Anime Crossover: Eating Evil in a Daily World — Chapter 84

Chapter 84: The Burden of Greatness and the Phantom Thieves

“What’s wrong?”

Yozora stepped up to the fitting room door and stopped dead in his tracks. Even draped in a baggy, oversized sports vest, Rio Futaba’s sheer proportions were impossible to conceal. He drew in a sharp breath.

“Whoa… you’ve been hiding a massive secret.”

The exclamation slipped out with absolute sincerity. He always knew Futaba had an excellent figure hidden away under her usual attire. But he hadn’t expected her to be hiding quite this much. Back at school, securely buttoned up in her uniform and signature white lab coat, she merely looked well-endowed. Stripped of those restrictive layers and dressed in loose sportswear, the visual impact was staggering—easily rivaling Hana Yurikawa.

Why had she kept such a massive development a secret from him?

Futaba’s pale cheeks instantly flushed a deep, furious red. She ground her teeth together, glaring at him with intense resentment. “I called you over to help me find a solution, not to stand there and stare at me with those perverted eyes.”

If there was one thing Rio Futaba despised above all else, it was the leering gazes of others fixated on her body. Yet, as Yozora looked her up and down without a shred of restraint, she realized with a jolt of confusion that she didn’t feel disgusted.

Was it because his gaze, though entirely shameless, lacked that greasy, malicious undertone? He wasn’t sneaking peeks; he was openly observing her like a newly discovered law of physics. Or perhaps… were her standards for Yozora simply fundamentally different from the rest of the male population?

Futaba shook her head sharply, forcibly scattering the dangerous thoughts threatening to short-circuit her logic.

“What should I do?” she asked, her voice dropping an octave. “Can you… can you bind… bind that thing?”

“Bind your chest?” Yozora raised an eyebrow, looking thoroughly offended. “Miss Futaba, do I look like I have a chest?”

“You’re a boy. Obviously not.”

“Then there you go. I don’t have one, so where exactly would I acquire the skill to bind one?”

Futaba froze, her analytical mind momentarily stalling. She stamped her foot in frustration. “You can literally devour the memories of dying Evil Spirits! You can pick complex locks with your bare hands! But you can’t figure out how to bind a chest?”

“I say, you’re being completely unreasonable.” Yozora rolled his eyes and offered a casual shrug. “Hardly any normal women bind their chests to begin with. And given your astonishing payload, ordinary methods probably wouldn’t even dent the problem.”

Hearing him discuss her anatomy with such clinical, deadpan precision made Futaba feel like a kettle about to whistle from the steam building in her head. Yet, because his tone was so matter-of-fact—like a scholar debating a purely academic hurdle—she found herself entirely unable to formulate a retort.

“However…” Yozora tapped his chin, a sudden memory surfacing. He pictured a sweet-looking gyaru from Class A, the one with blonde hair dyed bright pink at the tips. “There actually should be someone in our class who knows the mechanics of this. She’s obsessed with dressing up as anime characters, so she’s bound to be an expert in structural concealment.”

Standing quietly to the side, Yotsuya Miko offered a perfectly timed, deadpan suggestion. “Are we recruiting her into the Supernatural Society?”

Yozora smiled, waving the idea away. “That won’t be necessary. Once Spring Break ends, I’ll just go ask her for some private tutoring.”

“Oh, I see…” Futaba nodded absentmindedly, her brain processing the information on a delay. A second later, her eyes widened. She crossed both arms over her chest defensively, her face burning. “Wait—you! If you go learn how to do it, doesn’t that mean… when it’s time to bind them… you’ll be the one doing it to me?!”

“Hey, don’t sweat the small stuff.” Yozora closed the distance, placing a heavy, solemn hand on her shoulder. He looked her dead in the eye with the gravity of a martyr. “It is all for the sake of protecting Kyoto. I won’t hold it against you for taking advantage of my services.”

Futaba and Miko simultaneously shook their heads in unison. No matter the time, place, or crisis, Yozora’s logic remained a completely abstract, unbreakable loop.

“Then what do we do about tonight?” Miko asked, her golden-yellow pupils shifting toward Futaba. She thought for a moment before offering a gentle compromise. “How about… you head back and hold the fort? It works out perfectly. You can protect Hachishaku and make sure no stray Evil Spirits disturb her while she maintains the ‘door’.”

Futaba let out a long, defeated sigh. “Sigh. I suppose that is the only logical variable left.”

She had calculated every possible angle for tonight’s mission, mapping out every contingency. Every variable except this one.

This was the Supernatural Society’s very first official clash with the Metropolitan Police Department. They were about to steal the legendary sword Onimaru Kunitsuna—an devastating heist guaranteed to shock all of Japan. And the sole reason she was benched from the operation was that her chest was too big for tactical stealth.

She didn’t even know how she was going to explain this to Yui Yuigahama when she returned. It was painful. Truly, deeply painful. And humiliating beyond measure.

After escorting Futaba back upstairs and watching her step through the spatial “door” back to the World, Miko took a slow, steadying breath. Beneath her pure white mask, a flicker of nervous anticipation danced in her eyes.

“Let’s go.”

Hearing Yozora’s cue, Miko blinked, her gaze dropping to his casual black streetwear. “Aren’t you going to change into something more… tactical?”

“I’m about to show you a neat trick. Pay attention, you might learn something.”

“Oh. Okay.”

Twenty minutes later, deep within an alleyway in the Inner World, roughly two kilometers from the Kyoto Municipal Museum.

“We’re here.”

Yozora stared coolly at the door radiating thick black mist before them. He turned to Miko with a faint smirk. “Although you can’t use Evil Spirit aura to forge weapons just yet, given Hyakume’s current output, you should at least be able to manage this…”

He took a single step forward.

Whoosh.

A harsh rush of wind filled Miko’s ears. Right before her eyes, Yozora’s physical form was swallowed by a violently twisting layer of deep, abyssal flames. But as she squinted, she realized the black substance wasn’t fire at all. It was an incredibly dense manifestation of power, identical to the suffocating black mist that saturated the Inner World.

Within seconds, the mist solidified. The casual clothes vanished, replaced by a sleek, pitch-black armored uniform that seemed to swallow the surrounding light. Finally, a featureless black mask materialized over his face, leaving only his sharp, calculating eyes exposed.

“Do you understand the mechanics?” Yozora asked, his voice slightly muffled but calm, looking like an entirely different entity.

Miko shook her head with absolute honesty. “Not a single bit.”

“Your comprehension speed leaves much to be desired, Yotsuya.” Yozora sighed, slipping into the tone of a deeply patient, slightly condescending tutor. “Let’s establish the baseline. As a Psychic, a Soul Manifestation can freely choose whether or not to reveal itself to ordinary humans. And once it does manifest, it possesses the physical density to cause tangible harm to them. Are you following?”

“Yes, I know that much.”

Though she had never commanded Hyakume to harm a living person, Miko understood the physics of her power. It was the same principle that allowed Hachishaku to appear before normal people—a unique trait an Evil Spirit acquired the moment it formed a contract with a Psychic.

Yozora pointed a gloved finger at the towering figure of Hyakume looming silently beside Miko.

“While you personally cannot wield the raw power of an Evil Spirit, you can act as the medium for your Soul Manifestation. You might not have the raw output to conjure anti-spirit weaponry out of thin air like I do, but generating a simple set of clothing? That requires minimal output. It should be effortless.”

“Really?” Miko turned her head, looking up at Hyakume with an inquiring gaze.

Thirteen grotesque eyes stared blankly back at her two normal ones.

The alleyway descended into a heavy, awkward silence.

“No, why are you asking it?” Yozora massaged his temples, a frown creasing his eyes. “Hyakume is you, and you are Hyakume. If you have the mental capacity to do it, it will naturally happen. If you lack the capacity, asking your own power for permission is entirely pointless.”

“I see. I’ll give it a try then.”

“Wait, hold that thought.” Yozora raised a hand, cutting her off. “We are on a clock. You can play dress-up after we secure the objective.”

“You’re right. First, we steal—” Miko caught the sharp, disapproving side-eye Yozora shot her and quickly cleared her throat. “Oh, right. First, we return Onimaru Kunitsuna to its rightful owner.”

“Much better. Let’s move.”

Yozora led the way, stepping through the misty “door” and crossing the threshold into the corresponding coordinates in the World.

It was roughly 5:30 AM.

At this time of year, the very first, bruised hints of dawn were just beginning to bleed across the horizon. This fragile intersection of light and darkness was the exact window when the barrier between the Inner World and the World was at its thinnest.

The early morning streets of Kyoto were practically deserted, a direct result of the Metropolitan Police Department’s strict curfews urging citizens to avoid the night. The few exhausted night-shift workers shuffling past barely spared a glance at the two masked, strangely dressed figures emerging from an alley.

This was Japan, after all. A couple of intense cosplayers wandering around at dawn barely registered on the weirdness scale.

They walked unobstructed until they reached the grand entrance of the Kyoto Municipal Museum. The structure was massive, built from heavy, dark yellow and crimson stone bricks that projected an aura of solemn, ancient authority.

Right by the main steps stood a massive promotional billboard displaying a high-definition photograph of a pristine, ancient katana.

《Legendary Sword, Onimaru Kunitsuna, Currently on Display》

“Absolutely sickening.” Yozora stared up at the billboard, pressing a hand to his chest as if physically wounded by the audacity. “They steal my personal property, and then they have the sheer gall to charge admission to look at it. Society has truly collapsed. Morality is dead. I have no choice but to reclaim it with my own two hands.”

Miko stared at him in utter silence. ‘…’

His ability to completely rewrite reality to frame himself as the victim was genuinely terrifying.

“Well then, let the operation commence.”

Yozora’s eyes narrowed, a spark of pure, chaotic excitement flashing in his pupils as he sized up the heavy, reinforced glass doors locked from the inside. Without a second of hesitation, he raised his leg and delivered a devastating front kick.

Crash.

The deafening shatter of reinforced glass exploding across the marble lobby synchronized perfectly with the piercing, high-decibel shriek of the museum’s security alarms.

It was a well-known internet fact: a true master of stealth simply assassinates every single witness in the building. Therefore, for a highly sophisticated phantom thief organization aiming to steal a national treasure, kicking the front door off its hinges was the most logical tactical entry.

“So it begins.” Miko nodded to herself, taking a deep breath to force her racing heart to settle, and stepped through the shattered frame behind him.

The moment her boots touched the museum floor, the atmosphere shifted violently.

Suspended in the air all around them were faint, shimmering threads of golden light, drifting lazily like dust motes caught in a sunbeam. To a normal person, the visual would project a sacred, pure, and utterly inviolable aura.

But to Miko, the sickeningly sweet color of those threads triggered a visceral memory of the Mountain Goat Head God she had encountered at the Shrine. Remembering the grotesque, twisted horror hiding beneath that divine facade made the golden light in this museum feel suffocatingly hypocritical.

“Well, that certainly simplifies the process.”

Pulled from her thoughts by Yozora’s voice, Miko looked at the corridor walls and had to bite her lip to stop a burst of hysterical laughter.

Mounted on the pristine walls every few meters were elegant, illuminated placards with helpful little arrows.

《To view the famous sword Onimaru Kunitsuna, please proceed this way.》

The Kyoto Municipal Museum truly spared no expense on guest hospitality. They had literally drawn a map to the loot.

Falling into step beside Yozora, they followed the VIP tourist route. The deeper they penetrated into the facility, the denser the golden threads became, clinging to the air like spiderwebs. It was absolute proof that the inner vaults housed spiritual artifacts of immense power.

“Five minutes and forty-two seconds left,” Yozora stated without breaking his stride.

Miko gave a sharp nod. She knew the timestamp. That was the exact window Futaba had calculated it would take for the Metropolitan Police Department’s rapid response units to lock down the perimeter after the initial alarm.

They had less than six minutes to locate the sword, bypass the internal security, shatter the display vault, and extract the target. Ideally, they would vanish back through a “door” before the police breached the building, avoiding a messy, high-profile shootout.

Just as they approached the arched entrance of the inner exhibition hall, the heavy thud of combat boots echoed from the flanks. A dozen burly, uniformed security guards flooded the corridor, cutting off their advance. They raised heavy rubber batons, thumbing the activation switches. Blinding arcs of blue electricity crackled violently across the black rubber, illuminating the dim corridor.

“Hold it right there! Drop to the ground! This is a federal offense!” the lead guard barked, sweat beading on his forehead as he faced the two masked intruders.

Yozora tilted his head, a dry, mocking laugh escaping his mask.

Electric batons? Did these rent-a-cops think they were fighting Water-type Pokémon? Did they expect a type-advantage damage multiplier?

But then he remembered Futaba’s briefing. These men weren’t the Metropolitan Police; they were private museum security. They were armed with stun batons and sidearms loaded strictly with rubber bullets. Firing live ammunition in a gallery filled with priceless, irreplaceable antiquities was a liability nightmare.

Not that rubber bullets were a joke. At close range, they shattered ribs and ruptured organs. To a normal human, the stopping power was identical to lead, just without the lethal penetration.

Unfortunately for the guards, the entity standing in front of them had long since abandoned his humanity.

Seeing Yozora completely ignore the warning and take a casual step forward, two guards broke formation. They lunged from the left and right, swinging their sparking batons in synchronized, bone-breaking arcs aimed directly at his ribs.

There was no crackle of electrocution. No sickening thud of rubber meeting flesh.

Yozora glanced down at the batons, which had stopped dead against the fabric of his black coat, the electricity grounding out harmlessly against the dense mist. He shook his head in mild disappointment.

“Pathetic.”

He dropped his center of gravity. Moving at a velocity that completely bypassed the guards’ visual processing, he snapped out two short, brutal punches directly into their solar plexuses.

The kinetic shockwave folded the massive men in half. Their brains couldn’t even process the pain signals before their eyes rolled back, and they collapsed to the marble floor like dropped puppets.

Yozora hadn’t forged this armor out of thousands of devoured Evil Spirits just to look edgy. The aesthetic was a bonus. The true value was its absolute physical density. Compressed from pure spiritual malice, the fabric could casually deflect military-grade combat knives and point-blank hollow points.

It looked like high-end streetwear. It functioned like a tank hull.

Thud. Crack. Thud.

A display of dull impacts and groans echoed through the corridor.

Five seconds later, Miko stepped carefully over the groaning, unconscious bodies of over a dozen elite security personnel. She stared at Yozora’s back, her emotions a complicated mess.

She thought it again: Thank God Yozora decided to be an exorcist.

Even ignoring his terrifying Soul Manifestation, his raw, superhuman physical violence, combined with his ability to teleport through the Inner World without leaving a single trace of forensic evidence… if he ever decided to embrace his dark side, he would instantly become the most unstoppable supervillain in human history.

Though, to be fair, breaking into a museum to steal a legendary national treasure was already pushing him pretty high up the criminal leaderboards.

“Four minutes and fifty-five seconds.”

With nearly five minutes to spare before the police arrived, they stepped over the threshold into the grandest exhibition hall of the Kyoto Municipal Museum.

Resting in the dead center of the room, encased in a massive, reinforced glass vault, was a stunning katana. Even in the dim emergency lighting, the folded steel blade seemed to drink the shadows, radiating a cold, ancient beauty. Beside it lay an ornate, time-worn scabbard.

The plaque mounted on the pedestal read in bold, commanding calligraphy:

Onimaru Kunitsuna.

Yozora and Miko stopped at the edge of the vault. They stared at the blade. Simultaneously, they both shook their heads.

“A fake,” Yozora muttered, his tone flat.

The worst-case scenario Futaba had predicted was sitting right in front of them. The museum had put a replica on display. While the craftsmanship was flawless enough to fool historians and tourists, to the eyes of Psychics, it was painfully obvious.

The blade was completely dead. It possessed zero spiritual resonance.

But the Supernatural Society had prepared for this exact variable.

“Open your eyes, Hyakume,” Miko whispered, her voice chilling the air.

Behind her, the towering specter shifted. Twelve of the thirteen grotesque eyes scattered across Hyakume’s body slowly, sickeningly blinked shut.

Only a single eye remained open—the eye harvested from the Slaughter Oni.

Every drop of Hyakume’s terrifying spiritual pressure funneled violently into that single pupil, turning it a burning, blood-red hue.

“This way,” Hyakume’s voice echoed, cold and hollow, as the entity drifted past the fake vault, floating toward the shadowed rear of the massive hall.

In the old lore, Hyakume was a yokai that violently harvested the eyes of its victims, grafting them onto its own flesh. The legends stated that once it collected exactly one hundred eyes, its power would eclipse the gods, and no exorcist on earth could stop it.

The eye of the Slaughter Oni possessed a highly specialized trait: the absolute tracking of spiritual residue. Combined with Hyakume’s vast energy reserves, the cooperation was flawless. Even if the real Onimaru Kunitsuna was hidden away in a vault, the Slaughter Oni’s gaze could isolate the microscopic traces of its ancient aura bleeding through the walls.

Following Hyakume’s silent pointing finger, Yozora and Miko bypassed the main exhibits and stopped before a blank, unassuming stretch of drywall in the far corner. Yozora pressed a hand against it, finding the hidden seams of a concealed security door.

He ripped it open, exposing a narrow, concrete corridor stretching ten meters deep. At the very end stood a massive, heavy-duty steel vault door.

Hyakume raised a pale, trembling finger, pointing directly at the steel.

“The true Onimaru Kunitsuna… is resting behind that door.”