Anime Crossover: Eating Evil in a Daily World — Chapter 77

Chapter 77: Transaction with Haruno, Mai Sakurajima’s Invitation to Travel

The gentle rush of running water and the soft clinking of porcelain filled the apartment. After dinner, Mai Sakurajima had voluntarily taken on the task of washing the dishes and wiping down the kitchen counters.

Yozora leaned back on the sofa, quietly observing her. A former national idol and top-tier actress, possessing a slender, impeccably proportioned figure and a face utterly devoid of flaws, was currently doing his household chores.

How wonderful.

Was this the leisurely, decadent life of an elite exorcist?

As Yozora pondered the situation, he realized there was a glaring vacancy in the Supernatural Society’s current roster.

Rio Futaba handled combat strategy and intelligence analysis.

Yui Yuigahama served as the image ambassador and mascot.

Miko Yotsuya was the frontline vanguard.

And Hachishaku-sama was, without a doubt, the employee of the month.

They were missing a cook.

As for Yui, her culinary attempts had long since transcended the mortal plane, crossing into the world of abstract biological warfare. Rio and Miko usually survived on instant convenience store bento boxes, heavily implying their own cooking skills were nothing to write home about.

Simply put, the club desperately needed a chef.

Of course, while Yozora’s thought process was often unhinged, he wasn’t quite so absurd as to draft Mai into the Supernatural Society solely to secure three delicious meals a day.

However, the idea of having her join had genuinely crossed his mind.

Over the past few days, she had been quietly listening in on the club’s daily conversations. Even though she still lacked the sight to perceive evil spirits, she was already fully aware of the dark truth hiding beneath the surface of this world.

There was also a secondary, far more calculating reason.

Just as he had originally theorized, Miko’s sudden awakening was not an isolated anomaly. The fact that Rio had successfully awakened her Soul Manifestation proved that even ordinary non-psychics could develop the power to fight the supernatural.

The only prerequisite was to first ‘recognize’ the existence of evil spirits, and then be forced into a corner to confront one’s true self.

It presented the simplest, most brutal method for mass-producing psychics.

All he had to do was throw a few thousand ordinary people into the Inner World. Under the crushing pressure of facing their darkest reflections, a fraction of them were bound to awaken. Those who failed would simply be torn apart and devoured by the lurking horrors.

It sounded exactly like the pitch of a certain rejected art student with a funny mustache: ‘Young man, I see you have talent.’

Yozora found the concept amusing, but he had no intention of actually doing it. There was a strict prerequisite for cultivating a new psychic in his ranks.

He had to ensure that the person, upon gaining power, would absolutely become a useful pawn, rather than a liability or an obstacle.

His phone vibrated against the table, shattering his train of thought.

He picked it up and accepted the call. Rio’s voice drifted through the speaker, carrying her usual calm, analytical tone.

“Oh, by the way, there is something I forgot to ask you.”

“What is it?” Yozora asked lazily. “If you’re asking me out on a date, I’ll have to check my schedule.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

Rio let out a soft sigh, the sound carrying a trace of exhaustion.

“Before Yurikawa left yesterday… what exactly did you say to her?”

Yozora didn’t bother denying it. “I gave her a simple choice. I told her that if she truly believed that monster was human, then she had just personally witnessed and covered up a murder, making her an accomplice to our crime. But, if she watched the corpse dissolve into black smoke and accepted that it was an evil spirit, then we committed no crime at all. Instead, we are heroes who protected innocent lives.”

He paused, a faint smirk touching his lips. “Regardless of which reality she chooses to believe, calling the police is no longer a wise option for her.”

A long, heavy silence stretched across the line. When Rio finally spoke again, her tone was complex, laced with a mix of awe and apprehension.

“You… are truly terrifying when it comes to grasping a person’s psychological weaknesses.”

“I just don’t trust her, that’s all.”

“Would you consider bringing Hana Yurikawa into our Supernatural Society?” Rio asked. “I heard Miko mention that her life aura is incredibly dense. She has a natural, passive suppressing effect on evil spirits.”

“Not for now.”

Yozora shook his head. Exorcism required a certain psychological threshold. He found it entirely impossible to imagine the naive, airheaded Hana mustering the sheer violence needed to butcher an evil spirit.

Besides, he wasn’t close to her. They merely shared a classroom. There was no need to drag her into the dark.

“Alright. We can discuss the rest when we meet at school tomorrow.”

Rio paused. The line went quiet for a second before her voice returned, dropping to a barely audible whisper.

“Um… good night.”

“Mm. Good night.”

The moment Yozora lowered the phone, Mai’s voice cut through the air. Her tone carried a strained, artificial casualness, laced with a sharp edge of jealousy.

“Getting calls this late at night? Let me guess. Is it that Yurikawa girl you so heroically saved? Has she completely fallen for you?”

“Fallen for me?” Yozora raised an eyebrow, his expression turning deadpan. “That won’t do. I’m a traditional man. We haven’t even gone on a date yet.”

Mai froze, her brain stalling as she processed the deliberate misinterpretation of her words. A fierce blush exploded across her pretty face. She stepped forward, her left foot—clad in sleek black stockings—snapping down in a vicious stomp aimed directly at Yozora’s instep.

He shifted his weight, dodging the strike with casual, fluid agility.

“No dirty jokes,” Yozora scolded righteously. “Your phrasing was the problem, not my interpretation.”

Mai glared at him, utterly bewildered.

How was this her fault?

“I’m ignoring you. I’m going to sleep.”

She spun around and marched toward the bedroom, her heart beating an erratic rhythm. She reminded herself that she and Yozora were not in a romantic relationship. She had absolutely no standing to interrogate him about other girls.

Which brought up a painful, lingering question.

What exactly was their relationship right now?

Living under the same roof… were they just cohabiting?

Deep in Mai’s heart, a far more brutal word surfaced, one she found incredibly difficult to face.

Parasite.

Wasn’t she just a parasite clinging to him? Without Yozora, she couldn’t interact with the world. She couldn’t eat, couldn’t buy things, couldn’t live normally.

But what if Yozora decided to leave her?

His life would continue without a single hitch. Even without her presence, he still had Miko, Yui, and Rio by his side. Did her existence hold any special meaning to him at all?

A heavy, suffocating melancholy settled over Mai as she closed the bedroom door.

Back in the living room, Yozora pulled up a contact number he had saved long ago but never dialed.

The line rang twice before clicking open.

“Hello, who is this?”

Haruno Yukinoshita’s voice was perfectly measured, a flawless mask of polite neutrality.

“It’s me. I’m Batman. Don’t tell me you forgot?”

“Batman?”

Haruno paused, genuinely taken aback for a fraction of a second. Did she have foreign business contacts who used such absurd aliases? Then, the cadence of the voice clicked in her memory. She covered her mouth, a low, elegant chuckle escaping her lips.

“What Batman? It’s just you.”

Yozora smiled faintly. As expected of Haruno. They had only met once, yet she instantly recognized his voice through the ridiculous opener.

“I have a situation. I need your help with something.”

Hearing this, Haruno didn’t hesitate for a single second. Her tone brightened into a welcoming smile.

“Please, speak.”

She hadn’t forgotten the immense favor she owed him. The construction rights for that haunted office building were worth exponentially more to the Yukinoshita Construction Company than the mere five hundred thousand yen she had paid him.

Haruno’s mind was a terrifyingly efficient machine. She had already run the calculations. If a single exorcism yielded an entire commercial property project, then how exactly should one measure the true value of a genuine, capable exorcist?

Could it even be quantified with money?

She knew that establishing a solid, long-term relationship with a monster like Yozora would provide her family’s empire with unimaginable use in the future. Dominating the market to become the largest construction firm in Japan was no longer a pipe dream.

also… Haruno was personally fascinated by this boy, the enigmatic classmate of her rigid younger sister.

“It’s like this…”

Yozora calmly laid out his plan regarding Mai.

As he spoke, he could almost feel the temperature drop on the other end of the line. Even without seeing her face, he knew Haruno was frowning.

“Are you absolutely certain?” Haruno asked, her business persona bleeding through. “If we execute this plan of yours, the capital required won’t be a minor expense. We are talking about tens of millions of yen, not to mention risking the public reputation of the Yukinoshita Construction Company.”

Yozora’s tone remained utterly indifferent. “What’s wrong? You don’t have the authority to make the call?”

“Not at all.”

Haruno didn’t waste time deliberating. The decision was made instantly. “Alright. No problem. I’ll handle it.”

What Yozora said next, however, completely derailed her composure.

“Excellent. Then you owe me a favor.”

Haruno blinked, staring blankly at the wall of her room.

Wait. The Yukinoshita Construction Company was about to burn tens of millions of yen on his request, and somehow, she owed him a favor?

Wasn’t this math completely backwards?

“Don’t act so surprised,” Yozora said, his voice dripping with dry amusement. “We are talking about a former national idol actress making her grand reappearance after vanishing for years. This is guaranteed to be a media earthquake that will dominate discussions across all of Japan. Doesn’t the Yukinoshita Construction Company want to expand its influence beyond Chiba Prefecture? The sheer promotional value of tying your brand to her return cannot be bought with money.”

On the other end of the phone, Haruno pouted. Even though she knew he couldn’t see her, she rolled her eyes in exasperation.

What former national idol actress? She searched her vast mental database of celebrities and politicians, and the name ‘Mai Sakurajima’ drew a complete blank.

Honestly, from Haruno’s perspective, throwing tens of millions of yen at this phantom project was essentially setting the money on fire.

Yet, after weighing the sheer strategic value of keeping a true exorcist in her debt, she replied smoothly.

“Alright. Then I owe you another favor.”

A sudden, mischievous impulse flared in Haruno’s chest. She wanted to test the limits of this unflappable high schooler. Leaning in close to the receiver, she let her voice drop into a sultry, honeyed whisper, close enough that the soft intake of her breath was audible.

“Since I’m doing all this work… do you want to go on a date with me?”

She expected him to stutter, to deflect, to show the slightest crack of a pure-hearted teenage boy being cornered by an older woman.

Instead, Yozora’s reaction was chillingly calm.

“No problem,” he replied, a smirk audible in his voice. “After dinner, does this date itinerary include experiencing the waterbed room at a local love hotel?”

Haruno froze. The teasing smile vanished from her lips, replaced instantly by a burning, furious blush that spread all the way to the tips of her ears.

Love hotel? Waterbeds?

She hadn’t even been in a proper relationship before!

Growing up as the eldest daughter of the Yukinoshita family was a gilded cage. Yukino always felt suffocated by the pressure of her ‘perfect’ older sister, but Haruno bore an even heavier cross. Her mother demanded absolute perfection, forcing Haruno to serve as the flawless standard for the family. There was no room for romance, let alone cheap love hotels.

She had only intended to playfully tease him, entirely unprepared for a counterattack of such devastating magnitude.

Had modern high school boys really evolved to this terrifying level of shamelessness?

“Anyway…” Haruno stammered, her usual elegance fracturing. “I’ll arrange the logistics as quickly as possible. Everything will be ready before noon on Saturday. That’s all. I’m hanging up.”

Listening to the dial tone, Yozora chuckled. “Too easy to rattle.”

He hadn’t even launched a real offensive; that was merely a probing strike. Did she genuinely mistake him for one of those dense, blushing protagonists from a generic romance manga?

He was a man who stared down the abyss daily. Like the ancient general Guan Yu casually warming his wine before riding out to slay an enemy champion, Yozora was entirely unfazed.

“Still… this is a massive favor,” Yozora muttered, tossing his phone onto the couch.

Due to the Adolescence Syndrome, the name Mai Sakurajima had been completely wiped from Haruno’s memory. To her, Yozora was asking her to burn millions of yen on a literal nobody. Yet, she agreed instantly, purely on his word.

Even more impressively, Haruno had executed the transaction flawlessly. She didn’t try to hold the debt over his head or demand immediate compensation. She treated a massive corporate expenditure like a trivial favor between close friends.

That was the highest echelon of social manipulation: providing immense, obvious help, while making the recipient feel completely comfortable accepting it.

Haruno Yukinoshita was truly a formidable woman.

The next morning, inside the Class A classroom at Sobu High School.

Hana Yurikawa stared down at the plump cream bun resting on her desk. Uncharacteristically, she had completely lost her appetite. She let out a long, heavy sigh.

Yesterday, on their walk home, Miko had finally told her the truth.

Evil spirits existed.

At first, Hana had adamantly refused to believe it. How could such absurd, terrifying things exist in their peaceful world?

But Miko had calmly presented two pieces of evidence that shattered her denial.

Had she ever seen a normal human tongue stretch eight meters across an alleyway, colliding with a steel blade to produce a shower of sparks?

Had she ever seen a human corpse dissolve into foul black smoke and vanish into thin air?

Hana might have been naive and easily distracted by food, but passing the entrance exams for Sobu High School proved she wasn’t actually stupid.

What truly terrified Hana wasn’t the mere existence of ghosts. Miko had explained that ordinary people couldn’t see them, and unless they stumbled into a high-level monster like the one yesterday, they were generally safe.

No, what made Hana sick to her stomach was the realization of what Miko was doing.

During yesterday’s battle, Hana had felt the suffocating, icy grip of true despair. They had almost died. And Miko, acting as an exorcist, was facing these nightmarish abominations every single day in secret to protect the city?

If Miko could hear Hana’s internal monologue, she would have laughed out loud.

Terrifying?

Sure, the monster yesterday was physically strong, but terrifying? Not even close. At the very least, despite the elongated tongue and the twisted jaw, it still retained a vaguely humanoid shape. Miko had seen things in the dark corners of Kyoto that would shatter a normal person’s sanity in seconds.

For Miko, true despair wasn’t fighting monsters. True despair was being surrounded by towering, grotesque horrors, entirely powerless to fight back, forced to pretend she couldn’t see them while they breathed down her neck.

Now that she possessed the strength to carve them apart, the fear was gone.

They wanted to surround her? She would just cut them all down.

“Good morning, Yurikawa.”

A familiar, steady voice pulled Hana out of her spiraling thoughts.

“Mi-Miko?”

Hana looked up. Miko stood by her desk, her expression perfectly normal. She offered a calm nod of greeting before walking over to her own seat and organizing her textbooks.

Watching her, Hana felt a sudden, inexplicable wave of relief wash over her. She shook her head, a wry smile touching her lips.

Why was she overcomplicating things?

As long as Miko and Yui still treated her as a friend, the existence of evil spirits didn’t matter. As long as their bond remained unchanged, that was enough to anchor her.

With her anxieties suddenly cleared, a fierce, demanding hunger roared to life in her stomach. Hana eagerly grabbed the cream bun and took a massive bite.

The sweet, rich cream flooded her taste buds, perfectly complementing the fluffy, chewy texture of the bread. A look of absolute bliss spread across Hana’s face.

Evil spirits?

Whatever. Nothing in this world was more important than eating.

By the time the afternoon exams finally concluded, a collective sigh of relief swept through the school, regardless of how well anyone actually performed.

Inside the Supernatural Society clubroom.

Yui stretched her arms high above her head, her face glowing with boundless energy.

“Hey, Miko, Rio! Spring Break is finally here! What are your plans? Do you guys want to go out and do something fun together?”

Rio paused, gently stirring a beaker of black coffee. She cast a subtle glance toward Yozora, who was currently slouched in a chair, staring blankly out the window.

“Captain,” Rio asked smoothly. “Are there any official club activities scheduled for Spring Break?”

“We’re going to visit a specific place together later,” Yozora replied, waving a hand dismissively. “After that, you girls can relax for a few days before we worry about club business.”

He shifted his gaze back to the window, his tone lazy. “Old Deng hasn’t forwarded any new requests recently. School is out, and Miko hasn’t located any new ‘doors’ in the city. There’s only one passage to the Inner World left. So, for Spring Break, you’re all free to do as you please.”

Then, Yozora frowned, letting out a heavy sigh.

“Still… a Spring Break that lasts a full ten days is quite a shock to the system.”

“Ten days?” Yui blinked, her head tilting in confusion. “You miscounted, didn’t you? The break is only five days.”

Yozora turned to look at her, his expression deadpan.

“Tomorrow is Friday. The weekend is two days. Next week is seven days. Does that not equal exactly ten days?”

Yui, Rio, and Miko all stared at him in blank disbelief.

“Weekends are already mandatory days off,” Rio explained, her tone laced with mild concern for his cognitive functions. “Tomorrow is a post-exam relaxation day. Therefore, the actual vacation time only counts the five weekdays of next week. Who on earth counts the weekends as part of their vacation days?”

The sheer, matter-of-fact logic radiating from the three girls left Yozora momentarily speechless.

They were right. Weekends were supposed to be days off. Why should they be cannibalized into the official vacation count?

If Yui and the others knew that in certain other countries, schools not only counted weekends as part of the vacation, but actively forced students to make up those ‘missed’ days by attending classes on subsequent weekends, their minds would probably shatter.

Absolutely unbearable.

Just as the three girls returned to animatedly discussing their holiday plans, Mai, who had been standing quietly beside Yozora’s chair, suddenly leaned down.

Her voice was soft, meant only for him.

“Since you don’t have any pressing plans for the holiday… could you accompany me to a place outside Kyoto?”

Before he could answer, Mai’s eyes locked onto his, and she added with deliberate, heavy emphasis:

“Just the two of us.”

[Inorin’s Note: “Guan Yu warming wine” refers to a famous scene from the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, where the legendary general Guan Yu casually asks for his wine to be kept warm while he rides out to duel and decapitate the fearsome enemy champion Hua Xiong, returning before the cup even has time to cool down. It’s a metaphor for supreme, effortless confidence.]