Anime Crossover: Eating Evil in a Daily World — Chapter 57

Chapter 57: The Yukinoshita Heiress and the Pale Ghost Hand

Yui Yuigahama finished her meal, the food sitting heavy in her stomach as a complicated knot of emotions tightened in her chest.

She knew Yozora’s words rang with a harsh but absolute truth. What Miko Yotsuya endured on a daily basis was far beyond the limits of a normal human psyche. To awaken the Yin-Yang Eyes, to be constantly surrounded and scrutinized by grotesque apparitions, and yet be forced to maintain an ironclad poker face—a single twitch of the lips or gasp of fear meant certain death.

Putting herself in Miko’s shoes sent a cold chill through Yui’s body. She asked herself the hard question: if she were the one cursed with that sight, she would either break down screaming on the first day and be devoured, or her mind would simply shatter under the crushing, day-to-day psychological torment.

And then there were the others. Yozora and Miko were the vanguards, psychics fighting on the bloody front lines against the eerie unknown. Rio Futaba, the club’s resident oblivious genius, was equally abnormal. As a mere first-year high school student, Rio was already casually dissecting quantum mechanics, explaining complex theories with terrifying articulation. Even though Yui couldn’t understand a single syllable of the science jargon, she knew it was deeply impressive.

Compared to them, Yui was just normal. Painfully, glaringly normal. It made her feel like an imposter sitting in the Supernatural Quantum Mechanics Investigation and Research Club, a room filled with brilliant weirdos and hardened exorcists.

Miko had awakened her Soul Manifestation by conquering her deepest, most primal fear of ghosts. Yui didn’t even want to imagine what kind of hellish crucible Yozora had walked through to awaken his own powers.

‘Could I ever muster that kind of resolve?’ Yui wondered, her hands clenching into fists in her lap.

Determined to be useful, she gathered the stack of campus rumors and incident reports she had compiled. She headed straight for the Commercial Street to meet with Oda Noto. As the club’s self-appointed diplomatic ambassador, her primary duty was intelligence cross-referencing. By filtering the terrified whispers of the student body against Oda’s official exorcism requests, she could pinpoint the supernatural hotspots. From there, Yozora and Miko would select their hunting grounds.

Meanwhile, Yozora and Miko were seated on a train, rattling toward that all-too-familiar abandoned building.

Saturday afternoon traffic in Kyoto was a strange beast. During the morning and evening rush hours, commuters were packed into the carriages like sardines in a tin can, practically forming human pyramids against the glass. But right now, the train felt almost hollow, the empty seats amplifying the rhythmic clatter of the tracks.

“Let me confirm this one more time.” Miko pursed her pale lips, a flicker of genuine anxiety betraying her stoic golden eyes. “Nothing unexpected is going to happen today, right?”

“Well, that highly depends on your personal definition of unexpected,” Yozora replied, leaning back and offering a nonchalant shrug. “But let’s be real, the local neighborhood watch entrenched in that building has definitely leveled up since our last visit. There’s zero doubt about that.”

Over the past few weeks, thanks to their field data and Rio’s strategic analysis, the terrifying truth behind the Gate had finally surfaced. The other side of that tear in reality didn’t just lead nowhere; it bridged directly into the Inner World, a hellscape entirely dominated by evil spirits.

The miasma bleeding out from the Gate was actively terraforming the surrounding environment, assimilating the physical world into the twisted architecture of the Inner World. The sudden spike in the spirits’ power and aggression was a direct symptom of this environmental shift. The ghosts corrupted by the Gate’s influence were no longer just wandering aimlessly; they were deliberately hunting. They orchestrated human casualties, harvesting lives and souls as fuel to accelerate the Gate’s complete manifestation.

As for what would happen if a critical mass of Gates fully opened? Yozora didn’t need Rio’s quantum theories to figure out that endgame. The Inner World’s Kyoto would smoothly overwrite the Surface World’s Kyoto. The cardinal rule of being seen would be abolished. The fragile ecosystem keeping humanity alive would collapse overnight, turning the entire city into a desolate ghost domain where taking a single step meant instant death.

“Hey. No need to look so tense.” Noticing the grim shadow over Miko’s face, Yozora offered a surprisingly gentle smile. “Just do your best. I’ve got the rest.”

Miko blinked, genuinely taken aback. “You… actually know how to take the initiative to comfort someone?”

“Of course I do.” Yozora puffed out his chest, looking like a paragon of righteous confidence. “I don’t plan on letting some run-down concrete box be my final resting place.”

Then, without missing a beat, his tone nosedived straight into the gutter. “I mean, if I get to choose how I check out, I’m living to at least a hundred and twenty. I’ll pass away peacefully while resting my head on a beautiful girl’s plump, black-stocking-clad thighs, my left hand exploring white pantyhose, and my right hand tracing the diamond patterns of fishnets. Anything less is frankly unacceptable.”

Miko’s expression instantly flatlined into a mask of pure disgust. “…Pervert.”

Yozora chuckled dryly. But just as quickly, the humor vanished from his face. He leaned in slightly, his dark eyes locking onto her golden ones with a sudden, piercing intensity that made the air between them feel heavy.

“Jokes aside,” he said, his voice dropping to a low, absolute murmur. “I am unwilling to let you die, Miko. And I won’t let it happen.”

“Y-you… you…”

Miko was completely blindsided. One second he was spouting degenerate garbage, and the next, he was delivering a direct, heart-stopping strike without a single shift in his expression. The sheer emotional whiplash nearly tied her tongue in a knot.

Stammering helplessly, she looked down, her fingers curling tightly into the fabric of her skirt. A furious blush burned all the way to the tips of her ears.

“Th-thank you,” she managed to squeak out, her voice as thin as a mosquito’s buzz.

“Don’t mention it,” Yozora replied smoothly.

At that exact moment, in the desolate open space fronting the abandoned building.

“Is this the place?”

Haruno Yukinoshita stood with her arms crossed, exuding the suffocating aura of an absolute corporate monarch. Dressed in a sharp suit jacket, tailored black pencil pants, and sensible black flats, her smooth, shoulder-length dark hair framed a face that was as beautiful as it was intimidating. She stared intently at the rotting concrete structure, her delicate brows knit in deep displeasure.

Behind her stood a gaggle of project supervisors. Under Haruno’s withering gaze, the grown men exchanged timid, hesitant glances, shrinking back like scolded schoolchildren. None dared to speak first.

“Hmph. Can absolutely none of you provide a reasonable explanation?” Haruno pivoted on her heel, her cold eyes sweeping over the pathetic group.

This office building was far more than just another line item for the Yukinoshita Family’s construction conglomerate. It was their vanguard, the very first project the company had undertaken outside the comfortable borders of Chiba Prefecture. Dominating the local market in Chiba was one thing; establishing a foothold across the entire Sakura Province was a completely different beast.

Her mother’s grand design was to slap the Yukino name onto the finished high-rise and lease it out to Kyoto’s corporate elite. The profit margins were secondary; this was a calculated play to project the Yukinoshita Family’s influence onto a national stage.

And now, she was being told that this critical venture, which had already bled tens of millions in investments and under-the-table grease money, was going to belly-up because of hauntings?

Haruno absolutely refused to accept such a farcical excuse.

“Miss Yukinoshita…” The lead supervisor, a burly man with a normally honest, simple face, scratched the back of his neck in visible distress. “It’s not that we don’t want to finish the job. But the men refuse to set foot inside, no matter what I say. They’d rather quit on the spot than pick up a hammer. I can’t exactly hold a gun to their heads.”

Haruno’s frown deepened, the sheer atmospheric pressure she radiated causing the burly man to break out in a cold sweat.

It was easy to be fooled by her public persona. In social circles, Haruno often played the role of the frivolous, mischievous socialite. But beneath that smiling mask lay a ruthless intellect that eclipsed even her genius younger sister, Yukino. She was a prodigy who had effortlessly breezed into the science and engineering department of a prestigious national university, frequently serving as the iron-fisted proxy for the Yukinoshita matriarch.

She was a bona fide genius and a terrifyingly wealthy heiress. Facing her icy glare and remembering the astronomical liquidated damages written into their contracts, the supervisors were practically swimming in their own sweat.

“I see.” Seeing the men fall silent again, Haruno let out a derisive snort. “You’re using this ghost story as use to extort a higher fee, aren’t you? Fine. Drop the act and give me a number.”

“No, no, no! Miss Yukinoshita, please, that’s not it at all!” The lead supervisor waved his hands frantically, genuine terror in his eyes. “The contract is ironclad. Since we’re the ones failing to meet the company’s deadlines, we wouldn’t dare ask you to waive the penalty fees. We only pray you might be lenient and let us pay a fraction less.”

Hearing the raw desperation in his voice, Haruno’s expression shifted slightly.

This was a highly irregular situation. Back in Chiba, the Yukinoshita Company used its own loyal construction crews. But expanding into Kyoto required playing local politics, and one of the mandatory concessions was hiring a native Kyoto firm. Haruno knew for a fact that the compensation package she had offered them was obscenely generous.

If they weren’t trying to hike the price, and were actually willing to swallow a ruinous penalty fee just to walk away… did that mean there really was something foul lurking inside?

Haruno shook her head, dismissing the thought. ‘Impossible.’ She was a woman of science, a staunch materialist. Someone had to be sabotaging the site to drive them out.

Recalling her mother’s strict instructions before leaving home, Haruno’s eyes hardened. She turned back to the decaying structure.

“In that case, let’s make a wager.”

“A wager?”

Haruno pointed a slender finger at the dark entrance. “I will go inside, alone, and walk all the way up to the top floor. If nothing happens and I walk out without a single scratch, your men will resume construction tomorrow… no, immediately. Do we have a problem?”

“This…”

“This is my absolute bottom line,” Haruno cut him off, her tone leaving zero room for negotiation. “Either accept the terms, or prepare to pay the liquidated damages in full. We may not be in Chiba, but my father has more than enough friends in Kyoto to ruin you.”

The supervisors exchanged defeated looks. The threat of financial ruin was a heavy yoke.

“Then… please be careful, Miss Yukinoshita.”

Deep down, they harbored a desperate, shameful glimmer of hope. What if the recent string of horrific accidents really were just bizarre coincidences? The Yukinoshita money was too good to pass up.

“It’s settled then.”

Without a second of hesitation, Haruno strode confidently toward the gaping maw of the abandoned building.

The moment she crossed the threshold, an unnaturally frigid gust of wind washed over her skin, carrying the faint scent of rot. Haruno scoffed lightly, her face an unreadable mask of calm as she stepped into the darkened stairwell.

If there was one brutal lesson she had internalized from being born into the Yukinoshita dynasty, it was this: responsibility always demands a bearer.

Running away was pointless. No one was coming to save you; you could only rely on yourself.

Haruno had learned that truth in her bones. Even if her heart was currently hammering against her ribs. Even if her legs felt like lead and a cold knot of dread was twisting in her stomach. As the eldest daughter, the heir apparent, her only option was to keep.

Beneath the sharp cut of her suit jacket, her shoulders gave a microscopic tremble. Yet, she ascended the concrete steps, floor by floor, swallowed by the oppressive gloom.

“Is this… floor twenty-three? Or twenty-four?”

Haruno murmured to herself, her voice swallowed instantly by the dead air. The only sounds were the ragged rhythm of her own breathing and the sharp click of her flats against the concrete.

‘Isn’t it… a bit too quiet in here?’

Just as the thought crossed her mind, a wet, heavy thud echoed from the corridor outside the stairwell. It was followed by a sickening, indescribable crunch, the distinct sound of bone and meat being pulverized.

“Is someone there?”

Haruno’s pupils contracted violently, but she quickly forced herself to exhale, gripping the edge of her composure. Given the suffocating atmosphere and the rumors of fatal accidents, wandering a pitch-black stairwell alone was a brutal stress test for anyone’s sanity.

If it was just a squatter or a corporate saboteur, she wasn’t particularly worried. She had spent years practicing Aikido alongside Yukino. Three or four average thugs wouldn’t even be able to touch her.

More…

Haruno reached into her pocket and drew out a heavy, pitch-black stun baton. With fifty thousand volts resting comfortably in her palm, what was there to fear from a mere human?

Slowing her breathing, she crept out of the stairwell and stepped onto the open floor plan.

Squelch.

Haruno froze. A sickeningly sticky sensation clung to the soles of her shoes. Frowning, she instinctively looked down.

Through the shattered windows, a faint, sickly reddish moonlight bled across the floor. When her eyes adjusted to the crimson gloom, her breath caught in her throat.

“Wh-what is…?”

The concrete was painted in vast, sweeping arcs of dark red blood. It had pooled and congealed with the construction dust, forming a viscous, tar-like sludge that radiated a stomach-churning stench of copper and decay.

Slowly, Haruno dragged her gaze upward.

Bathing in the red moonlight was a monster. It was shaped like a colossal python, its girth defying all laws of biology. Embedded directly in the center of its grotesque, fleshy face was a massive vertical eye, and lining the inside of that eye were two rows of jagged, razor-sharp teeth.

But that wasn’t the worst part.

A silent, orderly queue of lesser horrors, twisted, mangled spirits of varying nightmarish shapes, stood before the serpent. One by one, they were voluntarily stepping forward, feeding their own spectral bodies directly into the serpent’s weeping, tooth-filled eye.

The wet crunching sound she had heard was the vertical eye masticating the lesser ghosts, their dark flesh slowly melting and fusing into the giant eyeball.

Witnessing this scene of pure, unadulterated madness, the blood in Haruno’s veins turned to ice.

“Huu…”

The serpent paused its gruesome meal. The massive, emotionless vertical eye swiveled, locking dead onto Haruno.

In unison, the long line of waiting evil spirits slowly turned their mangled heads toward her. Without a single sound, the horde broke formation, their broken limbs twitching as they began to close in.

“D-don’t come any closer!”

Haruno slammed her thumb onto the baton’s trigger. A blinding arc of blue electricity crackled aggressively through the dark room.

But against entities born of the Inner World, it was a child’s toy. If it had been a Taoist Palm Lightning technique, they might have flinched. But a commercial stun baton? It was laughable.

Even as the nightmare encroached, Haruno didn’t scream. She backed up slowly until her shoulders hit the cold concrete wall, her body trembling violently, but her grip on the sparking baton never wavered.

‘Am I… actually going to die here?’

Surrounded by a sea of encroaching monsters, a bitter, self-deprecating smile tugged at the corners of her lips.

This exhausting, meaningless life, where she had spent every waking second pretending to be the perfect, invulnerable heir… was it really going to end in this filthy, forgotten room?

Her legs finally gave out. Haruno slumped to the blood-stained floor, her beautiful eyes clouding with absolute, suffocating despair.

And then, the distinct sound of casual footsteps echoed from the stairwell.

“Looks like the local population has boomed.”

The voice belonged to a girl, calm, flat, and completely unfazed.

Immediately after, a male voice chimed in. It was laced with a lazy, almost festive amusement, carrying an unmistakable undercurrent of predatory anticipation.

“Yeah. Let’s wrap this up quick.”

As Haruno watched in utter shock, a teenage boy and girl strolled casually out of the stairwell. The boy was holding a gleaming longsword.

How had they smuggled a lethal weapon onto the Kyoto transit system?

Simple. Yozora had just ordered Hachishaku to swallow the blade whole, only having the eight-foot-tall ghost regurgitate it once they stepped off the train. Hachishaku was certainly tall enough to serve as a highly convenient, invisible flesh-suitcase. It was simply a matter of maximizing one’s available resources.

“Wh-who are you people?” Haruno managed to gasp.

Miko glanced at the woman slumped against the wall. Studying Haruno’s striking features, Miko’s brow furrowed slightly as a faint sense of recognition flickered in her mind. But she knew better than to ask for a business card in the middle of a monster den.

“Looks like a civilian wandered into the crossfire. Change of plans. I’ll run guard duty on her,” Miko stated flatly.

“Sure, works for me,” Yozora agreed without missing a beat.

He took two leisurely steps forward, placing himself between the trembling heiress and the horde of nightmares. He looked directly at the mass of twisted spirits, his gaze finally settling on the colossal, vertical-eyed serpent lurking in the back.

Yozora raised a hand and offered a cheerful, lazy wave.

“Yahallo. Long time no see.”

He then glanced down at the blood-soaked concrete and out at the sickly red moon hanging in the sky.

“Has this floor already synced up with the Inner World? Man, the download speed on this Gate is impressive.”

Yozora rolled his shoulders, the casual smile melting off his face. In its place, a dark, unhinged excitement ignited in his eyes.

“Now this… this is actually interesting.”

As the word “Come” slipped past Yozora’s lips, reality violently fractured.

Neither Miko nor Haruno could have anticipated the sheer horror of what happened next. The Pale Ghost Hand manifested once again, but this time, it didn’t just float ominously in the air.

Instead, the flesh and bone of Yozora’s left arm, from the shoulder joint all the way down to his fingertips, violently morphed and fused, directly transforming into the grotesque, terrifying mass of the Pale Ghost Hand itself!

“What in the…!” Haruno choked out, completely paralyzed by the suffocating, evil pressure radiating from the demonic limb.

Even Miko’s stoic mask cracked in sheer disbelief.

Soul Manifestation was supposed to be the projection of one’s inner heart and soul to combat the supernatural. But what Yozora was doing defied all logic; he was forcibly fusing the manifested ghostly construct back into his own biological body!

‘Since when was that even an option?!’

[Inorin’s Note: “Yahallo” is the signature, overly cheerful greeting used by Yui Yuigahama in the Oregairu series. Yozora using it here while staring down a horde of grotesque monsters is a prime example of his twisted, chuunibyou sense of humor.]