English
Indonesia
Chinese (Simp)
Japanese
Korean
Spanish
Portuguese
French
German
ArabicAnime Crossover: Eating Evil in a Daily World — Chapter 12
Chapter 12: Nightly Entertainment
The middle-aged man never expected anyone to wander into this remote, dead-end alleyway in the dead of night.
Panic flashed across his bloodshot eyes. He immediately yanked the young woman back, pressing a dull dagger against her throat as he turned to face the teenager who had just spoken.
“Take one more step and I will kill her!” the robber barked, his voice cracking with desperate ferocity.
Yozora merely shrugged. A light, airy laugh escaped his lips before he delivered a response that completely derailed the tense hostage situation.
“What does that have to do with me?”
“What…”
The robber froze. The young woman went slack with shock for a split second before stammering out a desperate plea.
“Help… help me.”
Yozora offered her a perfectly polite, gentle smile.
“Whether you die or not is entirely your business. I am just here for him.”
Looking at the teenager’s placid expression, the robber felt a sudden chill. The guy was not bluffing. This handsome kid in the dark clothes genuinely did not care if the hostage lived or died.
“Dammit…”
Gritting his teeth, the robber shoved the young woman forward with all his strength and bolted deeper into the alley. He realized there was no need to risk a murder charge over a simple mugging. He could always find another target. But a stray thought echoed in his frantic mind.
Why did he suddenly feel such an overwhelming urge to slaughter that woman just now?
As the young woman stumbled forward, Yozora simply took a casual half-step to the side. He dodged her with an elegant pivot, letting her crash into a pathetic heap on the damp asphalt.
He kept his gaze fixed on the fleeing robber’s back. A thick, suffocating black aura clung to the man, billowing out in dark waves that ordinary human eyes could never perceive.
“At this stage, there is no saving him.”
Yozora shoved his hands into his pockets and took a leisurely stroll in the direction the man had run. If his memory served him right, that path led straight into a brick wall.
Deep in the alley.
“Damn it, damn it!”
The robber slammed his fists against the towering concrete wall blocking his escape. His eyes were entirely bloodshot, the veins bulging so violently his face twisted into a hideous, inhuman grimace.
Footsteps echoed behind him. He spun around, gnashing his teeth so hard his gums bled, and glared at the slowly approaching teenager. The mysterious, raspy voice echoed in his skull once more, commanding him to kill.
“Kill… I will kill you…”
The robber locked his blood-soaked gaze onto Yozora, radiating a thick, suffocating killing intent.
“Kill you!”
He tightened his grip on the cheap dagger, lunged forward with explosive speed, and drove the blade straight toward Yozora’s abdomen.
A sharp, metallic clang echoed through the alley.
The sound that reached the robber’s ears was not the wet tear of pierced flesh. Instead, it sounded exactly like striking a solid iron plate.
“Are you trying to make me laugh?”
Yozora shook his head, his face a mask of utter disappointment.
“I am a proper Exorcist. Who are you trying to fool with a crappy fruit knife? Zero respect for the profession.”
The robber stared in absolute disbelief. The tip of his dagger hovered inches from Yozora’s stomach, completely halted by a strange, swirling cloud of dense Black Mist.
“How… how is this possible…”
He stumbled back two steps. The dagger clattered to the ground. His knees buckled, and he collapsed onto the dirty pavement, wailing for mercy.
“I… I was possessed for a moment! Please, have mercy on me!”
From homicidal madness to groveling submission in the blink of an eye. The sheer speed of his attitude adjustment was something even legendary generals of old would admire.
Yozora stared down at the weeping man. There was not a single ounce of pity in his eyes. He just shook his head and sighed softly.
“Truly disgusting.”
The moment those words left his mouth, the alleyway plunged into dead silence.
The robber remained kneeling, his body frozen like a stone statue. A long minute passed. Then, his head snapped up.
The bloodshot veins in his eyes had vanished, replaced by a bottomless, inky void. His flesh began to swell and tear, taking on a grotesque, disproportionate shape. His skin rapidly darkened into a nauseating, bruised purple.
Facing a terrifying mutation that would make any normal person faint on the spot, Yozora maintained his casual posture and let out a dry chuckle.
“Wouldn’t it have been easier to just do this from the start? Why bother with the bad acting?”
There was one crucial detail he had omitted during his explanation to Yotsuya Miko earlier that day. The very second a human is fully controlled by an evil spirit, even if they retain their memories and act like their normal selves, they are already dead. Just walking corpses wearing human skin.
The most sickening part of the whole ordeal was the emotional manipulation. Even knowing the victim was completely beyond saving, very few Exorcists could actually bring themselves to strike when faced with human tears and desperate begging.
Naturally, Yozora belonged to the tiny minority who felt absolutely nothing.
He looked up at the twisted, towering evil spirit. It had swollen to nearly three meters in height, its massive arms splitting open to reveal dozens of jagged, bone-like blades.
Yozora offered it a warm smile and spoke three simple words.
“Time to eat.”
Ten minutes later.
“All done.”
Yozora brushed a speck of phantom dust off his shoulder and casually strolled out of the remote alley.
Just as he expected, the young woman from earlier was long gone. Setting the murderous robber aside, Yozora himself hardly seemed like a normal citizen. Anyone with half a brain would have run for the hills rather than stick around a dark alley at one in the morning.
“Another long night.”
Having thoroughly digested his latest meal, Yozora did not head home. He simply adjusted his collar and continued his prowl through the sleeping city, searching for his next prey.
His motivation for hunting evil spirits was incredibly straightforward. He wanted to get stronger.
After devouring hundreds of these grotesque entities, Yozora discovered that his physical attributes skyrocketed. Beyond brute strength, he gained the ability to manipulate that strange Black Mist for both offense and defense. He also acquired a phantom Ghost Hand that followed him around, an entity so deeply concealed that even someone with Yotsuya Miko’s supernatural sight could not detect it.
If things like evil spirits roamed this world, who knew what other terrifying anomalies lurked in the shadows? It was always better to be over-prepared. Having a sword and choosing not to draw it was one thing. Walking into a bloodbath empty-handed was just plain stupid.
The next morning, inside the Class A classroom of Sobu High School.
“Good morning, Yozora.”
“Yeah, morning.”
Yozora had barely dropped his bag onto his desk when Yotsuya Miko shuffled over to greet him.
Taking one look at the heavy, bruised dark circles under her eyes, he easily deduced that she had spent the entire night tossing and turning. Naturally, her insomnia had nothing to do with the sweet, thrilling anxieties of adolescent romance. Her entire perception of reality had just been shattered into a million pieces.
Miko cast a nervous glance around the bustling classroom. Seeing that none of their classmates were paying attention to them, she leaned in and carefully lowered her voice.
“Yozora, about after school today…”
“Do not be so impatient.”
Yozora smiled, leaning back in his chair.
“Have you heard the tragedy of 2.5 Gojo Satoru? If you rush into things too recklessly, you might just end up as Miko Futatani during a fight with an evil spirit.”
[Inorin’s Note: Yozora is making a dark Jujutsu Kaisen pun here. “2.5 Gojo Satoru” refers to a certain character being cut in half. Yotsuya Miko’s surname “Yotsuya” translates to “Four Valleys.” If she gets cut in half during a fight, four divided by two becomes two—hence Yozora calling her “Futatani,” which translates to “Two Valleys.”]