English
Indonesia
Chinese (Simp)
Japanese
Korean
Spanish
Portuguese
French
German
ArabicAnime Crossover: Eating Evil in a Daily World — Chapter 35
Chapter 35: Open Your Eyes, Hyakume
That pristine white dress. That impossibly towering stature. Those cascading black locks. And that suffocating, oppressive aura that forced the air straight out of her lungs.
Miko Yotsuya was absolutely certain.
The towering woman standing before her was no ordinary apparition. It was the legendary monster from Japanese urban legends. Hachishaku-sama.
“Miko, what is wrong?”
Unlike Miko, whose pupils were trembling violently, Yui Yuigahama was completely oblivious. She let out a lazy yawn and waved at Sable, who was growling near the doorway.
“Come here, Sable. If you keep barking like this every night, the neighbors are going to complain.”
Calm down. Calm down. Calm down.
Miko gritted her teeth, desperately suppressing the primal terror clawing at her chest. The grueling weekend training sessions she endured with Yozora were meant for exact moments like this. As long as the entity did not realize she could see it, she would remain safe.
As for fighting back?
Miko did not even entertain such a suicidal thought. This was the legendary Hachishaku-sama. In gaming terms, it was like a level-one novice who had not even finished the tutorial stumbling directly into an endgame boss.
‘I have to text Yozora.’
Forcing her trembling hands steady, Miko pulled out her phone to draft an emergency message.
Before her fingers could type a single letter, the front door of the apartment swung wide open. There was no wind. Sable, who had been fiercely guarding the threshold, instantly bolted out into the night.
“Sable?”
Seeing her pet dart away, Yui did not hesitate for a second and chased right after the dog.
“Yui…”
Miko did not even have the breath to scream a warning.
It is bad. It is over. It is completely game over.
Those were the only coherent thoughts left in Miko’s mind. Humans who could not perceive evil spirits would not be harmed by them. That was the ironclad rule. But could the legendary Hachishaku-sama truly be bound by the same logic as ordinary ghosts? If the childhood horror stories were true, this entity deliberately lured its victims out of their homes before slaughtering them.
And now, Yui had stepped outside.
Miko took a deep, shuddering breath. Even though her legs felt like lead, she rapidly finished typing the message, hit send to Yozora, and forced herself to walk out the door. She could not just stand by and watch Yui walk into a death trap. She had to protect her friend, at least until Yozora arrived.
The moment Miko stepped into the corridor, she was greeted by a sight straight out of a nightmare.
Under the pale, sickly moonlight filtering into the apartment walkway, countless scraps of white and yellowed paper drifted through the air like snow from an unknown source. The ground was already blanketed in a thick layer of the strange parchment, piling up past her ankles.
‘What… what is all this…’
Cold sweat soaked completely through Miko’s pajamas.
At the far end of the corridor, Yui had already caught the runaway Sable and was cradling the struggling dog in her arms. Seeing Miko follow her outside, Yui jogged over with an apologetic smile.
“Sorry, sorry. Sable was probably just too excited because we had a guest over today, and it ended up waking you.”
“No, it is fine.”
Miko forced the corners of her mouth upward into a stiff smile. She kept her eyes locked dead ahead on Yui’s face, but her peripheral vision screamed at her.
The towering figure of Hachishaku-sama was standing directly behind Yui. Within the waterfall of pitch-black hair, a pair of pale, soulless, inhuman eyes stared unblinkingly at Miko.
“Yui, you should hurry back inside. It is freezing out here, you might catch a cold.”
‘I cannot take this anymore.’
Miko felt her sanity fraying at the edges.
“Okay, let us head back in.”
Yui smiled sweetly, completely unaware of the looming shadow of death at her back. She gently patted Sable’s head and spoke in a scolding tone.
“You are not allowed to run off like that again, understand?”
Right at that moment.
Hachishaku-sama parted her pale lips and let out a long, chilling sigh that carried centuries of endless resentment.
That was not the terrifying part. What caused Miko’s pupils to shrink to pinpricks was the physical reaction. With that ghostly sigh, the ends of Yui’s peach-pink hair actually fluttered in the air.
How was that possible?
A spirit’s breath was physically moving Yui’s hair. Yui was just an ordinary girl with no spiritual awareness. Evil spirits were not supposed to be able to touch her.
In the very next second, under Miko’s horrified gaze, Hachishaku-sama extended a sickly pale, elongated finger. The entity gently hooked a strand of Yui’s beautiful hair and wrapped it around her hand. And Yui remained entirely oblivious, her expression still innocent and naive.
“Miko, why are you just standing there?”
The reality of the situation crashed down on Miko. If Yui took even a single step forward, she would feel her hair being pulled. And whatever happened after she noticed… Miko did not dare to imagine.
“Woof! Woof! Woof!”
Sable barked furiously, baring its teeth directly at Hachishaku-sama.
“Huh? What are you barking at now?”
Yui looked confused and instinctively began to turn her head to look behind her.
Miko moved faster than her brain could process.
A loud smack echoed in the quiet corridor. Before she even realized what she was doing, Miko had violently swatted Hachishaku-sama’s pale hand away. Using her momentum, she shoved Yui hard into the apartment, slammed the heavy door shut, and pressed her entire back against the metal surface to lock it down.
“Miko?” Yui called out from the safety of the room, her voice muffled through the door.
Outside in the freezing corridor, Miko stood entirely alone, face to face with Hachishaku-sama.
“You… can see me?”
The towering entity asked softly, her voice echoing with a desolate, hollow emptiness. Then, the tone violently warped into a deafening, hoarse shriek.
“You can see me!”
A strange sense of absolute tranquility washed over Miko. All the ambient noise of the night seemed to fade into a dead silence. No matter how absurdly fast Yozora was, barely a minute had passed since she sent that text. There was no physical way he could cross the distance to save her in time.
‘Is this… how I die?’
Staring up at the massive, pale hand descending to crush her face, Miko had only one lingering thought.
She was unwilling. She was so incredibly unwilling to die here. Why had she awakened the Yin-Yang Spirit Vision in the first place? Was it just to experience this suffocating despair? She had just used the power of her eyes to save someone for the very first time.
‘Are you unwilling?’A mature, resonant woman’s voice suddenly echoed deep within Miko’s mind.’You can only see, yet you cannot change a single thing. Have you finally grown to detest such a weak, powerless version of yourself? Then, call my name.’As the ethereal voice faded from her consciousness, a thick, swirling barrier of pitch-black mist erupted in front of Miko, violently repelling Hachishaku-sama’s outstretched hand. A strange, captivating light ignited within Miko’s golden eyes.’So this is it. The true ability of Soul Manifestation.’
Every ounce of panic, hesitation, and fear vanished from her heart, replaced by an unshakable resolve. She looked directly up at the towering monstrosity before her and spoke, her voice steady and commanding.
“Open your eyes, Hyakume!”