Anime Crossover: Eating Evil in a Daily World — Chapter 109

Chapter 109: The Weak Nura Clan; Kyoto is the High-Level Battlefield

Gyuki, Kubinashi, and the Crow Tengu stared in stunned silence. Hearing Yozora casually drop such arrogant lines while radiating an absolutely chilling calm completely upended their expectations.

This guy didn’t feel like an ordinary Onmyoji at all.

Who had ever heard of a righteous exorcist suddenly swapping into a pitch-black, villainous getup right in the middle of a confrontation?

Honestly speaking, if one were to compare Kubinashi—whose severed head bobbed eerily in the air—the distinctly non-human Crow Tengu, and the grim-faced Gyuki who practically oozed yakuza boss energy… Yozora still looked infinitely more like the final boss.

“What, you’re not rushing me?” Yozora flashed a bright, thoroughly unhinged smile. He raised the legendary blade, Onimaru Kunitsuna, leveling its gleaming tip directly at the trio of yokai. “Well, if you’re going to just stand there, I won’t hold back.”

He snapped his fingers. “Bite them.”

At his casual command, the colossal Golden Goat-Head God let out a low, rumbling bellow, leading its two masked divine envoys in a brutal charge toward the Nura Clan executives.

Technically, the Goat-Head God’s contract with Yozora only bound it to appear and assist whenever Sakurajima Mai and the other girls encountered malevolent spirits. The fine print absolutely did not include acting as Yozora’s personal attack dog.

But the ancient entity hadn’t survived this long by being stupid.

Did it really have a choice?

If it played the good little summon and kept this terrifying human entertained, everyone got to keep their limbs. But if it showed even a fraction of defiance? God only knew what this lunatic would do. The memory of watching its own spiritual flesh being devoured bite by bite—while the human chewing on it looked utterly euphoric—was a brand of physical and psychological torture it never wanted to experience again.

The Goat-Head God simply didn’t dare to gamble. In its glowing, horizontal pupils, Yozora was nothing short of an irrational, overpowered monster.

“A Bound Spirit, huh…” Gyuki muttered, his stern face unmoving as he drew an ancient, weathered longsword from his waist. He watched the massive golden beast and its two smaller escorts close the distance. “I’ll take the big one. Kubinashi, handle the two smaller ones. Tengu, stay airborne and wait for an opening.”

“Understood.”

Gyuki held absolute authority within the Nura Clan’s vanguard, so Kubinashi and the Crow Tengu fell into formation without hesitation.

As Gyuki clashed with the towering Goat-Head God, his blade erupting with a heavy, oppressive demonic aura, Yozora merely watched from the sidelines. He didn’t just stand there, either. With a lazy wave of his hand, he condensed pure, pitch-black evil spirit energy into an ornate armchair, sinking into it with the relaxed posture of a theatergoer.

‘What exactly are these guys?’ Yozora mused, resting his chin on his knuckles.

As a transmigrator, he recognized them instantly: the Nura Clan. The real question was the mechanics of their existence in this specific world.

Judging by the chaotic skirmish tearing up the shrine grounds, one thing was obvious: Yokai, much like Psychics, possessed the ability to “perceive” spirits.

So, how much did Nurarihyon’s syndicate actually know about the twisted ecosystem brewing in Kyoto?

Yozora figured they had the cliff notes, but nothing deep. If they truly understood the sheer scale of the horrors lurking in the city, they wouldn’t have sent just three executives to knock on his door. The Supreme Commander himself, Nurarihyon, would have led the charge.

While Yozora sat cross-legged, thoroughly enjoying the live-action entertainment, the actual combatants were already dripping with cold sweat.

The Golden Goat-Head God reared up, bringing its massive front hoof crashing down onto Gyuki’s raised sword.

The sheer, concussive kinetic force sent Gyuki skidding backward across the dirt, his boots carving deep trenches into the earth for several meters before he managed to stabilize.

Gyuki’s eyes widened in sheer disbelief, staring up at the golden monstrosity. ‘What the hell… is this thing?!’

Initially, he had written it off as a standard Bound Spirit. They were a dime a dozen—souls anchored to the mortal realm by intense lingering regrets, forever tethered to a specific location. Shrines were notorious hotspots for them. After all, despite the grand architecture, barely one in ten shrines actually housed a legitimate local deity.

He hadn’t expected to hit a titanium wall on his first outing. Gyuki couldn’t tell if this goat-headed brute was a genuine corrupted god, but one fact was glaringly obvious: this thing’s physical strength was completely off the charts!

On the other flank, Kubinashi was weaving a deadly, invisible net. His signature strings—woven from the silk of a Jorogumo and the cursed hair of a Kejourou—lashed out, attempting to ensnare the two Kitsune Face God Envoys.

While he wasn’t taking the brunt of a giant hoof like Gyuki, he was hardly having a good time. The Kitsune Envoys were maddeningly fast, their small, agile frames darting through the razor-wire traps with frustrating ease. Even when Kubinashi managed to land a grazing slice, the masked entities didn’t even flinch. They felt no pain, their movements never stuttering despite the spiritual wounds.

If this war of attrition dragged on, Kubinashi knew he would be the one to break first.

“These guys…” Yozora frowned, his initial amusement souring into genuine confusion.

Weren’t these supposed to be the elite vanguard of the Nura Clan? Why were they so… squishy?

They were struggling so hard that Yozora briefly wondered if they were intentionally throwing the fight just to mock him. His original tactical plan had been incredibly basic: send the Goat-Head God and the Kitsune Envoys in as disposable cannon fodder to bait out the yokai’s ultimate moves. Since they were tied to the shrine, they would just respawn eventually anyway. It was the perfect zero-risk scouting maneuver.

He genuinely hadn’t expected his three throwaway tutorial mobs to push the enemy to the brink of collapse.

At that exact moment, a grim realization dawned on Gyuki and Kubinashi.

When the First Supreme Commander, Nurarihyon, had personally led this expedition to Kyoto to track down a specific exorcist, they thought it would be a glorious, overwhelming display of the Nura Clan’s might—a dimensional strike against the modern human world.

Now, gasping for breath against a goat monster, it felt heavily like they were the ones getting dimensionally outclassed.

Kyoto wasn’t a playground; it was a high-level death game!

“Just hold on a little longer,” Gyuki grunted, his chest heaving as he deflected another bone-shattering strike. He shot a desperate glance at Kubinashi. “I’ve already dispatched scouts to locate those two human girls—the suspected Psychics. Once we have them, we can use them as use to force this maniac to the negotiating table. Just don’t die yet.”

“Understood, Lord Gyuki!”

Just as the two yokai gritted their teeth, preparing to burn their life force to hold the line, a cheerful pop melody shattered the tense atmosphere.

Yozora casually pulled his ringing smartphone from his pocket. He tapped the screen, and Rio Futaba’s signature cool, analytical voice filtered through the speaker.

“Hello. Are you currently occupied?”

Yozora glanced up. Gyuki was currently being pile-driven into the dirt by a golden hoof, while Kubinashi was doing backflips to avoid getting his floating head swatted by a fox mask.

“Not at all,” Yozora replied, his tone dripping with deep boredom. “I’m practically rotting from all this free time.”

“I see,” Rio noted dryly. “Miko and I finished dinner with Mai-senpai. We figured we would use the evening to hunt down some stray evil spirits in the city and practice our Soul Manifestation. But we were ambushed.”

“Oh? And then?”

“We wiped the floor with them,” Rio stated flatly. “They didn’t manage to scratch us. They were incredibly weak.”

Yozora let out a quiet, exasperated sigh.

“However,” Rio continued, “Miko and I have never encountered entities quite like these. Unlike the usual abstract evil spirits, these things actually have solid physical bodies. Because of that anomaly, we refrained from killing them. Are you aware of what they are?”

Yozora’s lips curled into a faint smile. “Yeah, I know. I’m currently chilling at that shrine from last time. Bring yourselves over here.”

“Understood. ETA twenty minutes.”

Hanging up, Yozora pocketed his phone and let out a heavy sigh, genuine disappointment clouding his eyes.

What a massive letdown.

So this was the absolute ceiling of the Nura Clan’s power? They were basically a speed bump, and he had actually gotten his hopes up. Sure, Gyuki and Kubinashi were supposedly top-tier fighters, but their subordinates couldn’t even leave a scratch on Miko and Rio?

Was this a joke?

And here Gyuki was, whispering about taking hostages to threaten him?

Yozora was too utterly disappointed to even formulate a sarcastic quip. They mobilized the legendary Nura Clan just to act as a circus troupe?

Gyuki, currently locked in a desperate clash of strength with the Goat-Head God, suddenly felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. A voice drifted directly into his ear.

He hadn’t even sensed the spatial displacement.

Yozora was just… there. Standing right behind him.

Gyuki’s eyes shrank to pinpricks. Relying on pure, honed combat instinct, he violently pivoted, swinging his ancient longsword in a lethal horizontal arc.

CLANG!

A sharp, metallic shriek echoed across the courtyard.

Gyuki stared in horror at the sheared-off top half of his blade spinning into the dirt.

“This is Onimaru Kunitsuna,” Yozora murmured, his smile returning, though it was entirely devoid of warmth. He tilted his head, looking at the shattered stump of Gyuki’s weapon. “And what exactly is that piece of scrap metal you’re holding? Hmm?”

Gyuki swallowed hard, paralyzed by the sheer difference in class. His blade was a revered spiritual artifact that had tasted blood for decades. But against one of Japan’s legendary swords, calling it scrap metal wasn’t an insult—it was an objective fact.

“Is this really all you have?” Yozora asked, his voice laced with mocking pity.

Gyuki’s jaw tightened until his teeth ground together. Before they departed, Supreme Commander Nurarihyon had given him a strict, absolute order: ‘Kyoto is a human domain now. Do not unleash your true demonic aura unless there is no other choice. Provoking the humans will only ignite another bloody era of war between our kinds.’

Yozora’s eyes gleamed, reading the hesitation written all over the yokai’s face. He casually rested the razor-sharp edge of Onimaru Kunitsuna against the side of Gyuki’s neck. The playful smirk vanished from his face, replaced by a cold, dead-eyed stare.

“If you don’t use your full power right now, I’m going to butcher you.”

“Lord Gyuki!”

Seeing the legendary blade pressed against his superior’s throat, Kubinashi abandoned his defensive retreat. He violently tore himself away from the Kitsune Envoys, his hands blurring as he unleashed his ultimate technique.

“String Kill: Assassination – Spider Web Lock!”

Nurarihyon’s strict prohibition only applied to Gyuki. Kubinashi had no such limiters. The reason was brutally simple: Kubinashi just wasn’t strong enough to warrant one.

“Edgy name. I like it,” Yozora commented dryly. Without even looking, he casually reached out his left hand and grabbed the invisible, razor-sharp threads mid-air.

Kubinashi smirked, immediately yanking his hands back to slice the arrogant human’s fingers to the bone. His strings were forged from Jorogumo silk and Kejourou hair—they could slice through solid steel. Any demon, let alone a human, who dared to grab them bare-handed would instantly find themselves an amputee.

But as Kubinashi pulled, his smirk froze.

The strings didn’t budge a single millimeter.

“Are you even trying?” Yozora sighed. With a lazy flick of his wrist, he gave the strings a sharp tug.

The sheer, overwhelming physical force yanked Kubinashi’s entire body off the ground, sending him flying forward like a ragdoll. His floating head actually lagged behind, struggling to catch up to his soaring torso.

Yozora casually raised his boot and stomped Kubinashi’s body directly into the dirt, pinning him flat. His right hand kept Onimaru Kunitsuna perfectly steady against Gyuki’s neck. He shook his head, looking down at the struggling yokai.

“The legendary Nura Clan… reduced to this? You guys are terrible at satisfying a customer.”

Seeing his comrade crushed under Yozora’s boot, Gyuki abandoned all restraint. His demonic aura flared, preparing to unleash the terrifying might of a Great Demon.

But the very second the thought formed in his mind, the air behind him warped.

A colossal, Pale Ghost Hand silently materialized from the shadows. Its five massive fingers, tipped with jagged, obsidian nails, snapped shut around Gyuki’s tall frame, squeezing him with the effortless ease of a child crushing a beetle.

“You can take a nap now,” Yozora said.

He watched Gyuki thrash desperately against the suffocating grip of the Pale Ghost Hand, completely unable to break free. Bored, Yozora shot a wink at the Golden Goat-Head God.

The massive beast immediately trotted over and slammed its heavy, golden hoof onto Kubinashi’s back, taking over the pinning duty.

“I’m officially bored of you two,” Yozora muttered, turning his back on the defeated executives. He strolled back to his throne of black energy, sinking into it. He looked up at the Crow Tengu, who was still hovering frozen in the sky, trembling like a leaf.

Yozora offered the bird-demon a gentle, chilling smile. “The only one in your little club who might actually entertain me is your Supreme Commander. Be a good bird and go fetch him, will you?”

Twenty minutes later.

When Yotsuya Miko and Rio Futaba finally hiked up to the shrine, they were greeted by a bizarre diorama: Kubinashi flattened into the dirt by a giant golden goat, and Gyuki suspended in the air, immobilized by a terrifying, ghostly hand.

Neither girl looked particularly shocked. If they could casually sweep the floor with the grunts, it was only natural that Yozora would absolutely style on the bosses.

“So…” Rio pushed her glasses up her nose, studying the captive demons. “What exactly are these things? The ones we fought felt similar to Evil Spirits, but they possessed actual biological mass., their hostility was incredibly low—they didn’t attempt any lethal sneak attacks. It’s a completely different behavioral pattern.”

“Oh, them?” Yozora waved a hand dismissively. “They’re called Yokai. They belong to a syndicate known as the Nura Clan. Just think of them as the yakuza of the supernatural world.”

“Yokai?” Miko blinked, her golden eyes wide with curiosity. “I’ve never seen anything like them before.”

“Neither have I,” Yozora chuckled, leaning back in his dark chair. “But think about it. Evil Spirits are anomalies. They’re abstract concepts of malice that shouldn’t logically exist, which is why there are zero historical records of them.”

Rio and Miko exchanged a thoughtful glance. He had a point.

In Japanese folklore, Yokai were everywhere. They had physical forms, distinct personalities, and a rich history of interacting with—or hiding from—humanity. But invisible, untouchable Evil Spirits that fed on fear and couldn’t interact with normal humans? There wasn’t a single myth that accurately described them.

It made perfect, twisted sense. If someone walked up to a normal person and claimed the world was infested with horrific, invisible monsters that couldn’t be touched or heard, they’d be institutionalized. But Yokai, flesh-and-blood creatures hiding in the shadows, fit perfectly into the established cultural narrative.

Staring at Yozora, who looked entirely too comfortable on his throne of dark energy, Rio felt a heavy knot form in her chest. She had taken off her glasses and tied her hair back into a high ponytail, her sharp eyes clouded with complex emotions.

For weeks, a terrifying hypothesis had been eating away at her rational mind.

According to Tamamo-no-Mae, the dimensional “Gate” had first appeared on March 20th.

Coincidentally, Yozora had awakened his Psychic abilities on that exact same day.

Could a coincidence of that magnitude truly exist?

Rio’s scientific mind had formulated two distinct theories.

Theory One: The appearance of the “Gate” caused a partial fusion between the Inner World and reality. To protect humanity from this sudden influx of spiritual threats, the universe’s natural defense mechanism triggered, granting Yozora his Psychic powers to act as a countermeasure.

If this was true, it meant Yozora’s endless chuunibyou rants from the past were actually prophetic. He truly was the Chosen One, blessed by the heavens to save the world. It was a clean, heroic narrative where the supernatural society simply did its job protecting the innocent.

But Theory Two was far darker.

What if the causal relationship was reversed?

What if the “Gate” didn’t awaken Yozora… but Yozora’s awakening tore open the “Gate”?

This would perfectly explain why the spatial anomalies were entirely localized to Kyoto. Sakurajima Mai’s Puberty Syndrome had altered the observation and cognition of the entire world. What if the “Gate” in Kyoto, and the sudden, explosive mutation of these insane Evil Spirits… were all just manifestations of Yozora’s own Puberty Syndrome?

Rio couldn’t prove it. The sample size for Puberty Syndrome was agonizingly small; Mai was their only documented case. Science demanded rigorous, repeated verification. Drawing a definitive conclusion from a single data point was nothing more than reckless speculation. If a second patient could be confirmed, she could finally cross-reference the symptoms.

“Futaba? You spacing out on me?”

Yozora’s voice snapped her back to reality.

Rio looked at his familiar, infuriatingly relaxed face. She forced the corners of her mouth up into a small, reassuring smile and shook her head. “It’s nothing. I’m just exhausted. Let’s wrap this up quickly so I can go home and sleep.”

In that moment, Rio made a quiet vow.

Regardless of the truth, her stance on Yozora wouldn’t waver. Puberty Syndrome was a subconscious phenomenon, completely out of the host’s control. Blaming him for the recent surge in supernatural crime or the terrifying evolution of the Evil Spirits would be incredibly unfair. She would stand by him.

“Yeah, let’s get this over with,” Yozora agreed, stretching his arms lazily.

Outwardly, he looked entirely unbothered. Inwardly, however, he suppressed a sigh.

Rio Futaba was a genuinely terrible actress.

Given her usual hyper-rational, emotionally flat baseline… if there was truly nothing bothering her, why on earth would she force such a painfully fake smile at him?