of
her basket gives the impression that she’s smiling with relief.

“That’s enough for tonight,” she says, and for once, Kayla doesn’t want to
throw herself at the problem again. They take the rooftops back together,
watching the sleepers through their bedroom windows, and Kayla feels so
lucky to not be one of them.

SHORT 2

[Three or so days after the duel with fellow PC Tam Iarlathe. Kayla’s
apartment.]

It’s late afternoon, although the curtains are drawn. The lights are off.

Kayla sits with her knees tucked up to her chest. Tomoe wears only her
blindfold – no mask, no basket – legs crossed. Even here, she never
removes her armor. Something is playing on the television: lights, voices,
colors.

“Have you ever killed anyone?” Kayla asks.

“Yes,” Tomoe answers. She sips her tea: cinnamon, with honey. When it
becomes clear that Kayla isn’t going to ask any follow-up questions, she
responds. “I hope you didn’t have to.”

“Barely.” Kayla says. “I was thinking about the stuff we were talking about –
where power comes from. He kept trying to kill me, even though it was
obvious that he couldn’t, and I, I said I bound him by the oldest law, the law
of the fang; the right to kill. I just said it on the spot, it wasn’t a real binding
or anything, and if he hadn’t fallen for that.”

She doesn’t finish her sentence. Tomoe doesn’t need her to.

If he hadn’t fallen for that, she does not say, I would maimed him, and if that
hadn’t been enough, I would have killed him. And for what? To stop the
Iarlathe power grab, and protect my family? For money? For transparently
scheming Isabella Parker?

That sentiment hangs in the air, unsaid.

“Tomoe,” she asks, “You want me to be able to kill, don’t you.”

“Yes.” Another pause. “You’ve spent your whole life running to greater
powers. Your family, the Lordship, the Court. Crisis will come, as it always
does, and they’ll have you kill for them, because you’re marked as not quite
one of them. As Othered.”

It’s obvious, at this point.

“And once you kill for them,” Tomoe says, “they’ll find reasons to make you
keep doing it. Maybe even good ones. And if you don’t understand the
value of a life, or what it means to take one, you’ll listen. Their violence will
be performed through your body until you die, unless you make it clear that
you are a person and not an appendage.”

Kayla smiles, tightly. “I could have killed him. Isn’t that enough?”

Tomoe clicks her teeth twice. “Even a child has the physical capability to
kill. Practitioners love abstracting violence away; they think it keeps their
hands clean. Just because the universe agrees doesn’t mean it’s right.”
She sighs. “So no, it’s not enough.”

She pulls off her mask; rubs her hands over where her eyes must be. In the
flickering light of the television, Tomoe looks very tired, and, although Kayla
would never say so, very human.

“All power resides at the edge of the knife,” she says. “Would that it were
not so. Please, convince me otherwise.”

“Family?” Kayla asks.

“A social contract, as a preemptive defense against the unknown.”

“Knowledge.”

“A knife abstracted is still a knife, practitioner.”

“…Care.”

“Against the knife?” Tomoe asks. “A question for you, in response. Don’t
answer it. if the Lordship asked you to kill me, would you?”
Kayla holds her tongue.

Tomoe continues, her voice light. “No. You’d tell the Lordship that it was in
their best interests to keep me alive, so I could keep training you and you
could better serve the city. And if they insisted?”

Kayla swallows; pulls her blanket tighter around herself.

“Being able to kill means being able to make that decision yourself. If you
follow their orders, you should at least do it because you believe in them,
not out of fear.”

“…Yeah.” Kayla admits. “That would be nice.”

“Your world is tame enough, for now, to have forgotten where power comes
from. It won’t stay that way.” She exhales, long and slow, like she’s
remembering what it would have been like to smoke. “That doesn’t mean
that I want you to kill. Just that you should be able to, and that you should
know what a life is worth.”

Kayla nods.

“Isabella Parker set her sights on you for a reason. Play along, for now, but
don’t forget I have claim on you.”

When Kayla looks back over, the shadows long in her Sight, Tomoe is gone
– if she was ever even physically there.