“Well, even if you don’t know anything, Yuichi might be able to do it right away, right?” Chie said.
Furu might not have much real faith in him, but like Chie had said, any faith Furu had in him wasn’t actually misplaced. Yuichi had Soul Reader. In other words, if there was an evil presence out there, he stood a good chance of being able to identify it from its label.
And there’s a chance it might be connected to the Outers and the Divine Vessels...
“I get it,” he said. “I just have to look around, right? What’s the search range?”
“I’m not sure. ‘Within Seishin City’ is about all I know, really,” Furu admitted.
“That’s pretty wide...”
Seishin City was a big place with both mountains and ocean nearby. Searching indiscriminately wouldn’t get him anywhere. He needed some other form of direction. “Okay. I guess I’ll start searching now, then. Let’s see... I guess I should go somewhere with a lot of people, first.”
Yuichi decided to head for the station area; it was the most populous location he could think of.
“Want me to search, too?” Chie asked.
“Sure, if you want,” he said. “You really should get out of here, anyway.”
“I know that,” she said. “It’s not as if there’s anything keeping us at this shrine anyway.”
“Covering the same ground won’t do us any good, so you should go searching somewhere else,” he told her.
There were probably places that would be easier for spirits to search in. Maybe she could be of use to him somehow that way.
Furu said with conviction, “I’m sorry it’s all so ambiguous... I just feel like some evil plot is unveiling itself in this city, and we have to stop it at any cost!”
Yuichi decided to head home and get changed before heading out again.
✽✽✽✽✽
Meanwhile, just after Yuichi had made it home, but before he set out to the station...
The evil presence that Furu had spoken of was sitting across from Hiromichi Rokuhara, elegantly sipping a cup of coffee.
They were in a cafe near the station area, sitting by the window. The cafe had a modern atmosphere and must have been quite popular, because nearly all the seats had been filled, despite the early hour.
“Now, shall I attempt to explain the situation?” the evil presence asked.
“I was starting to think you weren’t ever gonna,” Hiromichi responded, though his tone wasn’t critical. This young man had taught Hiromichi how to use his power, and Hiromichi had no intention of looking a gift horse in the mouth.
The man had appeared abruptly in front of him recently, and then, without any proper explanation, had taken him around the city and gotten him involved in various fights.
“I thought that showing you how things worked might be more efficient,” said the man. “If I’d launched into the explanation first thing, you wouldn’t have believed me, now would you?”
Hiromichi could see auras, and he knew that superhuman creatures existed, but it was true that that didn’t necessarily mean he’d believe every single thing he was told. There were still lots of things out there he had to see to believe.
“So, let’s start with the broad strokes.” The young man launched into an explanation about Evil Gods and Divine Vessels, but none of it really registered with Hiromichi.
“What does that have to do with me?” he asked finally.
“A great deal. You already have a Divine Vessel, the Evil God’s heart. That means you’re already involved in the war over the Divine Vessels.”
“The heart... is that where my power comes from?” Hiromichi asked.
“That’s right.”
Hiromichi’s power had awakened in him over spring vacation. He’d abruptly begun to see auras around people. He had been convinced that this signified the presence of evil beings, but apparently, it actually signified the effective range of Skill Eater. If he touched someone’s aura, he could steal their ability.
“Why do I have the heart?” Hiromichi asked. The man’s explanation suggested it had merged with his own heart, but he had no memory of acquiring the creepy thing.
“I don’t know, either,” the man said. “The Divine Vessel chooses its own host, though it appears some have ended up trying to twist that. Regardless, you acquired the heart and awakened its power.”
“Just who are you?” Hiromichi asked. “You seem to know a lot about all this.”
“Put simply, I am the Evil God in question.”
“I thought you couldn’t revive unless the Divine Vessels were collected.”
“That only refers to my main body. I myself am, you might say, a dependent. An optional part.”
A tremble went through Hiromichi. The man’s power was overwhelming. If this was only a sub-body, how much power must the “main” one have?
But another question rose up in his mind. “If you’re so strong, why don’t you collect the Divine Vessels yourself?”
“Good question. It would be simple enough just to collect them. I know where they all are, and I’m likely stronger than any of their hosts. but collecting them isn’t enough. The Evil God’s revival requires karma.”
Hiromichi stared at him. “What?”
“Put simply, it’s energy. Put a little less simply, it’s the power to sway destiny. Think of it as something that builds up in response to dramatic developments. The war between the Divine Vessels creates drama, which builds up more of the energy I need. In other words, boringly one-sided battles won’t do.”
“So at the park yesterday, you were testing that guy to see if he could provide interesting enough battles?”
“You’re a sharp one. That’s correct. If he’d turned out to be boring, I’d have had to arrange to find someone else.”
“In that’s the criteria, I must be the worst person out there,” Hiromichi said. “Why did you bother taking me around?”
He didn’t know what sort of fights the man was after, but Hiromichi had a feeling he’d be unacceptable no matter what. He was fully convinced he was a boring person.
“Don’t worry,” the man said. “I don’t need you to be able to have an interesting battle.”
“What do you mean by that?” Hiromichi wasn’t sure how to react to the declaration, which seemed to overturn everything else he’d been saying.
“Congratulations. You win.”
“Huh?”
“The person who holds the heart wins the game. That’s been decided from the very start. After all, the Evil God’s soul is in the heart. In the end, all the Divine Vessels will find their way to you.”
“But that means it’s all just a farce...” Hiromichi said slowly. The man had said all that about the Evil God and the Divine Vessel War, when in fact, the winner was already set in stone. Hiromichi was completely dumbstruck by the news.
“Indeed, it’s a farce. A fixed race. A put-up job. All of that.”
“Does that mean I get a wish granted?” Hiromichi asked.
This was all very unexpected. He wasn’t sure how much he could trust it, but whether he did or not wouldn’t change things much. At the end of the day, he had no choice but to do what this man said.
“Yes,” said the man. “But remember, you only get one, so you should start thinking it over now. That’s about all I had to say. I think you should spend the rest of the day going around on your own.”
“Huh? Wait a minute! I can’t handle this by myself!”
“You’ll be fine. As you said before, your power is like a cheat code. You can nullify the abilities of others, and steal them, too. How could you possibly lose?”
“But...”
“You can also just sit tight until I come back, if you want,” said the man. “But remember, you have a very special power. You’d do well to strengthen it as much as possible while you can.” The man’s demeanor was utterly laid-back, yet it left no room for argument. They would be parting ways here, and that was that.
&n
bsp; “Fine, I’ll do it,” Hiromichi said. “But what are you going to do?”
“Remember two days ago, when we went to see the girl with the right arm? Do you remember the girl who was with her? The one who ran away?”
“Did that happen?” He couldn’t remember. He was pretty sure that girl had been alone from the start... if there had been someone with her, it had only been for a moment.
“She’s my servant,” the man said. “I’ve been worried, since I haven’t been able to get in touch with her lately. Then sadly, she ran away, so I sent some of my other servants to search for her.”
This must have meant that one of the other servants had found her... not that Hiromichi cared about any of that.
“Well, whatever. By the way, what should I call you?” He wasn’t sure how much they’d be seeing of each other, but it was inconvenient not to have a name to call the man by.
The man thought for a moment, then responded. “Good question... I’ve been called many names in the past, but for now, how about Nergal?”
Chapter 6: We Found the Evil God Without Searching. What Now?
Yuichi had gone home, gotten changed, and then headed for the shopping district near the station.
He’d been told there was some evil threat to the local peace blending in here in the city, but it was all pretty vague, and most people would have no idea of where to even start searching. Yuichi had Soul Reader, though, which seemed like it would increase his chances of finding whatever it was.
Still, it seems pretty unlikely that I will...
He didn’t have any idea what it might look like. Did it even have a physical form? If so, would it be active during the day? Would it be the type of thing to go walking around in the city? He didn’t know anything about it.
Even so, he couldn’t refuse Furu’s request. She had basically said it was Aiko’s fault, and if it was, then Yuichi was the cause of that, too.
Aiko wasn’t doing anything wrong. Maybe she’d had a special birthright, and maybe that was causing trouble for others now, but Yuichi was convinced she wasn’t responsible for that. Therefore, he’d decided, even if Aiko didn’t know anything about it, he had to relieve her burden as much as possible.
“‘Evil’ is a pretty vague descriptor, though! Kinda raises some philosophical questions, too!” Mutsuko was walking beside him, as revved up as ever.
After coming home, Yuichi had tried to sneak back out, but Mutsuko had caught him. Then, perhaps out of boredom, she had decided to tag along. Now that she was with him, he couldn’t exactly just ignore her, so he’d ended up explaining the long and short of the situation.
“All that aside, Yuichi Sakaki...” Yuri Konishi said, walking on his other side. She had been with him since the shrine, and she was apparently planning to stick around. “Are you certain you should have undertaken such a vague request? If you can’t find them, won’t you just wind up searching endlessly?”
“Obviously, I can’t keep it up forever, but even if I can’t find it, the evil will try to do something eventually, and we’ll probably find it then,” he said. It would be best if they could find it before then, obviously, but if they couldn’t, he’d just have to deal with whatever happened.
Wait, when did I start assuming I’d be the one to deal with it?
Yuichi immediately chastised himself for his eagerness. If there were monster hunter specialists in this kind of thing, he should probably just leave it to them.
“So why are you coming along, Konishi?” he asked.
“Why wouldn’t I come along? I went all the way to that shrine to meet you, after all.”
“It’s not going to be all that interesting. We’re mostly going to be standing around staring at people.” Yuichi’s plan was to set up camp somewhere and watch the people come and go. His hopes weren’t high, but it was possible he could find something that way.
“People-watching, huh?” Mutsuko cried. “I know the best place for that!”
With that, Mutsuko dragged Yuichi along without giving him a chance to protest.
✽✽✽✽✽
The place they’d arrived at was a cafe with a modern atmosphere.
“I feel like we come here a lot... well, I guess we couldn’t exactly have an all-day stakeout out in the cold, anyway...” Yuichi murmured. It was the same cafe the truck had crashed into during summer vacation, and the one he’d brought Kanako to during her research outing.
“If you sit next to the window, you can see all kinds of people pass by!” Mutsuko declared.
“That seat, huh?”
Mutsuko was pointing to the same seat Yuichi had been sitting in then, the exact same spot the truck had crashed into. It felt a little like a bad omen, but sitting by the window would also let him deal with attacks coming in from outside. In a way, it was a pretty safe place to be.
“It’s looking pretty packed, though,” Yuichi said. “Maybe we should look for another place instead of waiting—”
Peering in through the window of the cafe, Yuichi was suddenly struck dumb.
“Evil God.” A young man with that label over his head was sitting in the seat Mutsuko had recommended. He was smiling a placid smile and chatting with someone in the seat opposite him.
“Hey... an Evil God would be pretty evil, right?” Yuichi asked.
“Probably? It is right there in the name,” Yuri responded condescendingly.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought, too. Also, he’s sitting right there.” Yuichi pointed to the young man, feeling very slightly like he was being made a fool of.
“What should we do? Should we contact Shinomiya?” Yuri asked.
“We’ll have to tail him! Right now, we don’t know anything about who he is! Let’s follow him back to his hideout!” Mutsuko burst in.
“Um, I’m not sure finding something like that would help us at all...” Yuichi muttered.
The group moved to a place where they had a good view of the cafe’s entrance. Before long, the young man left the restaurant, followed by a boy who looked familiar.
“Isn’t that... the kid from your class, Sis? Rokuhara?” Yuichi asked. Above the guy’s head was the label “Host.”
“That’s definitely Rokuhara, yeah,” Mutsuko said. “He’s the one who attacked Noro, right?”
Hiromichi Rokuhara. With the label “Apprentice Monster Hunter,” he’d attacked the vampire Noro.
The test to become a monster hunter was to kill a monster all by yourself. He’d ended up failing, and he’d said he didn’t want to get involved anymore, but Yuichi had remained on his guard to see if he might still try something.
The guy and the man parted ways after leaving the cafe. Hiromichi went on by himself, while the young man remained near the entrance to the restaurant, thinking about something.
Yuichi already knew Hiromichi’s deal, so he decided there was no point in tailing him. He was watching to see which way the man might turn when suddenly, the man began to walk towards him.
“Hey. You think he’s found us out?” Yuichi asked.
“He’s looking right at us, so I imagine so,” Yuri said, completely calm. Perhaps that unflappability was a sign of her high-class upbringing.
It wasn’t as if they were hiding, and he didn’t know anything about them, so Yuichi had been convinced that as long as they pretended they were talking, that would be enough.
“What should we do?” he asked.
“Go somewhere else?” Mutsuko suggested. “If this leads to a fight, there could be a lot of casualties if we stay here.”
Yuichi remembered the incident over summer vacation. There had been quite a few casualties then, and he didn’t want to end up repeating the same mistake.
“Okay. I think that direction would be best, given where we are.”
Yuichi began to lead them into the same back alleys he’d taken during the incidents over spring and summer vacations. It was apparently the turf of serial killers, so most people never came anywhere near it.
Yuichi and the others proceeded deeper down the twisting back streets. After a while, he stopped, and told Mutsuko and Yuri to wait a little further in.
“Hey,” the young man addressed them casually.
He seemed perfectly friendly, with no signs of malice about him. It was hard to believe his label was really an “Evil God.” At a glance, he seemed to be a completely ordinary human. It would have been difficult to find him no matter how good your enemy-radar happened to be.
Yuichi was at a loss for how to respond. At the moment, the man hadn’t done anything to make himself his enemy.
As a result, silence fell over them.
For once, Mutsuko was able to read the mood, and she remained quiet, too.
As Yuichi was trying to think of what to say, suddenly, his phone rang. Judging by the ringtone, the call was probably from Chiharu.
“It’s ringing. Why don’t you answer it?” the man prompted.
Yuichi answered the phone.
“Yuichi Sakaki! The resonance has begun!” the voice on the other end said.
Yuichi gasped. “Do you know where?”
“Indeed I do, for I have become quite sensitive! The closest target would be close to Seishin Station’s north exit!”
“I’m near Seishin Station’s north exit...”
Yuichi looked at the man. It seemed likely that he was a Divine Vessel host, which would explain how he had found him so easily. He’d discovered him with the resonance and followed him right there.
“Not letting it possess you suggests a half-hearted approach,” said the man. “I’m not even sure whether to classify you as a participant or not...”
“Are you... a Divine Vessel host?” Yuichi asked uneasily.
“No.”
“Right, so you want to fi— wait, you’re not?!”
Yuichi was baffled. Who could the man be, knowing about the Divine Vessels without being a host?
“Well, I am connected to them,” said the man. “It means I always know where Divine Vessels are, whether or not there’s resonance. I detected one nearby, so I came to investigate, but now that I think about it, this is all rather strange. You seemed to be looking in on us before the resonance even started, and you didn’t go after Hiromichi, the one who does have a vessel. Does that mean you have other business with me?”
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