“I wish you had died,” Yuichi responded without thinking.
“Hey, don’t start off with the punchline to an urban legend!”
“Let’s just say I was really hoping that losing Soul Reader might sever the connection between us.”
“What are you talking about? Isn’t Soul Reader the thing that lets you see labels? Wait, is it seriously gone?”
“I’ll explain later.”
“Huh? Sakaki, do you know the transfer student?” Shota asked while he was pushing their desks together.
“You could say that.” Yuichi brushed it off.
Even if he’d overheard the term “Soul Reader,” he probably wouldn’t understand it, but Yuichi also realized he probably shouldn’t talk about it publicly.
“Ibaraki, you’re really good at Japanese,” Shota added, impressed.
“Well, naturally. I was born in Japan and have lived here all my life. People just like it when I play the foreigner. It’s a little gag I do.”
“You think a little gag will make people accept an oni?” Yuichi muttered blackly. For some reason, everything Ibaraki did got on his nerves.
“I’m surprised, though. I wouldn’t have expected you to transfer here, Ibaraki,” Aiko said, bringing her lunch by as well.
Yuichi noticed with a hint of surprise that Aiko had brought two lunch boxes today. He didn’t remember her being much of a glutton.
“He couldn’t have transferred,” Yuichi said. “He said he just wears the uniform as a disguise and doesn’t actually go to school, right? Are you even on the national register?”
“Maybe we should save that talk for later?” Ibaraki asked.
“No, forget it. It’s not like I actually care.”
“Hey! I know that’s what you always say, but it still really stings!”
“By the way, what makes you think you can butt your way into eating with us?” Yuichi added. “Who gave you permission?”
“Sakaki, what’s the big deal?” Aiko said, mediating, and in the end, the four of them ended up eating together.
They all pulled out their lunch boxes, but Yuichi froze when he saw what lay inside of his.
“That’s a weird diet you’ve got,” Ibaraki said, peering over in disbelief.
“Wait... wait a minute. This is...”
There was a lead plate in his lunch box. It looked familiar to him; it was the same stuff he used to fine-tune his training weights.
“I’m pretty sure Yori was supposed to make my lunch today...” he murmured. Yuichi’s lunches were usually packed either by his mother or his little sister, Yoriko; today it had been Yoriko’s job. “Did I do something to make her mad? Do both of my sisters hate me now?”
It was a natural thing to think, given the situation. He tried lifting the lunch box; the weight had been calculated perfectly to avert suspicion. She must have done it this way to keep him from realizing he didn’t have a lunch.
Now that he knew what was in it, of course, he could tell that the center of balance was off, but that wasn’t something he would have foreseen.
“I never would have believed there was just nothing inside it... this is way too elaborate for a nasty prank...” Yuichi wanted to clutch his head in his hands in confusion.
“Oh, um, Sakaki. I happened to bring two lunches today. Would you like one?” Aiko hesitantly offered.
“Noro, did you and Yori plan this?” Yuichi stared hard at Aiko. It was all too suspicious.
“O-Of course not. I just accidentally made too much for one, so I brought both along with me.”
“Well, I don’t have anything to eat, so thanks.”
Aiko was clearly acting suspiciously, but Yuichi decided to eat her lunch anyway. He was pretty sure she wouldn’t try to feed him anything weird, and even if she did have an ulterior motive, it was probably nothing sinister.
“Wow, I wish a girl would make lunch for me sometime,” Shota said enviously, though Yuichi didn’t find anything enviable about having a lunch forced on him under these bizarre circumstances.
“You’re the ace of the soccer club,” he responded. “Shouldn’t the girls be all over you?”
“No, I get nothing. To the point where I’d kind of like to know why.”
Even though he was the one who brought it up, Yuichi had no interest in why Shota was unpopular with women, and he turned his attention to Aiko’s lunch. It was full of his favorite foods — which, he suspected, Yoriko must have told her about. Aiko really was a great cook.
After lunch was over, Yuichi headed for the class next door, 1-A.
“Hey, you want to know why I’m here, right?” Ibaraki asked, following along.
Yuichi tried to ignore him, but he knew that if he left him alone, he’d probably just keep talking. “No, and please leave me alone. Excuse me, could you call Shinomiya here?” he said, addressing a student about to enter the room.
Soon after, a girl with long hair showed up.
This was Furu Shinomiya, the daughter of a shrine priest, and part of a monster hunter organization. They’d met during the incident with Noro’s vampire older brother, and they were currently working together to investigate an evil presence that had arrived in the city recently.
“What is it?” the girl asked. “Do we have to discuss it at school?”
“It’s about the thing we talked about. I figured sooner was better than later.” Yuichi could have gone to the shrine first thing in the morning, but now that they knew he was the one ruining their forests, he’d felt a little reluctant to stop by. He’d decided to talk to her at lunch that day instead.
“You learned something? Okay. Let’s go to the roof, then.”
“There might be a lot of people up there around lunchtime. Are you sure?”
“I can manage a spell to keep people away, at least. By the way, who’s that? You know he’s an oni, right? What’s he doing blending in with the students?” Furu glared at Ibaraki with obvious hostility.
“I’m not with him. He just follows me around,” Yuichi explained. “If you want to vanquish him, go ahead.”
“Not with you?” Ibaraki protested. “Well, I guess I’m not, but...”
Yuichi, completely uninterested in anything Ibaraki had to say, just turned and headed for the roof. Furu followed him, muttering something under her breath.
They climbed the stairs to the roof in time to find a crowd of students on the way down.
Furu’s spell must have worked, as there was no one up on the roof by the time they got there.
“Is this one of those barrier things?” Yuichi asked.
“Just a spell to drive people away. There’s not much power in it, just enough to make people think, ‘Ugh, I’m tired of being on the roof.’” Despite her words, Furu sounded a bit proud of it.
“I wish it had an effect that would send oni flying, too,” Yuichi said.
“Huh? Why do you hate me so much? It’s bizarre. What did I ever do to you?”
“It’s amazing,” Yuichi said. “You really think we can be friends after you tried to kill me the first time we met.”
“I’ve helped you a lot since then, though,” Ibaraki protested. “You need to learn to let the trivial stuff go.”
“Yeah, whatever. Anyway, I learned what that ‘great evil’ in the city is. There might be others, but this is the big one, I think.” Ignoring Ibaraki, Yuichi explained to Furu what had happened yesterday.
“I see,” she said. “Nergal, eh? The god of Babylonian myth, trying to revive himself... Thank you for your assistance. You’ve provided some very helpful information.”
“So if you tell that monster hunter organization about it, they can handle it?”
“Yes, it should be fine. We wouldn’t be able to handle it by ourselves, but they’ve solved a lot of situations at least this bad in the past.”
“Okay! Then I can leave it all to you guys?”
“Yes. Um, I thought you’d be the nosy sort, but you really don’t seem to be interested in this at all, do you? I was gonna give you a warning not to get involved with us again, but...” Furu seemed surprised, and almost a little bit disappointed.