His wandering is not due to starvation.

Humans live so crowded together, packed in tiny homes stacked one atop the next, that he could glut himself on nightmares every night and never eat them all. He bounds from home to home, following the murmured cries of ‘baku-san, baku-san’ to those who want their dreams eaten, removed from their minds so they can once more sleep at ease.

The nightmares he eats do not return to their dreamers swiftly or whole, never quite bothering them the same again.

But that, too, is no block.

Humans have always been good at giving themselves nightmares.

No, his wandering is due to boredom.

He was born in war, followed soldiers to their posts, grew strong on the dreams of those cast into conflict. He thought little of it at first, incurious and interested only in sating his hunger, but dreams are more than just a meal.

Dreams are knowledge. Knowledge that he pieces together slowly, fragment by bloodstained fragment, and with that knowledge grows his curiosity. He knows the way the human mind twists memories around, layering fact and fiction together till one is indistinguishable from the other.

He is a baku, and he needs no sleep.

He is a baku, and he is curious.

(He has even given himself a name, pulled from dreams. It is a strange name, a foreign name, but he likes it.)

(He calls himself Erich.)

And the dreams of those safe in their cities, terrified of indistinct monsters and failure, cannot satisfy his curiosity the way other nightmares do. Like grains of rice, he eats and he eats and he eats, full to satiation and bored by the bland sameness each one shares with the next.

(And when they don’t, when a child’s dreams explode across his senses, he lingers. He lingers and he devours and when he pieces together the cause he destroys…)

(He was shaped in war but he is still a baku, still a protector against pestilence and evil.)

(He will not stand its existence within his reach.)

So he wanders, ranging through the cities and poking his trunk wherever his curiosity leads him. He greets other yokai and trades fragments of choice dreams with other baku. Not all are as curious as he, but there are some, and he enjoys the chance to learn.

It is another baku who points him towards the teens.

He knows this baku well, knows her as Alexis, met her in the frozen wastes of Siberia and kept in contact through the decades; she is another baku born of war and fury and terror. She is another one who wanders restless and bored through the land.

(It is a trait they share with others born like them, he knows. A trait that sets them apart from the baku born in more peaceful times.)

(Some days he wonders at the reason.)

(Other days, he does not.)

He settles on the roof and waits for nightfall, leaning into her side and enjoying the quiet moment together. They do not get many such moments, their restlessness driving them apart time and time again, but if baku could love as humans do, he thinks this might qualify.

::I cannot eat it all,:: she murmurs, voice like the wind. ::He sleeps and he dreams and he despairs. Night after night. And all of it so rich and heavy that I cannot— and he is not the only one. I try to ease them all, but they dream so deep and so dark…::

::I will help,:: he agrees. He digs his claws into the tiles of the roof and twitches his tail, eager to see what has stymied even her. He does not wish for the suffering of others, but for a baku to admit that they cannot ease the sleep of a human— well. It is a curious thing. ::I will help, and we will set their minds at ease together.::

::Thank you.::

Darkness falls and the boy turns in, lying restless and awake for hours. And when the boy finally drifts off, body giving in to exhaustion, nightmares swim to the surface in moments.

Erich rises from his sprawl and leaps down, slipping in through the window and perching on the bed near the boy’s head. He reaches out with his trunk, grasps the nightmare tight, and takes—

The boy shudders and gasps, crying out a name, tears staining his cheeks. But he settles, body limp and wrung out, and Erich takes a moment to observe him. To take in the dark circles around his eyes, the way his hair lays limp and his skin looks far too pale in the moonlight.

Erich consumes the boy’s nightmare and learns.

It feels like fantasy, from start to finish, and Erich cannot decide what pieces are born of reality and what of the subconscious. Flying and falling and bleeding— day into night, a demon with jagged teeth and crooked claws chasing-chasing-chasing— tearing a friend to shreds, tearing himself to shreds—

By the time the nightmare is picked apart and consumed, another is already growing.

Alexis leans in and pulls the unformed nightmare from the boy before it can take root. ::See?:: she asks. ::He dreams and dreams and dreams, and none are pleasant.::

::There is an emptiness within him,:: Erich says, turning his attention to the way the boy feels. ::Has he run afoul of another baku? Did he call out and have more than just his dreams taken from him?::

She shakes her head and crouches down, carefully nuzzling the sleeping boy. ::No, the wounds are wrong. Look. Look at the tears upon his soul, and the way his strength bleeds out. No baku would do such.::

Erich considers the boy’s damaged soul. There are pieces missing, jagged wounds that bleed and bleed without relief. The boy’s soul is trying to heal itself and yet it cannot. It has been left untreated, the wounds too large to heal without aid, and the stress of that wounding only compounds the boy’s nightmares further.

::We will need to fix this,:: Erich says, resting a paw on the boy’s chest. ::Just soothing his sleep will do little to see him healed.::

She watches him, eyes unreadable as she plucks another unformed nightmare from the boy’s mind. She watches him in silence, lets it stretch between them until the room rings with tension.

He meets her gaze without fear, without regret. They are baku born of war and violence and fury, unafraid to bare their teeth and use their claws. They are baku who are better at destruction than at healing, but… that does not mean they are incapable.

(That does not mean they are uncaring monsters.)

::He is not the only one, only the worst off,:: she reminds him gently. Her paw comes to rest on the boy’s shoulder and she leans in, breathing out a thin mist that the boy breathes in. His body goes lax under the power, the fragment of herself that Alexis grants to him, and she straightens up. ::Come, I will show you the others.::

She shows him.

And she is right.

None are quite so badly off as the first boy, none are quite so deeply wounded, but all are hurt. All dream of bloodstained, fantastical things.

All of them dream of running-running-running—

(He cannot tell— are they the hunted or the hunter?)

(He thinks, perhaps, they are both.)

Erich spends the night drifting between the four teens, devouring their nightmares and leaving fragments of himself behind to guard their sleep. It does not truly help — their nightmares are persistent things, deep-set and festering, and the fragments left behind can only sooth so much before fading away.

The others… Erich is certain they can heal on their own, given time and safe sleep. Even such deep-set and festering nightmares eventually succumb to a baku’s strength, and he has no doubt the same will be true here as well. That there are two baku looking out for them will only speed their recovery along.

But the first boy… Erich is at a loss. It is one thing to say ‘we will need to fix this’ and it is an entirely other thing to fix something so terrible. He doesn’t even know how the boy remains alive with his soul so shredded, has never come across a being who has been torn asunder and yet lives, stubborn and quiet and all but maddened by pain but still continuing on.

The sun rises, the teens stir, and he and Alexis retreat to the hidden areas beyond a human’s sight. They retreat to rest, feeling bloated and sickened to their cores and yet all the more determined. They will see these teens healed, no matter the difficulty.