Explain It Like I'm Tree

Determination

The trip back was nothing like the trip away, and with every mile Vivi wished Arthur were sitting next to her, cracking jokes and shoving some gastronomically offensive snack at her face. She hurtled down the highway at ten to fifteen miles over the speed limit, checking her phone every couple of minutes for reported speed traps. "Mystery, inventory time. Salt?"

"Plenty," Mystery answered.

"Sage? Lighter?"

"Enough to clear a couple of rooms... and I think there's a lighter back here somewhere. Hard to smell a tiny fuel well over all the van fumes."

"Ofuda."

"A few strips... two blessing for personal protection and one blessing on a weapon."

"Yorishiro."

"... yes," he drew the word out slowly. "Vivi, why do you want to trap him in a spirit vessel?"

Vivi ignored him. "And my bat's here. And I've memorized at least five different exorcism prayers. And we have his name already, so I don't even need to wrangle it from him. We've got this covered from more than one angle."

"Vivi—"

"Don't start with me, Mystery. You heard the kid. Lewis has gone rogue. If there's a shred of the Lewis-Pepper-that-was left in there, he'd beg us to end him before he hurt someone. At least, that's if everyone was telling me the truth about the sort of person he used to be. Best case scenario is I exorcise him with a quick chant and cleanse the place with sage and salt. If that doesn't work, directing him into the yorishiro will bind him to a form that can be destroyed. Either that, or we seal it and bury it ten feet deep in some random spot in the desert. I'm not picky about that part."

The van's engine roared as the wheels ate up the distance. The last time it had gone this fast, Arthur had been hightailing it down a highway like a bat out of hell, trying to get away from Lewis and some killer plant lady. Vivi was no expert, but the little rattle she heard sounded suspiciously like a mechanical protest against her driving decisions. She opted to ignore that.

What she couldn't ignore was the quiver in Mystery's voice when he finally responded. "Vivi, please. Banishing him will not fix this. If you don't take every other available option first, there will be nothing left of this team to salvage."

Vivi's foot slackened on the gas pedal.

Mystery continued. "If you do this, Lewis will be destroyed, and Arthur may... will. Arthur will never forgive you for jumping straight to exorcism."

"And you?" her voice came out higher than she wanted. "Whose side are you on, these days?"

His hurt whimper cut deeper than his plea. She reapplied her foot to the gas. "Fine. Let's say I'm being irrational, here. Let's say my plan is bogus. How, exactly, would you handle the situation?"

"I wouldn't even speculate on a plan before inspecting the grounds myself."

Her every syllable dripped scorn. "Good thinking! And in the meantime, Lewis cottons on real quick that we're here. Specifically, that Arthur Kingsmen is here. Then he comes barreling out and finishes the job he started while you're still making a circuit of the property. But that's okay, 'cause this is a videogame and Arthur can blow a life, he's still got two more. Oh, wait!"

She hated the words coming out of her mouth but made no effort to stop them. Arthur might be mad that she didn't listen to him, but that ran both ways. Seemed like nobody tried to listen to her since that little kumbaya mediation circle Mystery forced them all into earlier that year. It already felt like a lifetime ago, and what exactly had been resolved that day? Not nearly enough was the clear answer.