“Now then, please take a seat as well, Tsuji-san,” said Migiwa. “I was just telling them about the camp.”
“Ohh, Torchlight-san’s? Well, if Kamikoshi-kun and Nishina-kun are going, then I don’t really need to go, do I?”
“You must be joking. You are going to be central to formulating our defensive measures, Tsuji-san.”
“It’s gonna be hot, and there’ll be a whole lot of bugs. I don’t wanna go.”
“According to Urumi-san, the area is actually quite cool.”
“And the bugs?”
“Urumi-san, can you tell us about that?”
Asked for her opinion, Runa made a sour face. “They’re everywhere, so you shouldn’t go. In fact, there’s nothing but bugs. If you pitch tents there, they’ll get buried in them. So, please, don’t come.”
“Oh, gosh. Do you think a mosquito coil will be enough to handle them?”
Tsuji’s tone remained aloof and playful. I was starting to figure something out. If you wanted to blunt Runa’s momentum, maybe you had to go this far. Looking at it that way, maybe Tsuji was a good pick for Runa’s sponsor. Since Kozakura was a serious person, she’d probably get stress ulcers having to deal with her.
“What’s Tsuji-san...going to do? At the camp,” asked Toriko. It was an incredible feat for a shy girl like her.
“I wonder what I’ll be doing. Migiwa-kun?”
“Yes. I spoke about it a little earlier, but after the T-san incident, Tsuji-san was the one I talked to about defending DS Research. Because she is a specialist in that field.”
“A specialist in what?”
“The professional term for it would be ‘spiritual defense,’” Tsuji said as she took over explaining. “Everybody loves Psychic Self-Defense. The kind Dion Fortune-sensei wrote about. Oh, did I mention it yet? I’m a magician.”
“A magician...”
“Yep, yep. Of the practical kind. Magick written with a k.”
Toriko looked at me as if she wanted me to save her. I didn’t understand it that well myself, though, so I could only shake my head.
“Is this person all right...?” Runa said with suspicion, recoiling from Tsuji. I had to feel bad for her. Anyone would feel the same way if the person they might end up living with proclaimed themselves to be a magician.
“Erm... So basically, Tsuji-san is trying to defend DS Research using occult means?” I asked reluctantly, and Tsuji pointed at me in a way that said “you got it.”
“Something like that. You’re quick on the uptake, Kamikoshi-kun.”
That didn’t feel like a compliment.
“I can’t imagine it’s going to be very effective, though,” I said.
“Oh, really?”
“The Otherside approaches us using the context of internet lore and real ghost stories. The ghosts that appear in those sorts of stories are already far from the image of ghosts and youkai as they existed before, and traditional religious methods like sutras or exorcisms are often ineffective against them. The kind of magic you’re talking about may be different from religion, Tsuji-san, but if it’s coming from a preexisting occult context, I suspect it’s not going to work...”
Tsuji listened to me speak without getting upset. “I dunno. Who can say?” she said when I was done.
“You dunno?”
“I think it would be good if we could test all sorts of things, including that. And the folks at Torchlight are volunteering to act as test subjects. That doesn’t happen often.”
“Yikes... Don’t go experimenting on me, please,” Runa said warily.
Tsuji widened her eyes in exaggerated surprise. “What are you talking about, Urumi-kun? You’re an experimenter, not a test subject.”
“Come again?”
“That is true,” Migiwa interjected. “We have high hopes for your work as an assistant during the training.”
“What do you mean, as an assistant?” Runa asked.
“I was thinking, if you use your voice, interesting things might happen,” said Tsuji. “So if anything, you’re going to be working with the aggressor.”
“Wha...” Runa sounded deeply unhappy about this.
“In that case, Migiwa-san, does this mean the four of us are going to be training the people from Torchlight?” I asked.
“That is correct,” he replied with a nod. “You will create a training environment using your eye, Nishina-san’s hand, and Urumi-san’s voice. Special forces use a training facility called a kill house to practice breaching. This will be the UBL equivalent of that. Tsuji-san, you will be there in your role as Urumi-san’s guardian, to experiment using your skills as a magician, and also to provide advice.”
“Okay, okay. You get that, Urumi-kun?” Tsuji said.
“Yeah, I got it. Basically, we need to make a haunted house, right? I’m good at that. I did it all the time back when I had my fan club. It probably doesn’t have much to do with my voice at all.”
I had thought Runa was just sulking, so I was surprised when she gave a proper answer. Maybe she was willing to talk in a nonaggressive manner about things she understood.
I raised my hand. “Can I ask just one thing? I have a condition, or something I need to check.”
“Go ahead,” replied Migiwa.
“Am I correct in assuming that this training is only for actions in the surface world? Basically, is it that the purpose is not to fight the Otherside, but create a system which can respond in the event that an Otherside entity attacks DS Research on the surface?”
I had no intention of helping anyone other than Toriko and me enter the other world. It was a secret place for just the two of us. Even now that I had learned how terrifying it was, and how unfathomable, I had no intention of bending on that basic principle.
“Rest assured. We are not thinking of deploying into the UBL.”
“Okay then. You good with that too, Toriko?” I checked.
“Okay.”
Once she nodded, we were all in agreement.
“In order to create a training plan, I believe we will hold a number of meetings with Sasazuka, the company president of Torchlight, in attendance. I will contact you later to schedule a date. Thank you all for taking the trouble to come here today.”
With that closer from Migiwa, we called it a day. Runa had wanted to eat ramen, but Tsuji becoming her guardian must have killed her appetite, because she went back to her room without a word. I don’t understand how minors think.
Thanks to her, Toriko and I still had a hankering for ramen, though, so the two of us went out for ramen together.