Anime Crossover: Eating Evil in a Daily World — Chapter 26

Chapter 26: Aspiring to Become Miko Yotsuya’s Training Master

Tears pricked the corners of Miko’s eyes, her face draining of color as pure terror seized her throat. “Y-Yozora, th-that’s an ev… ev…”

“Hungry? What do you mean you’re hungry?” Yozora smoothly cut her off with a dismissive wave of his hand. “If you’re starving, go grab a bite. Complaining to me is useless, I’m not a chef.”

Before she could process the sudden pivot, Yozora leaned in close. His breath brushed against her ear as he dropped his voice to a faint whisper. “Look closely. That is a living, breathing person. Not an evil spirit.”

Hearing those words, the rigid tension in Miko’s shoulders melted just a fraction. She bit her lower lip, her golden eyes still trembling as she stared at the beautiful girl standing before them.

It truly could not be helped. In the past, Miko could easily distinguish between the living and the dead just by glancing at them. But ever since she was nearly lured to her doom by a grotesque entity wearing Shizuka Hiratsuka’s face, she had developed a severe case of PTSD. Now, merely hearing the phrase ‘Can you see me?’ was enough to rip her soul straight out of her body.

Thank god Yozora was standing right beside her. Otherwise, she would have absolutely screamed the words ‘evil spirit’ right in the stranger’s face.

“Sorry for disturbing you.”

Seeing Yozora whispering so intimately into Miko’s ear, the beautiful girl politely tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear. Her voice was soft and courteous. Without lingering, she simply turned on her heel and walked away.

Only when the stranger’s silhouette disappeared down the corridor did Miko finally let out a long, shaky exhale. Then, a sudden realization struck her. That face had been incredibly familiar.

“Wait a second, wasn’t that… Mai Sakurajima-senpai?”

“Not familiar. Don’t know her.”

Seeing Yozora’s utterly apathetic response, Miko raised her eyebrows in sheer disbelief. “You seriously don’t know Mai Sakurajima-senpai? Let me educate you, she’s…”

“A former national-level idol, debuted as a child star, a highly acclaimed actress, and the lead in multiple morning dramas. Right?” Yozora effortlessly rattled off Mai’s extensive resume before letting out a lazy yawn. “I know her entire wiki page, I just couldn’t care less. Don’t forget, our top priority right now isn’t playing fanboy to a passing celebrity.”

The light in Miko’s eyes dimmed slightly at the reminder. Her expression grew heavy, and she gave a solemn nod. “Yes. I understand.”

As a psychic burdened with the sight, she had learned from Yozora about the catastrophic dangers lurking in Kyoto. The restless evil spirits were threatening the safety of all humanity. Miko had already made her choice. Even if it meant putting her own life on the line, she was entirely determined to stand by Yozora and resolve this crisis.

“Alright, relax a bit.” Seeing her grim expression, Yozora let out a light chuckle and patted her shoulder. “I’m in a stellar mood today. I’ll treat you to dinner, and then we kick off your training.”

“What do you mean ‘training’?” Miko shot him a deadpan look. “Do you think I’m a Pokémon?”

“If you actually were a Pokémon, my life would be infinitely easier. I’d just forcefully stuff you full of Rare Candies until you evolved.”

“Stop saying weird things.”

Despite the bizarre banter, the lingering nervousness in Miko’s chest finally began to dissipate. A faint blush crept onto her cheeks as she looked down at her shoes. “Um… treating me to dinner. Just the two of us, alone?”

“Of course. Just the two of us.”

“I… okay.”

Miko felt her heart suddenly kick into overdrive, hammering wildly against her ribs. She stole a covert glance at Yozora’s sharp profile. When he wasn’t spouting unhinged nonsense, he really was quite charming.

Could it be…

They had only known each other for five days. Wasn’t this progression moving a bit too fast? Was she completely misunderstanding the situation? But a private dinner alone sounded incredibly ambiguous. What if, right in the middle of the meal, Yozora suddenly confessed his feelings to her? How was she supposed to respond? Accept him… or refuse?

Her mind spun into absolute turmoil.

Half an hour later.

Miko stared blankly at the towering, dilapidated structure looming before her. It was an abandoned commercial building, its peeling gray walls radiating an ominous, suffocating aura that seemed to swallow the surrounding daylight.

“You… you said a private dinner alone, and you brought me to a place like this?”

“Exactly.” Yozora maintained an entirely serious expression as he reached into his plastic bag and pulled out two discount convenience store bento boxes. “I snuck out of school during the lunch break to secure these. You are currently receiving the absolute VIP treatment.”

Staring at the rotting concrete of the abandoned building, deep unwillingness shone in Miko’s golden eyes. Her legs felt like they were turning to jelly. “C-can we please not eat here? You said it was just the two of us!”

“That’s right. Just the two of us ‘people’. I kept my promise to the letter, see?”

Seeing Miko frozen in place, Yozora merely shrugged and walked straight through the shattered glass doors of the abandoned building. “Anyway, if you don’t come inside, our partnership terminates right here.”

Miko’s cute face twisted into an expression of utter despair, looking entirely ready to cry but unable to shed a single tear. In the end, she gritted her teeth, stomped her foot, and forced her trembling legs to follow him into the darkness.

The very second she crossed the threshold, a heavy, suffocating pressure slammed into her chest. It was a terrifyingly familiar sensation, the exact same aura she had experienced in that dark alleyway days ago.

‘It seems there’s a gate nearby.’

The realization made her stomach drop. Her mood grew infinitely heavier.

Back then, before she had physically stepped into that alley, she hadn’t seen the gate at all, nor had she sensed the horrifying malice it leaked. That meant the previous gate’s influence was strictly limited to a stretch of a few dozen meters.

But this time was entirely different.

Just by stepping into the ground floor lobby, the oppressive aura of a gate washed over her like a tidal wave. From the outside, this abandoned building stretched at least thirty or forty stories high, clearly designed as a massive shopping complex.

Which meant…

The gate festering inside this structure possessed an area of influence at least a hundred times larger than the last one.

“Training officially begins now.”

The moment Yozora’s calm voice echoed through the empty lobby, the shadows shifted. From the pitch-black corners of the ceiling and the rotting walls where the sunlight could not reach, eyes began to snap open. Hundreds of them. They varied in size and sickly colors, all radiating a pure, unadulterated madness.

The collective gaze of hundreds of inhuman eyes locked firmly onto her and Yozora.

Encountering such a horrific scene so suddenly, Miko felt as though she had been kicked straight into a freezing cellar. Her pupils dilated to their absolute limits in sheer terror.

“No elevator. We’ll have to take the stairs.”

Yozora’s expression remained as placid and bored as ever, acting entirely as if the grotesque entities swarming the ceiling simply did not exist.

Miko finally understood exactly what his so-called ‘training’ entailed.

Having come this far, she had no route of retreat. Forcing down the bile rising in her throat, she followed Yozora toward the dark stairwell and began the agonizing ascent up the abandoned building.

“Can you see me?”

“Can you see me?”

“Can you see me?”

Entering the narrow, lightless stairwell provided no sanctuary. The evil spirits did not retreat; instead, they poured in after them, a suffocating tide of malice.

From the corner of her eye, Miko would occasionally catch horrifying glimpses of the horde. Strands of inky black, dripping wet hair brushing past her shoulder. Incredibly pale, grotesquely twisted fingers reaching out from the gloom, missing her skin by mere inches.

In the dead quiet of the stairwell, there was no other sound but the incessant, overlapping whispers of the dead. Their desperate questions merged with the steady rhythm of Yozora and Miko’s footsteps. Surrounded by hundreds of mangled spirits crowding the steps behind them, the entire scene formed a terrifying tableau, perfectly resembling a descent into a hellish scroll painting.