English
Indonesia
Chinese (Simp)
Japanese
Korean
Spanish
Portuguese
French
German
ArabicAnime Crossover: Eating Evil in a Daily World — Chapter 29
Chapter 29: Manifestation of the Soul
“Bail, retreat, sell out, run away.”
Before Yotsuya Miko could even process the string of gamer nonsense leaving his mouth, she was swept off her feet and directly into Yozora’s arms.
Up above, the pale, colossal Ghost Hand and the grotesque, serpentine Evil Spirit had completely dominated the space. The lesser Evil Spirits, who had previously been whipped into a bloodthirsty frenzy, were now huddled pathetically in the corners of the room. They looked like a flock of trembling sheep forced to watch two apex predators tear each other apart, completely stripped of their former malice.
Yotsuya Miko originally assumed that when Yozora called for a tactical retreat, he meant taking the stairwell. That would be the logical, human thing to do.
But there was a glaring problem.
Why were they sprinting closer and closer to the shattered window?
“Let’s go.”
Moving with terrifying, lightning-fast speed, Yozora reached the edge of the glassless frame. Without a single microsecond of hesitation, he leaped directly out into the open air, holding Yotsuya Miko tightly against his chest.
From an outside perspective, the scene might have looked like a highly romanticized, youthful recreation of the Titanic.
Except for one extremely crucial detail.
They were currently on the twenty-eighth floor.
“Eh, eh, eeeeeh!?”
The freezing night wind roared in her ears, a deafening howl that drowned out all rational thought. The concrete pavement of the ground floor was expanding in her vision at a terrifying speed. Her mind began to frantically flip through the slideshow of her short life.
Was she actually going to die here?
Hitting the ground from this height would absolutely turn them into a spectacular splatter of modern art. When the cleanup crews came to scrape the scene off the pavement, wouldn’t she and Yozora be permanently fused together into a single bloody mess? It was completely over. If she got infected by his sheer abstract insanity in death and mutated into some bizarre abstract ghost, what would she even do?
Just as the unforgiving concrete rushed up to meet them, less than twenty meters away from a gruesome end where they would merge and super-evolve into Yagami Miko, Yozora casually opened his mouth.
“Come back.”
The pale giant hand, which had been locked in a brutal wrestling match with the serpentine Evil Spirit up on the twenty-eighth floor, instantly heeded the summons. It abandoned its prey, phased straight through the solid concrete of the building’s exterior, and plummeted toward the street. Opening its massive palm, it caught Yozora with absolute precision, cushioning their terminal velocity before setting his feet gently onto the solid earth.
Da-da-da-da-da…
Hearing this strange, rapid-fire clicking sound, Yozora frowned slightly. What was that noise? A Chicago typewriter? Did the Kyoto yakuza upgrade their weapon configurations to be this retro-professional now? He glanced down at his arms and immediately understood.
It was Yotsuya Miko. Her two rows of silver teeth were chattering together so violently they were practically striking sparks, turning her into a human Tommy gun.
The moment he set her down, Miko’s legs completely gave out. She collapsed onto the cold pavement, instinctively wrapping both of her hands around his thigh in a death grip.
“Dame dame dame.”
“Muri muri muri.”
“No, no, no.”
Yotsuya Miko (lost her highlight).JPG
Seeing her paralyzed like a broken doll, Yozora pouted and let out a long, exaggerated sigh. “Man, you young people nowadays have zero life experience. Never even been bungee jumping? And you want to be a Professional Exorcist? You can’t even handle this tiny bit of excitement?”
There were so many catastrophic points to ridicule in that statement that Yotsuya Miko did not even know where to begin unpacking them. But even if she wanted to scream at him, her vocal cords refused to cooperate. She was completely completely stunned, her brain still trying to process the fact that she was alive.
Just then, two incredibly pale fingers tipped with sharp, abyssal black nails extended slowly toward her face.
Miko flinched, her breath hitching in pure terror.
However, the next sequence of events completely shattered her worldview.
The index and middle fingers of the terrifying white Ghost Hand slowly curled inward, pressing together to form… a perfect, delicate little heart shape.
Before Yotsuya Miko could even begin to comprehend the sheer absurdity of this bizarre scene, Yozora waved his hand with a look of utter impatience.
“Alright, alright, stop trying to steal the spotlight down here. Disappear.”
The white Ghost Hand seemed genuinely reluctant to leave. It even curled its fingers to make a polite, waving goodbye gesture toward Miko before finally dissolving into thin air.
“What… what was that thing…”
Hearing the tremor in her voice, Yozora shrugged his shoulders and let out an indifferent yawn. “Your performance today was actually way beyond my expectations. Since you managed to keep your eyes open to see it, I guess I’ll explain it to you.”
He crouched down slightly, bringing himself to eye level with the trembling girl. Looking directly into her golden eyes, he spoke with a rare, heavy solemnity.
“That thing, you could say, is another version of me. A spiritual manifestation.”
A flicker of sudden understanding passed through Miko’s eyes. She nodded slowly, her expression entirely serious. “Hmm… I don’t understand at all.”
“Sigh, why are you so stupid?”
Yozora rolled his eyes and waved his hand dismissively. “To keep it simple, you can think of it as my ultimate trump card for fighting Evil Spirits. It is my strongest ability. It originates directly from my own soul, manifesting into reality as something that shares the exact same nature as an Evil Spirit.”
“I see. Does this ability have a specific name?”
“A name? I don’t really care about useless details like that. You can call it whatever helps you sleep at night. A Stand, a Persona, a superpower, a Psychic trait, a cheat code. Anything works.”
“Is that so…”
Yotsuya Miko nodded noncommittally, absorbing the information. Then, she suddenly lowered her voice, asking in a tentative, hesitant tone. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Shoot.”
“That giant hand is a direct extension and manifestation of your soul. I didn’t misunderstand that part, right?”
“Yeah, that is the basic idea.”
“Then… it just made a finger heart at me.” She looked up at him, her golden eyes blinking slowly. “Does that mean… deep down in your soul, you actually really wanted to make that gesture at me?”
Yozora stared at her in dead silence.
“I say, sis, we just jumped off a skyscraper. Can you not act so lovesick at a time like this? Shouldn’t your first priority be asking if you can awaken this kind of overpowered ability too?”
“Oh, you are totally right.”
Miko’s pretty face flushed a faint shade of pink, and she quickly scrambled to change the subject. “Then, is it possible for me to awaken this ability?”
“I think you should be able to.”
“What do you mean ‘should’? Isn’t there a definite, scientific answer to this?”
“It seems you still don’t grasp the reality of our situation.”
Yozora reached out and patted her shoulder, his tone dropping its usual sarcastic edge. Being stared at so intently by him, a strange, creeping nervousness suddenly welled up in the pit of Miko’s stomach.
“W-what is it?”
“You and I are very likely the most powerful Psychics to ever exist in the entire history of Japan.”
“Isn’t that a good thing?”
“Not even slightly.” Yozora shook his head, his gaze sweeping over the dark, empty street. “This means that if we encounter phenomena that even we don’t understand, or Evil Spirits that neither of us can overpower, we are completely on our own. Even if we dig through every ancient text in the country, we will at most find vague reference material. There is no mentor waiting in the wings. No one on this earth can provide us with a solution. Do you understand?”
Hearing the cold truth laid bare, Miko finally realized the crushing gravity of their existence.
What she and Yozora were likely facing were terrifying, apocalyptic anomalies that had never once been recorded in human history.
Or, there was an even darker possibility.
These massive, chaotic spiritual riots had happened before. Thinking back to the sheer density of the horrors she had just witnessed swarming the unfinished building, Miko’s mind drifted to a terrifying, ancient legend.
The Hyakki Yagyo. The Night Parade of One Hundred Demons.
To face such a suffocating, apocalyptic future with absolutely no backup besides herself and the unhinged boy standing next to her? Miko felt an invisible, crushing weight settle heavily onto her slender shoulders.
Just then.
A single, freezing drop of water splattered against the concrete.
It was immediately followed by another, and then a continuous, rapidly intensifying downpour that washed over the silent city blocks.
“It’s raining.” Yozora looked up at the dark sky, watching the heavy droplets fall.
Miko looked up, her expression thoroughly miserable. “The weather forecast didn’t say anything about rain today.”
“Did you bring an umbrella?”
“No, did you?” she retorted.
“Me neither.” Yozora shook his head, letting out a long, defeated sigh. “Well, it looks like we are going to be completely drenched.”
[Inorin’s Note: “Yagami Miko” is a pun based on Yozora’s original Chinese name, Ye Xing. The character for “Ye” means Night. In Japanese, “Night God” is read as Yagami (like Yagami Light from Death Note). Miko is panicking that their crushed bodies will merge into a single entity called Night God Miko.]