On Shana’s second day of classes, much like the day before, class took on the appearance of some kind of cruel comedy show, with each class resulting in the spectacular self-destruction of any teacher who dared to irk her.
Teachers feared her, students were horrified at what they were seeing, and the situation only continued to deteriorate until the third hour of the day.
The fourth class for today was physical education.
Yuji and Shana’s phys-ed teacher (male, 33, and single) had heard about this “Yukari Hirai” who recently had been causing a ruckus and commotion amongst his colleagues.
Although he had only been a teacher for about a month now, this teacher, who had already established a bad reputation amongst the students for being sly, arrogant, and looking at the girl students with lewd eyes, was also known for being the type who could not tolerate impertinent students. Even before class had started that day, he had planned to put Hirai back into her place by humiliating her in front of her classmates.
When class started… He informed the entire class that for the whole period they will be running laps. Nothing else and no breaks.
Looking at her student record for the past month, Yukari Hirai was not a particularly outstanding student when it came to phys-ed. The teacher thought to himself, “she will start whimpering and give up quickly”. With a sadistic sense of amusement as he heard the students complaints, the teacher waves his hand and tells the students to start running laps, thinking to himself that even should a student get tired or begin to feel pain, he will simply keep them running despite that.
Contrary to his expectations, however… Yukari Hirai just continues to keep running with a rather cool and composed face.
Despite being a petite girl who looks more like she belongs in an elementary school than a high-school in her gym clothes, she is running at exactly the same pace now, halfway through the period, as she was once the class started.
By now the phys-ed teachers is starting to get impatient, but since it was his goal in the first place to bully and embarrass her, he couldn’t let the students stop running laps until she was exhausted. Yuji and his classmates had largely unknowingly been pitted against a Flame Haze in a competition for endurance, an impossible task.
Before long, a female student who wasn’t very physically fit fell on the track.
Frustrated now, once the teacher saw this he yells out at her.
“Hey, Yoshida! Why are you slacking off!! Did I say to stop running!!”
“Yoshida-san!”
“__Kazumi!”
The students who were running laps rush over to their female classmate, Yoshida, who is panting and holding her chest in pain on the ground.
The teacher however is unaware or unfazed by the critical glares of the students there, who had already informed him that she suffers from anemia and that something like this was bound to happen from such a arduous task.
“Why are you guys gathering around her, did I tell you to do that!!”
“Sensei, please, just let Kazumi rest for a bit.”
A female student rubbing Yoshida’s back complains to him about the activity and pleads to let Yoshida rest for a bit. Despite this though the teacher does not care… Slightly off in the distance he can see his target, Yukari Hirai, running unperturbed by Yoshida’s collapse. In his mind, she is doing nothing more than just showing off at this point.
“Shut up and listen! If you use excuses like that to skip out, you will never get stronger no matter what you do! Stand back up and keep running!”
At this point however, someone suddenly speaks up.
“This is stupid, why are we suddenly just doing endurance running?”
For a small and incompetent person, when someone is right on the money when talking about them… They can only fly into a rage.
Unexpected to everyone there, suddenly the PE teacher grabs Yoshida’s hand and tries to force her to stand back up.
“Because you decided to just slack off now everyone has to stop running too!! Stand up!”
“…kh.”
Yoshida, barely able to breath now and unable to move, can only let out a small gasp in protest.
The students, shocked at this merciless and cruel sight begin to protest to the teacher… Yuji, on the other hand, moves to stop “a leg” from suddenly flying out…
But he is too late.
The teachers takes a powerful kick to his ass, and is sent flying a few feet away.
Nobody there (other than Yuji) had expected there, and for a moment everyone there is stunned at this unexpected event… When they finally come to their senses, everyone looks at Yukari Hirai, Shana, standing in from of them, her small running shoe sole still visible to them as her foot is still held in the air.
Her breathing still undisturbed, the only sign of her even having done any physical task is the slight amount of sweat dripping down her petite toned body, a body without waste.
Her long, lustrous black hair tied back behind her, is dancing softly in the afterglow of her kick.
(… Damn it, she actually did it…!)
Yuji, too slow to stop her, could only hold his head with his hands.
The biggest reason that Shana had kicked the teacher was just to get him out of her way as he just happened to be standing in front of her, however, she was also firmly holding onto Yoshida’s hand to help her stop from falling over again.
“We have been running now nonstop since a while ago… Hey, what kind of class is this, if you can even call it a “class”?”
– For the time being, Shana only seems interested in trying to figure out what this class is even supposed to be right now. Shana wrinkles her forehead as she looks over at Yoshida who is leaning on her shoulder, gasping for air.
(I doubt that Shana feels pity or sorry for Yoshida… Rather, she probably just thinks that this class is inefficient or pointless.)
Quickly, Yuji accurately guesses her inner thoughts.
Sure enough, Yuji is correct.
“This is a stupid exercise. It is pointless to just move your body around aimlessly, all it does is exhaust the user without any benefit.”
“You, you little…!!”
After wiping the dirt off of his face, the phys-ed teacher stands back up, his dirt covered face red with anger.
Naturally, Shana couldn’t care less about him or his anger at getting kicked and embarrassed.
“You, explain what the purpose of this lesson is supposed to be for you.”
Instead, she just simply asks him what the point was of the entire lesson.
(Oh boy, so it is going to end like this, huh?)
“… Shana.”
Yuji, who foresaw something like this happening, called out to Shana in a small voice, and Shana slowly brings Yoshida, who up till now was leaning on her shoulder, over to Yuji.
Yuji couldn’t help but be surprised by how delicate and frail she is, but upon hearing her feeble breathing involuntarily looks at her face.
“Are, are you okay, Yoshida-san?”
Yoshida, despite her breathing being rapid and shallow, her face pale, nods in response.
Relieved that her condition was still okay, Yuji immediately entrusts Yoshida to another female student.
However, behind him, the PE teachers is beginning to raise his voice in rage.
“You bastard, you just kicked a teacher!!”
The PE teachers doesn’t even bother to listen to what Shana had to say. Instead, he immediately goes on the offensive, attacking her with his authority, something that his colleagues had warned him before of, saying “you cannot get through to Hirai Yukari acting as a teacher”.
“You delinquent bastard! How dare you attack a teacher! I will suspend, no, expel you!!!”
In front of the red faced, furious, and large PE teacher, the petite Shana stands calmly, with her arms crossed in front of her chest.
“So you can’t even explain it?”
“Do you even realize what is about to happen to you! This is the problem, this problematic act of yours!”
What he is saying doesn’t make sense at all.
This is natural, the PE teacher has no intention of talking or conversing at all. He is merely using this opportunity to vent his feelings, and make Shana his victim.
Naturally, the students around him can recognize this, and take a step back in the face of such raving madness.
And finally,
(What an ugly creature)
Shana looks repulsed at the sight before her. Yuji, looking on at her, can tell… This expression is the prelude to the start of the battle. When Yuji feels that it is the best time,
“Kick him!”
Shana, moving towards the PE teacher, suddenly hears a strange instruction just as she was getting ready to attack.
“?”
If she had been merely told to stop, Shana would have simply ignored that and continued to driver her fist into the face of the incompetent teacher who was barking at her as if she was some mere stray dog. However, that wasn’t the case… So Shana decided to follow Yuji’s instructions and with a slight smile on her face happily kicked the teacher instead.
For Shana, her kick was nothing more than merely sticking her foot out, however… For a normal person, the kick was enough to send the teacher flying, as if this was just a gag comedy manga.
The teacher draws a beautiful parabola before crashing into the ground. Gipi, a strange cry rings out as he hits the ground.
“Ahh~~~”
Yuji could only sigh in response to the unbelievably unreasonable amount of power behind the kick that Shana gave under his instructions. Under the collective gaze of his classmates, he scratches his head for a few seconds, takes a deep breath, and raises his voice.
“Teacher, it is dangerous to just suddenly run onto the middle of the track when someone is running laps!”
Shana turns towards Yuji, suspicion evident on her face.
”Four Eyes” Ike however nearly immediately understands Yuji’s plan, to be expected from such a long time friend. He also shouts, loudly enough for everyone else to hear,
“Of course if you run in front a student running laps you will get kicked!”
Sato begins to smile, raising a hand up in the air and gesturing to the other students to follow him as he makes his way towards the PE teacher.
“Hes right-! No wonder you went flying, with how fast Hirai-chan was running!”
Tanaka, looking at the PE teacher still on the ground, raises his voice as well.
“That’s right! You can’t just stop running like that immediately!”
Shana’s classmates, starting to put together the pieces of what Yuji is planning, all begin to talk to the teacher at once.
Standing shoulder to shoulder with Yuji and Ike, raising their voices alongside Sato and Tanaka, they all begin to create an uproar on the track to rival any amount of cheering.
“I was watching it all! He just jumped out in front of Hirai! Of course she was going to run into her!”
“I saw it too!”
“Ahaha! Looks like you got run over pretty badly by Hirai-san, huh?”
“My eyesight isn’t the best, so I couldn’t see what happened very well, but it looks like Hirai just ran into you, teach!”
“This is just like a traffic accident!”
Amidst all these conversations and mayhem, the PE teacher, in a stupor,
“… Yo-, you, ba-…”
The beginning of a curse word began to form on the lips of the kneeling teacher.
As if hiding himself amidst the commotion, Yuji leans towards Shana at his side and secretly asks her something.
“How good are you with threats?”
Asking something out of the ordinary for himself, Yuji inwardly puts the blame for that on Shana… Maybe her personality was beginning to rub off on him.
Alastor, hiding underneath her gym trackshorts, spoke to Shana in secret.
“Hmm, why don’t you speak to him the way you do when requesting money?”
“Hmm, well, it is true that a threat would be a good way to get him to keep his mouth shut.”
After an exchange that led Yuji to begin to believe that Shana must have lived a turbulent life, Shana begins to walk towards the still kneeling teacher.
With that simple action, everyone, including her classmates, fall silent.
Hearing their voices stop, and only the sound of Shana’s light footsteps breaking the silence, the gym teacher turns towards her with his face pale.
“Heh, this is funny… You are still in the middle of the track.”
Those words alone send shivers down the teachers spine.
“Hiy, hyaa…”
As the PE teacher begins to shamelessly try to crawl away, a foot stomps down in front of his face. This one step is enough to shake him to his core, literally and figuratively. Shana raises her foot again.
Underneath her foot, in the well maintained track, is a hole five centimetres deep in the perfect shape of Shana’s foot.
Yuji delivers the finishing blow to the teacher, whose eyes now are wide open both in astonishment at the feat achieved before him by the petite Shana, and fear from what such a feat of strength meant.
“Teacher… If you aren’t careful from now on in this class, things could get dangerous for you, like now.”
“… Do you understand?”
Shana spoke while looking down on the teacher, a brutal smile on her face hinting at what could happen if he didn’t oblige. Presented with such a sight, the teacher can only nod with all his might in desperation.
Yuji with a smile on his face, asks him a question.
“So, can we end the class here for today?”
The gym teacher nods even more vigorously,
“Um, ya, it is time for self-study now!”
After saying that, he promptly stands up and runs away from Shana.
As he runs off to safety, an impeccable cheer explodes from among the students in response.
With everyone cheering, Yuji looks to Shana at his side and,
“He is fast, huh… Hey, wait wait wait wait! You don’t have to chase him!!”
Yuji hurriedly stops Shana who was preparing to chase after the teacher.
“Why not, I can easily crush him right now…!?”
Suddenly, the two are surrounded by their classmates.
Patting them on the back and punching Yuji’s shoulder for seemingly no reason, praising them and thanking them with excited voices, and ridiculing them with sarcasm… Both Yuji and Shana were jostled around by the crowd of students. These classmates, who had only been together for one month now, all had the same feelings in their hearts for the first time as they celebrated together.
Yuji felt happy at this sight, surprised by his classmates reaction, shuddering at Shana’s reaction and what that could mean later, and yelling at whoever slapped him on his back before letting out his own victory yell.
As for Shana, flustered, her eyes dart around looking at all the students happily talking, barely able to keep up with the flow of the celebration occurring around her.
Among the crowd, Ike lightly rubs Yuji’s head before leaving the group. As he did so, he called Tanaka, who was also patting Yuji albeit on his back and as hard as he could, to come with him.
“Hey, Tanaka, carry Yoshida-san over your shoulder.”
“Alright, coming!”
Yoshida was resting her head on another female students lap (Sato looking on enviously while fanning Yoshida’s face with a handkerchief). Tanaka lightly lifts her up with his large arms before putting her own arm around his shoulder as he carries her to the infirmary.
After all that commotion,
For the first time in the class, Yuji and his classmates had a break, and they spent the rest of the class lying on the grass, enjoying the warm weather outside with their friends.
Thus, the girl known as Yukari Hirai, in other words Shana, ended up being quite popular among her classmates from the Yoshida incident, despite what her intentions actually were.
As for how popular she became… After class when Shana was getting dressed, the other girls who saw her lie down on the grass ran a comb through her hair (apparently it was full of weeds and grass and they couldn’t just stand idly by while a fellow girl neglected her appearance so much)… Unfortunately for him, Yuji only heard of this scene later and didn’t see it, and although it warmed his heart to hear that Shana finally had some friends among the girls, he was quite nervous when he realized how that could have potentially ended… Luckily Shana said nothing to the girls as they cleaned her hair though, so it all ended fine.
Her popularity did not just end there, either. Shana was not seen as so unapproachable as before, granted she was still hard to approach… For now, her public standing went from “outlaw” to “respected bodyguard”.
As an example of this, during the lunch break after their PE class, the class was not so blatantly empty as usual, with people not leaving so obviously either… Half of the class remained behind in the classroom rather than leave.
As for Yuji… Whether intentionally or unwillingly, he did not see much sense in trying to get Shana to fit in with the rest of the class.
Still, thinking about what occurred yesterday and the day before, Yuji felt like he had gotten some damn guts, that’s for sure… A giant man eating doll, a ball made out of heads, a fury of cards and explosions. Standing up to an over confident teacher? Hell, that is nothing more than a mosquito to Yuji now. Yuji caught himself before admitting this dangerous thought, he already did not have much time left to live, having these dangerous thoughts will just further shrink that already minuscule amount of time left. He has to make that remaining time left worthwhile…
After thinking in idleness, Yuji lets his eyes drive among the classroom.
(Well, I have to admit, this is better than being left alone…)
Stopping his brain from thinking on pointless matters, Yuji just decides to accept the current situation as it is.
The same as yesterday, Yuji takes a bite out of his convenience store rice ball. By the way, the reason he always buys these rice balls is his boyish sense of pride… It would be uncool after all to ask his mom to make his bento for him.
“So Shana, are we going to stick around till evening today? I don’t mind since classes will be out by then today…”
Paripari, in between bites of crispy seaweed, Yuji talks to Shana who is sitting next to him.
“No, we will leave today before then. This opponent is a difficult one, so at the minimum I would like to fight him in a place that is advantageous to us.”
Shana as usual is eating melon bread in a way that makes one think “is melon bread really that tasty?”. The bag on her desk is full of melon bread as well, making anyone watching wonder where such a petite girl was planning on putting it all..
(Where does her body put all that melon bread…?) Yuji thought as well, looking at her thin waste that could comfortably be held with only one of his hands.
“… Where the hell do you think you are looking?”
Yuji, embarrassed, hurriedly averts his eyes from Shana’s waist as she glares at him.
“Eh, umm, no… So, is there any place you can think of that is advantageous to us?”
“Anyway, ideally a place with no other humans around. If that can’t be done, then I cannot leave you alone. You will just end up doing something stupid again, which is the last thing I need.”
“Ah, thank you.”
Yuji sincerely expresses his gratitude to Shana.
“Shut up shut up shut up! I am just saying that because we are doing this my way, okay!!”
Shana violently stuffs the last piece of melon bread into her mouth. She then pulls out a sweet coffee drink, one usually meant for young children, from her bag. She begins to speak while trying to open the drink with her mouth, which she is having difficulty doing.
“At the very least, if I knew what was inside of you, I could do something about that.”
“… Is what is inside of me really that strange?”
When presented with such an everyday sight like this, Yuji almost forgot about this other world and himself.
Yuji is already dead, a substitute, a “torch”.
He is not just a torch, however. At the same time he is a treasure vault, a “mystes” who holds a noble treasure within him from the Crimson Denizens.
Thinking on it however, maybe Yuji just subconsciously forgot this fact.
As if denying him this possibility, however, Shana, the proof of this other world, is standing in front of him with a defining presence.
“Yes. This is kind of troublesome, isn’t it, Alastor?”
Unusual for him, Alastor does not immediately respond.
“… Hm. To see what is inside of him, we would have to extinguish him first.”
Shana, still struggling with the lid of her drink box, doesn’t seem to care about Alastor’s response and instead just adds on.
“Umu, but that is in itself a danger. Opening up a mystes without knowing what treasure is within… It is impossible to know what could happen. We have wound up in danger before doing that.”
“Great, so the extent of my own personal safety is the extent of your own?”
“Yeah, something like that.”
Shana deliberately was mean in her response, slapping Yuji in the face with the truth.
However, Yuji calmly replies back. He is used to her now, and can respond like this.
“Hmmmm, is that so?”
“… You don’t start crying and wailing about if you live or die anymore like you did when we first met. You are not like you were at the start of this.”
“Hm? No, I am still scared of my own death, approaching little by little, minute by minute. But even knowing that my death is coming… It is not like I know when it will happen, right? So why complain about it?”
“…”
For some reason… Shana felt offended by Yuji’s overly calm demeanour when talking about his own death.
This “mystes” is nothing more than a tool. Thus, it is natural to not care what a mystes thinks about, just as one does not care what a hammer might think. If that is so… Shana could only as herself, why is she so irritated by it? Is she expecting something from it? Or is it because her previous expectations of it had been betrayed?
Those thoughts and emotions well up within her, and she feels an indescribable anger at herself for thinking such things as her chest begins to get tight. Involuntarily, she lets out an accusing voice.
“Have you given up?”
In response, another calm answer.
“I don’t know. Actually, I have zero clue at all, I barely understand it myself. But there is one thing I know for sure… I am grateful to have you and Alastor here.”
“…?”
Shana… Looks on at Yuji, with eyes that look at the incomprehensible being before her that had just said those incomprehensible words.
On Yuji’s face… A quiet smile, looking at Shana.
“Having someone who understands me and what I am going through… That by itself is a great support.”
“What do you mean by that, saying that we support you?”
Shana smirks back in response with a snide remark.
Yuji is… expecting something from Shana, and Shana inwardly feels the need to shun that expectation… It almost felt the same as what Shana had felt earlier, expecting something from him. Both of them felt an expectation from the other, and to Shana both were overstepping their bounds.
“Are you seriously saying that you think that I am “supporting” you? You know I am from “that world” that killed you, you know?”
“You just said it yourself… You are not the one who killed me.”
Yuji adamantly denies Shana’s retort.
“Hmph, same thing.”
“No, it is not.”
“Yes it is.”
“No it is not.”
“Same.”
“Nope.”
The two began arguing, glaring at each other head on, both refusing to give ground.
“…”
“…”
Amidst this quiet, and yet tense situation awaiting a spark to reignite it, a timid, and small voice, calls out.
“… U-, umm, excuse me…”
In front of the two who turn towards that voice, is a girl with a modest impression, standing with her face bright red and looking down.
Standing there is Kazumi Yoshida, the classmate who Shana had (incidentally and eventually) rescued from her collapse on the track just earlier that day. It seems that she has returned from the infirmary, and her complexion doesn’t look that bad anymore. It seems some rest is all that she needed.
“Yoshida-san?”
Yuji is a little surprised to say the least at this appearance of a most unexpected person.
Shana digs through the memories from the remnants of existence of Hirai Yukari. This girl… Seems to have been a friend of Hirai Yukari, although they were not particularly close as far as friends go.
“Umm, Yu-, Yukari-chan… Just now, um, in phys-ed… Th-, Thank you.”
Since Yoshida’s voice is so soft and she is stuttering, it is extremely difficult for Shana to make sense of what she is saying.
Shana hasn’t recovered from her earlier bad mood yet. Since she is still angry, she asks Yoshida a question in a rather heartless way.
“What do you want?”
“Id-, idiot, she is thanking you, so at least say “your welcome” in response!”
“Who are you calling an idiot!”
Shana felt even more annoyed when Yuji of all people tried to help her. In a strong and loud voice, the complete opposite of Yoshida’s, she replies back to her.
“I was just dealing with someone who got in my way, that is it.”
“Ahhh, well, I guess that isn’t totally wrong, but…”
Yuji thought that he had fully understood just how merciless and blunt Shana could be, but even so, he could tell that right now she is being even harsher than usual.
Even worse is the fact that Yoshida has always been timid. Even as Shana is talking to her, Yoshida is getting even smaller and smaller, bearing the brunt of Shanas verbal attack.
Yuji felt bad for Yoshida, really she is nothing more than a victim of Yuji and Shana’s earlier argument which had left Shana in a terrible mood. Yuji turns to look at Yoshida, wondering how he could comfort her. In her hand is a lunch box, so small that it could easily be hidden within her own small palm.
“Ah, a bento… Yoshida, would you like to eat with us?”
“Um, ah, yes…!”
Yoshida, who was asked if she wanted to eat lunch with them, smiled and accepted. It was a smile that made Yuji feel as if he discovered the meaning of the word “beautiful”, as if her smile was a sun shining through the clouds on a patch of flowers in a small field.
Looking at this bright smile, Yuji felt relieved and at peace.
(… That is quite a difference in comparison to any of Shana’s smiles.)
From the Flame Haze Shana, her smile (except when she is purposefully mocking you) is just like a flame, a smile with a powerful intensity and strength that blinds you…
(Wait, why am I comparing them anyway?)
Yuji, feeling embarrassed for seemingly no reason, moves an empty seat up to the desk for Yoshida, as if to deceive himself and her from his inner embarrassment.
“Sha… Ahem, Hirai-san, there is nothing to worry about. Just eat and talk together with us, okay? It could be fun.”
Now that he thinks about it, despite having class together now for a month, Yuji has not talked to Yoshida at all really. Including the incident earlier during gym class, they might have talked together 2, maybe 3, times. His only impression of her is that she is always quiet, and usually reading a book alone in her seat.
Still… It doesn’t feel bad to make friends with a girl.
(Now that I can actually get a good look at her… Yoshida-san is really cute.)
Yuji’s cheeks relax as he melts in his seat due to his healthy and slightly evil young boy spirit.
As for Shana,
(I wonder if Yukari and Yoshida had drifted apart once Yukari’s “power of existence” begin to fade away after her death, and the earlier incident has pushed Yoshida to try and get close again…))
After making a calm conclusion in her heart, Shana replies with her characteristically blunt voice.
“Do as you like I guess?”
Honestly Yuji was hoping that Shana would say something more, but Yoshida replies back in a voice as small as Shana’s own answer.
“Th-, thank you…”
Then,
“O~i…”
Yuji hears a familiar voice.
Standing behind Yoshida, Sato and Tanaka both fearfully raise a hand in fear, in between them is Ike who was the one who called out to Yuji. It seems that they had silently been watching and judging the situation until now.
Yuji wryly smiles and beckons them to come as well.
With the addition of these three, a six person luncheon begins, with desks being put together to make one large table for all six to sit at.
Tanaka is a naturally loud guy, Sato mixes up the conversation and makes fun of him, Ike tries to calm him down and the conversation and Yuji does his best to help. Yoshida on the other hand only sometimes smiles a little, but does not add to the conversation. Instead, she just pokes at her bento lunch.
Shana ignores everyone there, instead silently eating her stuffed buns. Anko, manju, choclate, etc. After a while, when Yuji takes a break from the conversation, Shana pulls on his sleeve, leaning him towards her and whispers into his ear to complain.
“It is difficult to talk to Alastor like this.”
“And? Try to talk to some ordinary people once in a while.”
“Why? That sounds pointless.”
“Are you sure about that? You didn’t seem too upset earlier when you were surrounded, were you?”
“I just didn’t understand what was happening then.”
“Exactly. If you want to fix that cluelessness of yours when it comes to people, you should start by talking to people other than Alastor for a change.”
“Fix? What are you talking about.”
Yoshida opens her mouth for the first time that lunch when she saw the two of them, leaning into each other and whispering with the faces close together.
“… You two are very close, aren’t you?”
“Tha-, that isn’t true at all!”
Yuji frantically waves his hand and denies the question while avoiding Yoshida’s inquisitive gaze. Meanwhile, Ike and the others speak with envy dripping.
“No, it’s fine.”
“Yup, they are.”
“Ya, absolutely!”
The end of classes came earlier than it did yesterday.
Yuji left the classroom with Shana in tow like a rabbit running from a hunting dog, hoping to get out before Ike and the others might invite him to hang out after school.
Poking their heads out of the classroom door and watching Shana and Yuji run off together, Tanaka and Sato but have an exasperated look on their face.
“Umumu, to think that the two of them would run away together immediately after class like that. Are they… Going on a date? I cannot forgive either of them.”
“Putting aside the topic of forgiveness, but a date with THAT Hirai-san, Yuji? Either he is a masochist or just an interesting taste in girls.”
As the two of them nod in response, the very image of both envy and pity, Ike gets up from his own seat, and walks over to Sato and Tanaka to invite them to hang out. However, he pauses when he sees Yoshida looking around the classroom.
“Yoshida-san, Hirai-san already went home with Sakai.”
“Eh… With Yukari-chan…?”
Judging from her words, Ike realizes that he made a mistake on who Yoshida was looking for. After looking up in the air and thinking for a moment while feeling foolish, he makes a proposal to her.
“Um, hey, Yoshida-san…”
At the same time, outside of the school, Yuji and Shana had already left the grounds, and are intermingled with the crowds on the main street leading from the front of the school towards Misaki bridge.
The sun is still high in the sky, evening is still a little off.
“… Ike and the others definitely misunderstood why we left together, huh?”
Yuji is walking a little bit faster than usual to match Shana beside him who naturally walks with long strides.
“Huh?”
“Never mind, this wont end up being your problem anyway.”
“?”
For some reason though, Shana is walking towards the city, even though earlier she had said earlier that she was going to a place where there would be no people.
The two approach the Misaki Ohashi Bridge, which connects the residential area, which is where the school is, and the city area with its many banks on the opposite side of the river.
Yuji, much like on the first night after he died, looks around to see if he can find any torches.
On the large iron railway bridge, wide sidewalks on either side, there are numerous torches coming and going, a flame in their chest still burning. The torches now are much clearer and Yuji felt more aware of them than before. Perhaps because of his training and sharpening his senses, he could now see and distinguish torches better than before, even able to make out small torches that are nearly extinguished from a distance.
Looking at such a depressing view, an old question comes to Yuji.
“Come to think of it.. There was something I wanted to ask you.”
“What?”
“Those who feed on the “power of existence” in my world… They are just ruthless denizens who do not care if our world is distorted. If that is so, why are they so meticulous when it comes to making torches?”
A girl who looks the same age as Yuji walks by. In her chest, a small flame wavers, almost extinguished.
“… A torch is supposed to soften the impact on the world when someone disappears, right? Even if a denizen didn’t go out of their way to leave a torch, all they would have to do is just gorge themselves on existence and then they wouldn’t have to worry about a Flame Haze killing them since they would be much stronger now, right?”
Shana shakes her head.
“We Flame Hazes can feel the distortion of the world and when a denizen eats “freely” without regard of the balance between your world and the crimson world. If someone were to act recklessly, and risks upsetting the balance of the world, Flame Hazes from all over the world will flock to where they are to hunt them down.”
From her chest Alastor continues. Since they are in a large crown right now there is unlikely that someone will realize his voice is coming from a pendant.
“A “Lord” like Friagne, naturally, possesses more power than a simple “denizen” like many others. Unfortunately for those like Friagne, ones such as myself who bestow our power unto Flame Hazes ourselves are also Lords. When enemies pick a fight with us, rarely do they get away unscathed. There are many of us as well who enemies cannot simply defeat with pure strength.”
Shana speaks as well,
“Normally those who upset the balance try to avoid fighting Flame Hazes as much as possible, to them it is just a nuisance with no benefit… Leaving a torch to potentially avoid all that is a small price to pay.”
“Hmmm, I see.. So then, if our goal is to defeat Friagne, how do you plan on finding him? From what you and Alastor have said so far, he seems pretty famous… Are you going to exchange information with other Flame Hazes on his location?”
“Ah, that is not happening.”
Shana flatly refuses Yuji’s proposition, and then jumps onto a railing of the bridge.
“Wait, that danger–! Actually, for you I guess it isn’t, huh… Anyway, so why not?”
Walking amidst the curious gazes of those around her, Shana spreads out her hands, one holding a paper bag, as she walks on the handrail like an acrobat.
“I won’t and I won’t because I said so. Other than by mere chance, I do not keep in touch or talk with other Flame Hazes.”
“Huh?”
Her steps on the handrail are rhythmic. It sounds lively as if Shana was dancing on the handrails rather than walking.
Yuji however is starting to get flustered… Shana could not figure out why, but she started to enjoy watching his blushing face as she bounced along the handrail, and so she began to intentionally jump higher.
“Mph… A Flame Haze fights for based on their own circumstances and reasons. Besides, we all rely on our own strength… Working in teams, well… We just don’t get along well with each other.”
Yuji, beginning to blush red due to all the attention that Shana was beginning to get nods at her explanation.
“I know exactly what you mean.”
“Did you say something?”
“Nothing in particular.”
“… Anyway, as a Flame Haze wanders the world, torches, the remains of a denizens “meal”, will naturally catch our eye. We can tell how new or old it is depending on how bright it is, so all we need to do is survey the area.”
“That seems like a surprisingly inefficient way to track down enemies… Isn’t there a better way other than hoping to come across them by luck?”
“With a general sense I can tell where a Denizen is, and should I come close to them or a sealed area I can quickly pinpoint them without issue. That is how I managed to find you, I sensed the creation of a sealed area, jumped in, and found a stupid looking torch with his stupid mouth wide open… I couldn’t help but laugh at such a dumb sight.”
Yuji, angry that the now satisfied looking Shana decided to suddenly make fun of him, decides to launch a counter-attack.
“… Your skirt is flipping up showing me your underwear.”
Nearly immediately a kick came flying from the railing. For a while now, Shana’s skirt was fluttering up and down around his line of sight each time she jumped, and with that kick Yuji’s vision went dark. Holding his nose a second after, Yuji realized that Shana had climbed down off the railing and was standing beside him.
“If an area is sealed off, I will simply break in. If they throw a punch I will eliminate them. It is that simple.”
“So a Flame Haze is just an individual fighting their own battles in their own way?”
“Something like that. According to the logic of the Crimson Denizens, it is the role of the Denizens to sneak into this world to feed and the role of this world to defeat then… Random acts that simply happen.”
Alastor responds back in a annoyed voice,
“Don’t say their actions are “random acts” so casually. The reason we are here, to hunt down our brethren, is not a random act. While they may be mere fools, it is an act that must be done to maintain balance between our two worlds.”
“Okay okay, I understand.”
Shana apologizes with a cute smile on her face. Thinking that Shana also has a smile as cute as this, but only directs it towards Alastor, made Yuji rub his nose thinking that it was unfair.
“However, I have been thinking this since I first got here… This town is strange.”
In front of her, Shana looks up at the towering buildings of the city.
The the city hall, an office district, a group of department stores, a downtown arena, and the Misaki City Station, which connects several train lines and a large bus terminal, stands in a row in front of the two.
Yuji looks up confused and asks,
“Strange? How so?”
If you asked Yuji, he saw nothing strange with the sight before him.
It was an ordinary sight that he had never bothered to pay attention to before. But beyond that thin sheet of normalcy, perhaps there is an out-of-the-ordinary world that extends far beyond this everyday sight?
“The number of torches is simply too much, far above a normal number, for Friagne to simply be eating.”
Shana had answered him hoping that he might offer up an opinion unlike what she or Alastor could have. He was, after all, an outsider with a different way of looking at things. Unlike when they are at school, she would not get angry at him even if his opinion was wrong, this was a mission after all and any input could help.
“There are simply too many, to say the least… New ones that appear to have been eaten yesterday to old ones on the verge of disappearing. Unless Friagne has decided to settle down in this town for good, it should never have gotten this bad.”
“… is that it?”
However, Shana ultimately was disappointed in his input.
“You’re not very bright, huh?”
Shana after all did have a selfish expectation and thus a selfish disappointment, and despite what she thought earlier she indeed was mad at his response…. The very fact that she cared about someone other than herself made her angry, even though it was too late to worry about that. Despite knowing how selfish that is, she couldn’t hide her disappointment in her voice.
“If he was just looking for a meal and to use his powers for his own enjoyment and fun, then he would just be wandering around like all the other Denizens. But for so many torches to form in one condensed area, even if it is a little bit at a time the world will distort. By doing this, Friagne is deliberately facing the risk of attracting a Flame Haze… Which means that there is either something in his city that he wants or there is a goal of his in this city that he cannot leave until it is achieved.”
“What-, what? Huh?”
Really, that is all you can say? Shana thought to herself, responding back bluntly to his face that seemed to look stupider by the second.
“There is no way to know what he is thinking right now or his ultimate goal. From what I have heard in the past he possesses a lot of treasures, which odds are has something to do with this.”
Much to Yuji’s confusion it seems that Shana is suddenly in a bad mood. A bit timid and cautious, Yuji asks her only the bare minimum in as few words as possible.
“… So, what are you going to do?”
“We will hang around here until it gets dark, once it gets dark we will move back to your house and wait for him there. That is it.”
“Wait a second, so in the end you are just going to wait for Friagne to make the first move?”
Yuji, too, begins to speak with a bit of venom in his words.
Getting even more annoyed by the second, Shana falls silent.
Yuji turns his head towards the office district, a place full of high rise buildings and hidden alleyways, not a place well suited to finding a needle in a haystack. Beyond that sight in his mind he envisions that other world, behind the thin skin of this normal sight.
“… I wonder if right now another innocent person uninvolved in all this is being devoured, disappearing and being forgotten by everyone they know.”
Shana quickly and dismissively confirms his fears.
“Naturally. All over the world, since time immemorial.”
Shana spoke maliciously, with the intention of getting some small amount of unreasonable revenge.
“This is that “truth” that you oh so wanted to hear… What, are you afraid of it now?”
A woman with a small flickering flame in her chest walks past the two of them. To Yuji she appears to be in her twenties, a beautiful woman in her prime reading a striking red dress. This should be the prime of her life.
But, no matter what anyone does, in a mere few moments, maximum a day or two, she will disappear. Forever.
This, is that truth. Reality.
Yuji’s own inevitable future.
Thinking silently on that, he responds back to Shana in a quiet voice.
“I already told you… Of course I am scared. However… For some reason I feel relieved.”
Involuntarily Shana forgets her own anger and displeasure with Yuji, and looks up at his face in confusion at his out of place answer.
Yuji notices her sudden change and looks back at her face, laughing a little. A natural, effortless smile appears on his face.
Shana suddenly panics, her face turning red, and averts her gaze from his own. She starts walking away from Yuji, her pace a violent.
“… Let’s go already!”
“Go where?”
“Shut up idiot, how could I possibly know!”
At this response Yuji has zero clue what she is saying.
“… Um, what made you so angry? You have been angry for a while now for some reason…”
“I am NOT angry!!!”
Shana naturally couldn’t tell him why.
She couldn’t tell him that his smile looked nice and all the other things going on in her head.
She felt embarrassed and bewildered when she thought about those things… Anyway, regardless she knew she was angry and that is how she is expressing that confusion going on in her head. She doesn’t know what to do or what to say, never mind how to interact with him now. Shana had never had to really interact with people before like this.
“So you are angry at me, right…? You are such a strange girl…”
“I already told you I am NOT angry you idiot!! YOU are the angry one!!”
“Okay, I get it…”
Yuji, tilting his head in resignation, walks alongside Shana as they strode through the crowd.
Misaki Ohashi Bridge, with its heavy traffic.
Hiding in the shadow of a pillar a little off from the bridge where Yuji and Shana were, three boys and a girl are gathered together and observing the two of them.
“Ah, they finally started walking.”
At the forefront is Ike, his glasses glittering as if they were a sniper rifles scope.
Behind him, Yoshida is secretly looking on at the two with a worried look on her face.
“Bu-, but, is it okay to, like, follow them and stuff…?”
A slight smile on his face in response, Sato answers her hesitant voice, unafraid and not even trying to hide himself.
“Do not fret, Yoshida-san. Look. It is not like we are interrupting them or anything.”
“Hu-, huh…”
“They are having fun, we are just harmlessly watching. All in all, everything is okay. Where is the harm in what we are doing?”
Even his overly familiar tone of voice with Yoshida strangely does not sound sarcastic, characteristic of such a beautiful looking guy.
Tanaka currently is standing, no towering, behind Sato and Yoshida, with a curious look on his face and speaking loudly,
“That is right, Yoshida-san! For the sake of our future studies and school life, we must fully watch this important unfolding story of Sakai and Hirai-san’s heartwarming interactions! Let us follow them, Yoshida-san!”
“Um, huh…”
Nodding slowly at Tanaka’s forceful argument, Yoshida looks about as relaxed as a clenched fist.
“Hey, don’t make too much noise unless you want them to realize we are here… Putting aside Sakai I am genuinely scared of Hirai… Oh, uhm sorry miss.”
As Ike turns around to look at Tanaka, he accidentally bumps his shoulder against a young woman wearing a red suit.
Something wasn’t… right though?
“Hmm, whats the matter, Ike?”
Sato, confused, asks Ike what happened with a curious look on his face.
Ike turns around in confusion. He thought he bumped his shoulder on someone… But did he?
“Huh? No, sorry, nothing is wrong.”
Ike himself quizzically tilts his head.
Behind him, Yoshida hesitantly calls out to him as well now.
“Um, excuse me, but they are both leaving…”
“Ah, hurry hurry!! We are going to miss the most important moment!”
“What are you expecting to happen?”
Ike chases after Yuji and Shana, returning an exasperated voice in response to Tanaka’s shout. Yoshida and the other 2 follow him.
That torch, as it burnt out, no one paid it any attention.
No one in the presence of the women in red even noticed she existed in the first place.
As she ceases to exist, the world simply moves on, unchanged and uncaring.
A vaguely shaped white figure looks down onto the world around him from the edge of the roof of a high rise building.
“Hunter” Friagne.
On the face of this beautiful man is an expression of deeply perplexed confusion.
“To think, that the first mystes I would see in such a long time… Would appear and somehow side with a Flame Haze, meaning that now I must fight them… What a tangled thread of causality this has become.”
At his feet, a crude doll with brunette wool hair, Marianne, is following him, her hair dancing in the wind.
“Master, please do be careful. That girl, the Flame Haze, is contracted with the “Flames of Heaven”. Within her resides a mysterious power unknown even to us… Please be careful when dealing with her.”
With only a glance at the doll, his once sullen face becomes calm. In a voice as if he was singing, he speaks to the doll.
“Do not worry, Marianne. Not once have I ever lost to a Flame Haze, correct? I do not intend to lose here.”
“Yes, that is correct. However, that mystes has fallen into our grasp once. It would be nice if we could somehow get the treasure within it before having to fight.”
Much like her master, Marianne as well has a certain sense of joy in the hunting and gathering of treasures.
Friagne’s face became clouded with melancholy at those words.
“Yes… That Flame Haze does not intend on gathering the treasure for herself nor can she strike first, thus as long as we don’t interfere and force her hand we have time to prepare. Let us prepare for the hunt and ensure that our plans do not go awry.”
Friagne reaches out his hand.
“That is right, I will not let anything get in my way now that we have come this far… I will make you, my Marianne, a perfect existence.”
“Master…”
Marianne, gently ascending, holds onto Friagne’s hand.
An invitation to a dance like gesture, repeated countless times between the two.
Friagne pulls the doll into his heart, a doll that he himself had made in this world and subsequently fell in love with.
“Soon I will make you into a being who has the right to live within this world alongside me… You will not be some “rinne”, a mere tool to be used.”
“I have already received so much existence from you as well as “free will”… Is it still not enough?”
This question, and the subsequent answer has been asked and answered between the two over and over again.
“Ahh, my dear Marianne, that is not enough. The existence of a “rinne”, even one such as you, is an unstable existence. Even if you were to gather the power of existence you cannot use it yourself, and should I not supply you with it you will disappear in a mere 3 days or so… A flickering, fleeting, existence at best.”
As if to express the concern and desire on his mind, his voice is unsteady and disturbed.
Marianne, on the other hand, voices her conviction.
“I believe that to be proof of an inseparable bond between your Marianne and master.”
“That too makes me happy, Marianne. But I will do everything for you that I can… It is for that reason alone that I am in this world right now.”
To solidify and prove the vow he made to himself and her, Friagne tightens his hug, holding her even closer to his heart.
“Finally, I am on the cusp of gathering enough existence to fulfill my promise to you. I won’t let anyone get in my way now… Yes, we will hunt that Flame Haze down and kill her, just like all the other Flame Hazes before her that dared to get in the way of our dream.”
At some point, unbeknownst to him, a wide and wicked smile appeared on his face, but promptly his expression and tone changed to pleading.
“Let’s do it, okay Marianne? We have to, right?”
Mariannes face, the doll in his arms, does not change.
But her voice is spun with deep emotion.
“Yes, that is right, master. Let’s.”
With a bright and childish face full of joy, Friagne sings out loudly and out of tune in celebration.
“Let us prepare to welcome them, Marianne! Let us gather all of our cute girls and entertain them grandly! Let us show them our hospitality and lavish them at a ball!”
“Yes, master!
Friagne waving his free hand while holding Marianne with his other, turns himself and Marianne into thin white sparks that scatter in the wind.
The sparks immediately melt into the sunlight, disappearing on the wind.
The daylight is bleak, dusk is just a short time off.
Amidst that gloomy atmosphere, Yuji and Shana finally start to make their way home.
“I… I am so tired… I wonder why, could it be because someone made me walk all day for nothing…?”
Exhausted, rather than walking Yuji began to limp back home.
In the end nothing came from their mission. In the first place rather than looking for clues or information they were just waiting for their enemy to make a move. Naturally, this was the only result that could come of this.
“Shut up shut up shut up!!! All we did was what I said we would end up doing, so what gives you the right to complain now, huh?
Shana’s pace naturally hasn’t been affected at all throughout this entire mission. Since Shana wasn’t in a bad mood Yuji decided to at least be happy about that since this could be a lot worse for him right now.
“Phew… Well, at least now we are going home and getting some rest, right?”
“Hmmmmmm~? What are you talking about? They might come and attack in the evening, idiot, so we have to continue to be vigilant.”
Shana quickly, ruthlessly, and happily cruses Yuji’s hopes. This however was not a result of her mood, but instead her personality.
Yuji couldn’t help but smile wryly since he could understand her almost too well at this point.
“Okay okay… huh?”
Yuji, who came to a stop at a traffic light happened to find 5 torches amidst the crowd on the other side.
“What?”
“Oh, its nothing… You yourself said it earlier, right? You can tell if a torch is new or old. Since you said that I have been trying to pay attention to the torches we are walking by and its true…. Looking closely, I can tell…”
Within Jacob’s eyes, the difference between the colour and intensity of the flame within the chests of the five torches is easily distinguished.
The light of the old man in the middle with the cane… It is new.
The boy on the outer edge of the group, holding his parents hand… Doesn’t have long left.
The notion of it is absurd, deviating from any form of reason.
“Is that what has you so fixated?”
Shana laughs off his words.
Yuji responds with a lighthearted remark, as if trying to blow off this entirely out of ordinary and unreasonable world.
“Ya, something like that… Even still though, it doesn’t feel right. It is… Just so unsettling seeing how much time someone has left. And the way the flame flickers, it is like their heard beat. It is like watching one of those machines at a hospital that shows someones heart beat, watching as it gets smaller and smaller. I don’t think I will ever get used to this.”
“… Heartbeat? What are you talking about?”
Shana turns to Yuji with a dubious face at that word.
“Huh? Look at the flames, they are swaying and swelling. If you look closely, the old ones are slow but the new ones move fast… Can’t you see it?”
“Yeah, I can’t see it at all. Alastor, can you see it?”
“I cannot see it.”
Shana stares intently at Yuji.
“You are a strange mystes to be sure… How do you even get such an ability? What is in you?”
“Hah, I am the one who should be asking you. I cannot exactly see what is inside me, so naturally I cannot help not knowing.”
The traffic light turns green so people start to walk across the street.
Both of them start to cross.
“But, even Alastor cannot see… Are you being serious?”
Yuji cannot help but feel a little hurt by Shana’s suspicion.
“I am telling you, I can see it. Look, the torch in front of me is moving fast.”
“I already told you, idiot, I cannot see what you are seeing. However, you are correct, it is new…”
Suddenly, Alastor spoke up.
“Did you say “all” the torches are moving?”
The dignity imbued with the words of the “Flame of the Heavens” is strong enough to make anyone answer him firmly, completely, and truthfully.
Making sure that his answer is correct, Yuji again turns around and looks all around him at the torches.
On the sidewalk along the main street, Yuji could see twenty or thirty torches just by looking around. Depending on the flame within their chest, each person is either cheerful and walking energetically or sad and downcast…
Gathering his courage and looking down at himself… His own flame was neither fast nor slow.
His own was a regular heartbeat, deep and quiet.
Yuji concluding his own observation answers Alastor with everything all at once with the full weight of this strange ability he possesses.
“Yes, all torches have a heartbeat.”
“I wonder if it has something to do with all the torches here?”
Shana’s question or observation did not receive an immediate answer.
“…Alastor?”
Still, no answer is given.
Both Shana and Yuji, waiting for his answer, continue to walk in silence.
At the next traffic light, Alastor finally speaks.
“Long ago, far in the west, there was a “Lord” who created an extraordinary distortion of the world by leaving a certain mechanism in the Torches he created.”
The two are taken aback by this sudden and odd old tale.
“This “Lord”, known as “Coffin Weaver”, caused an incident so tremendous that it triggered the creation of Flame Hazes on a large scale in response to this threat.”
Shana, curious asks.
“… What was this incident?”
“”City Devouring””
Yuji cannot help but shiver and tremble at such an ominous term.
In front of him, the traffic light turns red.
Upon reaching the supermarket, Shana ignores the perishables and other healthy foods in front of her, ignores the typical shopping route, and heads straight to the snacks in the centre.
“…”
Yuji, not surprised by this choice of hers bus slightly stunned, follows after her.
By change there was a supermarket entrance next to the red light that both were stopped at, and Shana decided to stop by and buy a late-night snack on her way back to Yuji’s house. That is all there is to this,
(Still, I don’t think it is typical for someone to talk about an enemies plans or plots inside of a supermarket…)
Yuji begins to chide himself for feeling like an idiot being so shaken up by that thought.
Alastor however does not take Shana’s actions as her being aloof or not acting serious right now. Instead, he continues to talk in the same tone as before.
“Coffin Weaver had woven a device called a “Keythread” into the torches that he had eaten. With a mere command from him, the torch would lose it physical form, decompose, and revert back to its original power of existence.”
“So what happened then?”
Shana, who had lowered her shopping basket, does not appear to have any intention of being trivial right now… Rather, she seems as if she would never underestimate or fool around when dealing with this side of the world.
“Upon devouring 10% of the city, he activated this mechanism. The torches all at once lost their function as replacements and returned to their original form of existence, suddenly removing a large amount of support and the torches connections to the world, resulting in the large formation of a distortion in the world impacting everything and everyone in that city.”
Shana looks at Yuji as she grabs a bag of candy off the shelf.
“… Are you following along?”
“Well, somewhat. In short, a torch exists to soften the impact on the world by a persons sudden disappearance. It achieves this by having a person slowly lose their presence rather than all at once.”
Yuji looks towards Shana to confirm his statement, and after receiving a nods continues.
“However, if all of a sudden a bunch of torches were to disappear, the world would be full of irregularities and contradictions… Am I right?”
“Good.”
Shana nods once more before moving onto the next shelf.
Yuji, feeling a bit of self-satisfaction at being right, wonders if this is the first time that Shana had actually praised him.
“Alastor, what happened next?”
“Hmm, the rest is simple. A massive distortion was caused by the sudden decomposition of the torches, and much like an avalanche the whole city changed into a huge and dense source of existence. That was the Coffin Weavers goal. Through his machinations he had devised a method of converting everything into a source of food, what we refer to as existence.”
As if this conversation was nothing new to her or was unrelated to her, Shana after grabbing a can of sweet coffee, a drink meant for children,
“So that is goal of City Devouring… But in the end the Flame Hazes were able to destroy Coffin Weaver, right?”
“After a long battle with many “Lords” and Flame Hazes cooperating, yes, Coffin Weaver was finally defeated. Coffin Weaver was, at the time, the most powerful “Lord” among our enemies… He had after all eaten an entire city and could effectively manipulate it freely at will.”
Yuji suddenly began to feel a sense of danger with this conversation.
“… So what you are saying is that, there is a chance that such an absurd technique is now possibly being used… Again? And here?”
“… An abnormally large number of torches in a small area, a mysterious device within them… The situation is very similar to that time. But… While we cannot know for certain, if there is even the slightest possibility of City Devouring occurring again, us Flame Hazes must do whatever we can to crush it.”
Despite it only being a possibility, Alastor seemed almost convinced of it.
“Ya, that is right…”
In fact, up until hearing this story Yuji had only ever seen Friagne as some kind of “street punk”. He had not seen Friagne as a truly honest villain but just someone who attacked, and killed, others without reason. While Friagne and his monsters were after him by that logic Yuji had to be the only target. If he could fulfill that role, those around him didn’t have to be hurt. Hell, Shana had already beat them once, it was just a matter of time till she finally defeated them.
Yuji had fallen into a disillusion.
Things had changed however. If Friagne truly was planning on creating another “City Devouring” event, then, should Yuji and Shana fail or not act in time, everyone regardless of if they are dead or not in all of Misaki City will be devoured. Hell, the city itself would be devoured.
Not only Yuji himself, but his mother, friends, even the entire city will simply disappear.
For the first time, Yuji felt clear hostility towards Friagne.
Hostility, not fear.
Shana ignoring Yuji’s rapid transformation continues to speak comfortably, as if nothing changes.
“But from what I have seen, the amount of torches is still far below 10%. Still, if we want to crush them the sooner the better, but still… They are hard to find.”
“Shana, do we really have no choice but to simply wait for them to make a move?”
Shana looks up surprised at Yuji who suddenly seemed to be enthusiastic at the thought of fighting.
“Hmmm~? For the time being, yes. Look, we have some nice bait here, too.”
“Bait?”
“You, the mystes. After all, he is a “Hunter”. As a “Hunter” he cannot simply let a mystes dangling in front of him get involved in his “City Devouring”.”
“Well if that is true, then that means that even I can help somewhat.”
Shana turns to look suspiciously at Yuji, who despite being treated as nothing more than bait was… Oddly enthusiastic about the entire thing.
(…? I mean, I guess it is fine?)
Before she knew it, Shana’s shopping basket was full, and her final selection was a loaf of bread she selected off of the shelf nearby the cash register. Naturally, it was melon bread that her gaze had become fixed upon. As the previous topic and confusion disappeared from her mind, she began to carefully examine the many types and shapes of melon bread.
Yuji looks over her shoulder and points to a relatively expensive item.
“What about this one? It says it is made from real melon juice.”
“No way.”
She verbally shut him down.
“Why not? The price shouldn’t matter anyway to you, right?”
Shana gracefully put her hands on her hips while still holding her shopping basket and school bag, puffing out her small chest.
“Melon bread is melon bread because it has a mesh baking die put on it to look like a melon!! Real melon flavouring is utter nonsense… Nothing more than an evil perversion of melon bread!”
At the sudden loud and asserting voices, the other shoppers couldn’t help but have their voices leak out in surprise, moving by her confidence and assertive voice.
“Okay…”
Yuji has no choice but to agree with her imposing policy on the authenticity of melon bread.
In the end, her careful selection based on solid fact and subjectivity took another 10 minutes from that point.
Even after leaving the supermarket, the two of them walked rather slowly to allow Yuji to observe the heartbeat inside of each of the torches, so by the time they got it home it was already well after twilight.
Yuji and Shana stood in front of his house with a delicate tension between them, as if they were about to be attacked at any moment.
“…”
However, Yuji does not enter his home. From the side of the gate, he went around the narrow garden and crouches down in the bushed by the wall.
Shana, confused by his sudden and strange actions, asks him,
“What the hell are you doing?”
Yuji turns his slightly frustrated gaze to Shana. Well, he thought to himself, naturally she had never had to think of such things or situations.
“It would be bad if something like yesterday were to happen again today with my mom home… At least hide here with me until the sun goes down in case we are attacked.”
“Hmmm, so you are concerned about your family.”
“Normally people are?”
Yuji said, but then gave his words a second thought.
Shana had said that she was a human being from his world in the past, but Yuji could only wonder where she lived and what she was doing before becoming a Flame Haze. Perhaps she never even had a family to begin with or if she did what happened to them?
With these thoughts on his mind Shana stood there expressionless. After a short while, she answers back simply.
“… Well, yeah.”
Shana herself had also crouched down by Yuji’s side, and pulls out a bag of candy she bought earlier from the grocery store.
Yuji upon seeing this, and having nothing better to do, holds out his hand as if to ask for some.
“… Can I have one?”
“No. They are mine, I bought them.”
Much like all her other answers, this too was blunt.
His cheeks twitching in response to such an unreasonable answer, Yuji asks her another question.
“Look, you have a whole bag of them, at least give me one. Sweets are good for keeping you awake when you are tired.”
“No. And I don’t care about that. Not my problem.”
“Just give me one. Wasn’t I helpful today, helping you guys realize the whole “City Devouring” thing?”
“No. And don’t act all arrogant, idiot, you only were able to see all that by pure chance.”
Gradually, both began to double down on being stubborn.
(… my my…)
Shana did not even notice Alastor’s sighs, she simply just kept talking and arguing with Yuji.
“Give me one.”
“No.”
“Give m-“
“No.”
“Gi-“
“No.”
“Stingy.”
Yuji decides to change his tactics.
At these words, Shana’s cheeks twitch.
“… What? I couldn’t quite hear what you just said.”
“Don’t be so damn stingy.”
Bishi, a blue streak suddenly appears and runs down from Shana’s forehead.
“Did, did you just add a “damn”…?
“Oh, so you did hear me? Give me one than.”
“I refuse!!”
The two of them glare at each other, still hiding in the bushes in Yuji’s garden.
“So now you just refuse, huh!?”
“Why does that matter, huh!?”
“You really are just a stingy cheapskate!!”
“AHH!! You said it again!!”
“So what if I did, you are a cheapskate!!”
Suddenly, a voice came down from above the two of them.
“Yu-chan, what are you doing hiding in a place like that this late?”
When the two of them look up, looking down at them was a lady with a soft face… Yuji’s mother, Sakai Chigusa, was looking down at them with a curious look on her face, peeking at them through an open window.
“… Looks like you have been found and are in trouble with your mommy, huh, Yu-chan?”
Pupu, covering her mouth Shana begins to laugh.
“…”
Yuji, whose right eye is now twitching slightly at those words, did not dare to say anything to Shana, but instead decided to ask the “Lord” in the pendant, the calm, dependably, understanding, easy to talk to, and adult Alastor, a question.
“… Alastor.”
“What is it, Yu-chan?”
“…………………… It is past evening now, correct?”
Before Yuji had even realized it, the sky above him had turned a pitch black.
“… How did it end up like this?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why are you asking me?”
In a curious turn of events, Shana currently is sitting at the Sakai families dining table.
Upon discovering that Yuji was not alone in the bushes, Chigusa had run towards her front door and around the house. Faced with such a dominating gentle appearance Shana could not help but be frightened by this indescribable strength and submit to it, which resulted in her seemingly being forced to have dinner at the Sakai residence.
“You know, now that I think about it, this is the first time that Yu-Chan has ever brought a girlfriend over to our house.”
Chigusa, her face full of joy at such a marvellous occasion, currently is in the kitchen making a feast for the three of them. Despite the table already being filled with salads, soups, and two other dishes, Shana and Yuji could still clearly hear the sound of her cooking something else.
Shana, however, is glaring at Yuji (while fighting the urge to look at the food on the table) who is currently sitting across from her.
“Why is it that your mother would find her son hiding in a bush alongside his house, getting yelled at by a girl she doesn’t recognize, and the first thing to come to her mind is to invite, no, force, her to come over for dinner?”
Throughout her protest each words was emphasized, however much of the intended strength behind her words was lost as the savoury smell of edamame wrapped in tofu on the plate in front of her seemed to sap all of her strength, making her words not quite as powerful as they could have been.
Yuji himself had his own protest, and blurted something out in a strange position where it wasn’t quite obvious if he was resting his cheek on his hand or if he was instead holding his head in disbelief.
“I mean, what I want to know is how my mom could misinterpret you as being my girlfriend when you look like a little kid…”
After facing such a powerful attack from his mom, Yuji did not even have the strength nor willpower to pick up a single piece of his favourite dish, boiled yellowtail radish.
“Thinking on what happened last night… I am compelled to truly wonder if you do have those kinds of interests.”
“Hold on!”
Chigusa calls out to Yuji, who had just began to yell at Alastor for what he perceived as a serious concern.
“Hey Yu-chan, can you help and carry this for me please?”
“Ahh~, yeah yeah.”
Hearing this, Yuji slowly and reluctantly stands up. However, as soon as he enters the kitchen, he yells in surprise at the sight before him.
“He-, hey! You made omelette rice too!! This is way too much for three people!”
“No it is fine, I made sure this is extra delicious since it contains a secret ingredient. Besides, I have to make sure that Hirai-san has a good impression of us, or else Yu-Chan is in serious trouble.”
“What are you talking about!”
“There you go again~ Fufu, this is reminding me of that one time with your father…”
“Please, just stop talking!”
Shana, who had been listening to their conversation from the back of the room suddenly closes her eyes.
“…”
Upon opening her eyes, she was presented with a warm meal, something that a family would usually all eat together.
Looking up, she could see Yuji’s mother through the bamboo screen, a gentle and motherly warm smile on her face.
“..”
Again, she closes her eyes.
Before long Chigusa enters the dining room, Yuji holding a platter of something.
On top of the platter is a ridiculously large omelette rice. Unknown to Shana, but according to the rules of the Sakai family, everyone has to take a piece of the omellete rice whenever it is made… However normally it is just Chigusa and Yuji so it is not normally this large, but with three people here naturally the omellete rice must be made larger to compensate.
Chigusa, with a smile on her face that could only be described as truly good natured and pure,
“Please, enjoy the meal. Do not be shy, eat as much as you want. I even have a dessert ready for you once you are done!”
Lured and calmed by Chigusa’s goddess smile, Shana naturally relaxes her facial expression and muscles.
Yuji, for the first time since he had met her… Saw Shana’s true and natural smile.
Even after dinner Chigusa was not done with her fun, however Yuji had managed to somehow let Shana escape, saving her from the horror of having to explain “The Story of the Two of Them”.
Chigusa regretted having to say goodbye to “Yu-chan’s girlfriend”, and followed them onto the main street to say her goodbyes, forcing Shana to have to turn the corner at the end of the block before jumping onto the roof tops to make her way back to the Sakai house in secret.
Incidentally,
“It is getting dark Yu-chan, you should make sure she gets home safe.”
Yuji had been told to walk Shana home since it is dark out, but oddly enough the very person he was supposed to be walking home was currently residing on his rooftop,
“Even though you said you would protect me, what are you planning on doing if I get attacked right now…”
While complaining in a way that just made him feel more pathetic, Yuji decided to just kill some time at a nearby convenience store.
As for Shana, currently she is sitting as what would appear to be one lonely person, although Alastor is with her too.
Yuji should have unlocked the window in his room earlier, but Shana did not want to go inside right now for some reason. Sitting on the slope of the triangular roof hugging her knees to her chest, on her right is a bag of sweets that Chigusa had given her earlier and on her left is the bag of snacks she had bought earlier from the supermarket.
Resting her small chin on her knees she gazed longingly at the night view.
It is a cloudless night, the moon bright and full.
“Hey, Alastor.”
With nothing else to do, she decided to just talk.
Ever since she had met Yuji, she had for some reason developed this habit.
Until now Shana had spent her life speaking as few words as possible. It was her duty as a Flame Haze to remain quiet whether it was noisy, quiet, she was standing still or if she was moving… That was what she perceived her duty to be.
“Come to think of it, I am sorry I don’t exactly match up with your real name… I don’t fight with intensity or passion like a burning flame.”
“I understand that. The words of your contract were a masterpiece, in many ways.”
From in front of Shana, within the “cocytus” pendant wrapped around Shana’s hand and held in her palm, the “Flames of the Heavens”, Alastor, answers her with his deep voice, reminiscent of thunder.
Yes, despite his terrifying title of “King of the Crimson World”, Alastor instead was a quite caring and wise Lord even when responding to Shana’s self deprecating words.
Shana wonders if he would have answered her this whole time, maybe he never answered purely because she had been silent up until now, perhaps thanks to someone else… Getting annoyed with herself for even thinking that Shana shut down that inner thought.
Perhaps it was because of her heart and its strange movements when thinking that, but Shana involuntarily lets out a small and weak smile.
“Fufu, thank you.”
“Unlike other Flame Hazes you have entered into a contract without gaining a reason to fight, a reason to set your heart afire, becoming a warrior at such a young age… You exist solely to kill your enemies.”
“I wonder if that is the reason why I cannot create my own flames, too… If I had never stolen Nieto No Shana from Tenmoku Ikku I would still be fighting using only my fists and feet.”
With these words Shana’s voice gets a little quieter.
With Alastor’s next words it is clear that right now he has a wry smile.
“Are you still concerned with what Friagne had said? Do not worry, the answer is obvious. You merely have not encountered an enemy worthy of seeing them yet.”
“Yeah. This entire time, just like I promised in our contract, I have been fighting calmly and with certainty to defeat denizens of the crimson world, that is all.”
“You have only ever brought me along. You rarely ever mingle with others even.”
“I have had no need to work with others. I have never had any problems, even without others help.”
This was Shana’s true feelings.
In response, Alastor, too, answers her honestly.
“That is correct. The more paths you cross, the more problems can arise in fact. However.”
“?”
“Is that truly a bad thing?”
For some reason, suddenly Yuji’s face pops into Shana’s head. Chigusa’s motherly smile as well, even her classmates as they crowded her in joy.
Just like before… Shana could not give a clear and honest answer.
“… Maybe?”
Shana curls into an even smaller ball, resting her cheeks on her knees, and closing her eyes.
(I don’t want you to climb up here today…)
Before she knew it, Shana was beginning to fall asleep.
Yuji himself had no intention of climbing up to the rooftop… After the earlier argument with Shana over candy and the war of the nerves just before, during, and after dinner, Yuji simply had no energy left at all. Once he got home he went straight to take a bath before changing into his pyjamas and climbing into bed.
… On the rooftop, only Alastor is awake, quietly gazing at the moon from within the cocytus pendant held by Shana’s small hand.
Silvered Tongue Reborn 
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