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ArabicAnime Crossover: Eating Evil in a Daily World — Chapter 60
Chapter 60: Futaba’s High Ponytail and the Mysterious Stalker
Yozora wasn’t the least bit surprised by the sweeping countermeasures recently deployed by the Metropolitan Police Department.
Ever since the anomalous “Doors” had begun manifesting across the city, Kyoto’s crime rate had skyrocketed. The sheer scale of the violence was escalating at an alarming pace, rapidly mutating from ordinary street robberies and drunken brawls into gruesome homicides, and eventually, a string of serial murders.
If the authorities didn’t figure out a solution soon, Kyoto was going to turn into a real-life Gotham.
The constantly proliferating heinous crimes and the filthy, festering obsessions lurking within people’s hearts served as the perfect fertilizer, feeding the Evil Spirits and amplifying their strength. As their power swelled, the number of vulnerable humans they could manipulate and possess multiplied, which in turn intensified the atrocities committed under their influence.
It was a flawless, vicious cycle of malice.
If the Metropolitan Police Department’s current city-wide cleansing operation proved effective, it might actually throw a wrench into that cycle. For the Supernatural Society, whose ultimate objective was to eradicate the “Doors” and exterminate the Evil Spirits, this crackdown was a welcome development.
, reading between the lines of the Kyoto Metropolitan Police Department’s public announcements allowed Yozora to confirm a long-standing theory of his.
Currently, within the entirety of Japan, Kyoto was the only city suffering from the appearance of the “Doors.”
If crime rates were surging in other major metropolitan areas due to supernatural influence, the national government wouldn’t have the luxury of dispatching external personnel to reinforce the Kyoto police force.
As for the official news reports regarding the Kyoto Municipal Kindergarten incident from two days ago—which conveniently omitted any mention of his involvement—Yozora had fully anticipated the cover-up.
For one thing, the only person who had seen Hachishaku with his own eyes was Soichiro Yagami. A rigidly upright and logical detective like him was probably still trying to convince himself that the towering monster he witnessed was just a stress-induced hallucination. After all, the obvious existence of Evil Spirits was enough to shatter any normal person’s worldview into irreparable pieces.
On the other hand, if the Metropolitan Police Department actually told the public the truth, the media fallout would be catastrophic.
The dignified Kyoto Metropolitan Police, utterly helpless against a mere band of armed kidnappers, had to sit on their hands and wait for some mysterious vigilante to swoop in and save the day? Acknowledging his existence was tantamount to broadcasting their own sheer incompetence to the entire nation. From the top brass down to the beat cops, the department would never agree to such a humiliating admission.
Of course, Yozora had never intended to use the incident to farm fame or use benefits. The police concealing his existence actually worked in his favor; it meant they couldn’t launch an open investigation into him, keeping his identity safely off the grid.
“Yahallo…”
Hearing that sluggish, drawn-out greeting, Yozora didn’t even need to look up to know who had arrived.
“Yahallo, Yuigahama.”
Yui Yuigahama let out a massive yawn. Looking completely drained, as if she hadn’t slept a wink the night before, she vigorously rubbed her eyes and tried her best to perk up her posture.
“Just dropping by to report in. Mr. Oda’s side has received significantly fewer requests recently. For the occasional ones that do trickle in, I’ve just been forwarding them straight to Miko for her to verify.”
“Is that so…”
Seeing Yozora tap his chin with a thoughtful expression, Yui tilted her head, her ahoge twitching in confusion. “Isn’t it a good thing that the number of supernatural incidents is going down?”
Yozora shook his head, his tone dropping into a quiet, serious register. “Yuigahama, you need to keep one crucial thing in mind.”
“Our true opponents are those highly intelligent Yokai. The mindless Evil Spirits that only act on predatory instinct are nothing more than their disposable pawns.”
The more Yozora waded into these bizarre, blood-soaked incidents, the more he realized that the sudden manifestation of the “Doors” and the underlying Inner World was far from a random natural disaster.
Even though he dove into the Inner World to hunt and explore every single day, Kyoto was still a massive urban sprawl. Even now, his overall exploration progress of the mirrored city was likely less than one-thousandth of its total area.
Based on the fragmented intelligence he had gathered so far, Yozora had roughly mapped out a few terrifying truths.
First, even within the twisted, blood-red landscape of the Inner World dominated by Evil Spirits, there existed a strict, underlying order maintaining the ecosystem’s balance. The towering Slaughter Oni he had devoured previously acted as a sort of janitor, culling the weak to prevent the population density of Evil Spirits from reaching critical mass.
Second, the higher-tier Evil Spirits—the ones possessing independent thought and human-level intelligence—knew exactly what the “Doors” were and actively sought ways to accelerate their opening. The Flying Head and the Hannya were living, breathing proof of that grim reality.
And the third point was the most pressing issue of all.
Regardless of who it ended up being, Yozora urgently needed a trustworthy, tight-lipped candidate to awaken the power of Soul Manifestation right in front of his eyes.
He needed to verify a critical mechanic.
Could these supernatural abilities only be awakened while physically inside the Inner World?
No, that was just scratching the surface. To get to the root of the system, the real question was much deeper.
Was Rio Futaba’s running theory actually correct? Did a person truly have to undergo the process of “cognitive existence”—forcing themselves to directly confront the terrifying reality of the spirits, and subsequently their own inner soul—in order to trigger an awakening?
Or were he and Miko Yotsuya simply bizarre anomalies?
If it was the former, then it was a cause for celebration. As long as the Supernatural Society remained active, time was on their side. Even if the “Doors” and the Inner World continued to mutate, the number of capable assistants like Miko fighting by his side would steadily multiply.
But if it was the latter…
Yozora cast a sideways glance at the scattered students chatting idly in the classroom, and then back at Yui, who was still standing in front of his desk, blinking adorably in complete ignorance of the heavy thoughts weighing on his mind.
If it was the latter, things were going to get incredibly difficult.
The morning classes dragged by in a blur. Yozora felt unusually anxious and restless today, managing to wake up from his desk nap a mere five minutes before the lunch bell rang, effectively only listening to five minutes of actual lecture.
He was simply too exhausted. Carrying the safety of Kyoto on his shoulders made peaceful sleep a luxury.
When the lunch break finally arrived, Miko and Yui grouped up with a few other girls and headed out to the courtyard to eat their bento boxes under the sun.
Ever since Yui had gently pointed out that Miko’s gloomy, isolated image at school wasn’t doing her any favors, the girl had resolved to make a change. Miko suffered from severe communication difficulties, but she was trying her best to step out of her comfort zone and make normal friends.
At the very least, if she seemed approachable, students dealing with terrifying supernatural problems might actually come to her for help instead of suffering in alienated silence.
Yozora, naturally having zero interest in staying in the noisy classroom, shoved his hands into his pockets and strolled over to the Supernatural Society’s clubroom.
“Good afternoo—”
As he slid the door open, his casual greeting died in his throat.
Bathed in the warm midday sunlight streaming through the large windows, Rio Futaba stood in the center of the room. She was dressed in her signature white lab coat, but her arms were raised behind her head, gathering her long, silky gray hair into a high ponytail.
The most arresting detail was the light green hair tie she held gently between her soft pink lips. Her movements were clumsy and unpracticed, her fingers fumbling slightly as she tried to manage the thick locks of hair, giving her an uncharacteristically flustered, domestic appearance.
Seeing Yozora suddenly materialize in the doorway, Futaba’s entire body went rigid.
For a few agonizing seconds, the clubroom was dead silent. Then, with excruciating slowness, she let her hands drop, allowing her gray hair to cascade freely over her shoulders once more. Using her left hand, she plucked the green hair tie from her lips and, with a painfully forced casualness, slipped it into the deep pocket of her lab coat.
When she finally spoke, her tone was a masterclass in feigned indifference.
“You’re here. Coffee?”
“Sure, I’ll take a cup.”
Yozora walked in and took his usual seat across from her, resting his chin on his hand as he watched her work. She pulled out two glass beakers, poured a serving of rich, fragrant black coffee into one, stirred it methodically with a glass rod, and slid it across the table to him.
The air in the room remained thick and quiet.
“You… saw?”
“Saw what?”
“Don’t play dumb with me.”
“Yes, I saw it. Clear as day.”
Futaba’s eyes flickered behind her thin-rimmed glasses. She stared down at the table for a long moment before her voice dropped to a soft, barely audible murmur.
“Do you… do you think it looked good?”
“Hmm… how should I put this?”
Yozora leaned back, giving a noncommittal hum as his brain immediately kicked into overdrive.
What was her angle here? Was this the start of a psychological death game between geniuses?
If he answered, ‘It looked good,’Futaba would inevitably counter with,’So you’re implying my usual hairstyle is ugly?’If he answered,’It didn’t look good,’she would instantly fire back with,’Are you saying I lack the facial structure to pull off a high ponytail?’
After a moment of intense tactical calculation, Yozora suddenly experienced a moment of deep clarity. Why was he overthinking this like a paranoid villain? Rio Futaba wasn’t some petty, manipulative girl looking to trap him in a semantic argument.
Wouldn’t it save everyone a headache if he just spoke from the heart?
“I think both of your hairstyles, when combined with your naturally elegant temperament and your incredibly cute face, look fantastic.”
Hearing such a devastatingly direct compliment, Futaba’s hand gave a violent twitch, nearly sending the beaker she was holding crashing onto the tabletop.
She caught it just in time. Her eyes narrowed into dangerous slits behind her lenses, locking onto Yozora with intense scrutiny as she spoke at a glacial pace.
“You… you wouldn’t happen to be… harboring inappropriate feelings for me, would you?”
“Futaba, I think you’re overestimating your own market value.”
“Oh. Never mind then.”
Futaba maintained her icy composure, her facial expression remaining completely static from start to finish. She picked up her glass stirring rod and began swirling it around inside her beaker.
Yozora watched the rhythmic, continuous motion of her hand. He fought back a smirk, his expression carefully neutral as he finally broke the silence.
“Futaba, what exactly are you stirring? That beaker is completely empty.”
Futaba froze. She looked down at her hands, and a furious, vibrant shade of crimson violently flooded her pale cheeks.
“I… I am fully aware of that! This is a highly advanced ritual designed to aerate the glass and enhance the flavor profile of the coffee before pouring! It’s… it’s quantum mechanics! Yes, exactly. It’s a advanced theoretical application of quantum mechanics. The underlying mathematical principles are far too complex for a layman like you to grasp, so I won’t bother explaining it.”
“I see. My apologies for questioning your methods, Master Futaba.”
Futaba shot him a venomous glare, took a deep, shaky breath to forcibly suppress her embarrassment, and finally poured actual coffee into her beaker.
The clubroom settled into a comfortable, quiet rhythm once more.
Seeing Yozora merely sipping his coffee and lazily scrolling through his phone, Futaba couldn’t stand the silence any longer.
“The spring academic exams are scheduled for next Wednesday. Were you aware of that?”
Yozora didn’t even look up from his screen. “Yeah, I knew. What about it?”
“If you know, then why aren’t you using your free time to study?” Futaba adjusted her glasses, quickly adding a disclaimer to cover her tracks. “Don’t misunderstand, I’m not concerned about your academic future. It’s just that if you, the official president of this club, fail your exams, the school administration will likely revoke our room privileges or disband the society entirely. I’ve grown quite comfortable using this space as my personal laboratory.”
Yozora let out a low chuckle, looking incredibly amused. “Futaba, your concern is entirely misplaced.”
She frowned, a faint sense of unease creeping in as she realized she might have misread the situation. “Judging by that arrogant smirk, are you implying you’re completely confident in your academic standing?”
“Is that even a question?” Yozora shrugged, tossing his phone onto the table. “I was the absolute top scorer in the National Joint Exam for the entirety of Japan this year.”
“Oh, first place…” Futaba nodded absently, taking a sip of her coffee.
Three seconds later, her brain finally processed the words. She choked slightly, her pupils dilating in sheer disbelief.
“First place?! In the National Joint Exam?! You were the number one student in the entire country?!”
“Huh, you really didn’t know? Oh, right, I suppose I never bothered mentioning it to you guys.”
Seeing Yozora acting as if he had just casually mentioned what he ate for breakfast, Futaba leaned forward, demanding confirmation. “You? You actually took first place nationwide?”
Yozora raised a hand, casually cupping his fist in a mock martial arts salute. He looked vaguely embarrassed, though there wasn’t a single shred of actual humility in his voice. “Indeed. That genius was none other than myself.”
Futaba took a slow, deep breath, her expression twisting into a complicated knot of awe and utter confusion. “Then… why on earth did you enroll at Sobu High School instead of Shuchiin Academy or Advanced Nurturing High School?”
“Isn’t the answer obvious?”
Yozora’s deadpan delivery made Futaba genuinely question her own common sense. She mentally reviewed her logic.
Wasn’t that a perfectly rational question? Why would the undisputed top student in Japan willingly pass up Shuchiin Academy—the prestigious cradle of the nation’s future political and corporate elites—or Advanced Nurturing High School, the legendary stepping stone that guaranteed a flawless future for anyone capable enough to survive its curriculum?
Sobu High School was certainly an excellent academy, but compared to those two titans, it simply couldn’t compete.
“Think about the logistics,” Yozora said, leaning forward to analyze the situation with absolute seriousness. “With my perfect score as the national champion, even if I enrolled at Advanced Nurturing High or Shuchiin Academy, I’d just be considered another exceptional talent. Historically speaking, both of those schools have collected dozens of national top scorers over the years, right?”
“That is historically accurate, yes,” Futaba conceded with a slow nod.
In fact, it was less that those schools produced top scorers, and more that any genius capable of dominating the national exams would naturally only consider those two academies as viable options. Compared to their elite campus environments, world-class faculty, untouchable political connections, and guaranteed career trajectories, every other high school in the country was essentially garbage.
In the entire modern history of Japan’s education system, Yozora was probably the only national champion deranged enough to willingly pick a third-rate option over the big two.
Yozora spread his hands, looking entirely vindicated. “But by bringing my flawless academic record to Sobu High School, I instantly become a VIP in the eyes of the administration. They treat me like a prized artifact. As long as my demands aren’t completely illegal, the school board will bend over backward to give me preferential treatment.”
Before Futaba could formulate a response, he gestured lazily around the spacious room. “And among those special treatments, securing this prime-location clubroom for a society with zero actual purpose was included.”
Hearing his brazen confession, Futaba was left with only one coherent thought.
You are way too shameless, aren’t you?
Normal people kept those kinds of manipulative calculations buried deep in their hearts. Who actually said the quiet part out loud with such a proud expression? Unspoken rules were called unspoken rules because they were supposed to stay in the dark!
And yet…
Futaba forced herself to view the situation from the perspective of the Sobu High administration. If she were the principal, and she suddenly received an enrollment form from the undisputed number one student in Japan, how would she react?
She would probably weep tears of joy. It was an unmatched glory that would elevate the school’s prestige overnight. Punching Shuchiin Academy in the face and kicking Advanced Nurturing High School to the curb! Sobu High School would finally be on the map!
“But still…” Futaba scrutinized Yozora’s relaxed posture, her brow furrowing in genuine perplexity. “I’ve literally never seen you open a textbook. Can you really maintain those perfect grades without studying?”
“Hmph. A piece of cake.”
“Aren’t you just blowing hot air now?”
“That’s exactly where you lack perspective, Futaba.”
A distant, deeply haunted look suddenly washed over Yozora’s eyes. He stared out the window, his voice dropping into a nostalgic, gravelly tone.
“Can you even begin to fathom a school life where the first bell rings at 6:30 AM, the final study hall ends at 11:00 PM, and your entire lunch break is restricted to exactly twenty minutes, with absolutely zero breaks between lectures?”
“How could such a dystopian nightmare possibly exist?” Futaba shook her head vehemently, dismissing the concept entirely. “Let alone an educational institution, that schedule completely violates basic human physiological limits. A place like that cannot exist.”
“You are far too sheltered, Rio Futaba.”
Yozora shook his head slowly, his eyes reflecting the phantom trauma of a past life. “I was forced to compete against tens of millions of desperate peers in that exact hellscape. I fought my way across a single-plank bridge drenched in the sweat and tears of the fallen, emerging as a hardened veteran who survived hundreds of brutal academic wars!”
Futaba stared at him in dead silence.
After a long, agonizing pause, she delivered the most precise, devastating retort of her entire life.
“Based on your description, you don’t sound like a hardened veteran.”
“I sound like a vengeful demon that just crawled its way out of the eighteenth layer of hell, don’t I?”
Yozora nodded in deep, solemn agreement. “Mm. It was exactly that level of psychological torment.”
Futaba let out a long, exhausted sigh, pinching the bridge of her nose. She naturally assumed that Yozora’s tragic backstory was just another severe flare-up of his chronic chuunibyou. A school where students only slept for a few hours a night with zero recreation time? What was the difference between that and a literal prison camp?
However, chuunibyou delusions aside, she no longer doubted his claim about being the national top scorer.
It perfectly explained the bizarre anomalies surrounding their club. It explained why a society with only two founding members—Yozora and Miko—was officially approved despite failing the minimum five-person requirement. It explained why a club with zero defined activities was gifted a massive, sun-facing room in the best wing of the building.
“Actually, there is… something else.”
For the first time since Yozora had met her, a crack of genuine nervousness and hesitation fractured Futaba’s usually impenetrable, rational facade. She bit her lower lip, hesitating for several long seconds before finally speaking.
“When I walk home recently… I always get this creeping sensation that… someone is watching me.”
“A stalker?”
Hearing that word, the lazy amusement instantly vanished from Yozora’s face, replaced by a sharp, dangerous frown.
“Did you get a clear look at their face? When exactly did this start? Are they tracking you every single day?”
Futaba blinked, clearly taken aback by how rapidly Yozora had shifted into a deadly serious interrogation mode. She had fully expected him to spout some abstract, chuunibyou nonsense to brush off her paranoia.
“Well… I’m not entirely sure. It’s just a vague, unsettling feeling. It might just be lingering paranoia from my past experiences making me hyper-sensitive to people looking at me.”
“This is a matter of life and death.”
Looking incredibly righteous and impressive, Yozora slammed his hand heavily onto the table, his chuunibyou flair returning with a vengeance.
“Fear not, Futaba! Today, I, the Insubordinate chosen by the Heavens themselves, shall personally escort you safely back to your domain!”
`[Inorin’s Note: The “single-plank bridge” (独木桥) Yozora mentions is a famous Chinese cultural idiom referring to the Gaokao (the notoriously brutal National College Entrance Examination). The metaphor implies millions of students trying to cross a narrow log bridge at the same time, where only the absolute best survive without falling into the abyss. It’s a nod to his hellish past life before coming to Japan!]`