“Okay. Are you ready, Shido?”
“…”
“Shido? Are you listening to me?”
“…! Y-yeah. Sorry. Of course.”
Shido lifted his face with a gasp. It was the next day, and Kotori had called him on the bridge of Fraxinus.
“Listen, you…” She sighed and rolled her eyes. “You need to get it together. Don’t you realize who you’re up against today?”
“Ngh. Sorry.” He bowed apologetically.
She furrowed her brow uneasily. “…Body still not one hundred percent?”
“No, no. I’m doing okay there.” He threw his arms out and waved them around to show how perfectly fine he was. He hadn’t meant to make her worry.
While his post-bath memories were a little hazy due to his panic, the effects of the bath were real. At the moment, he was almost in better condition than normal.
“But,” he said slowly, “I had this weird dream.”
“Dream?” Kotori frowned. “What kind of dream?”
“Mm.” He cocked his head to one side. “It was like a super old memory. Or maybe not?”
“…Well, that clears that up,” Kotori retorted. Shido didn’t think it was much of an answer either.
“…A-anyway, I’m okay,” he said, patting his chest. “Raring to go.”
Kotori’s suspicious gaze fell upon him, but she soon shrugged, exasperated. “I’ll take your word for it. Your opponent is Mukuro Hoshimiya. An open heart has softened her attitude, but she’s still an unknown Spirit. Be on your guard.”
“Yeah. I know,” Shido replied, a serious look on his face. Rightly so. He had been almost killed by Mukuro a number of times now. He couldn’t be too cautious.
That said, anxiety and fear weren’t the only emotions he was feeling. He was finally going to talk with the real Mukuro.
When he first met her via a three-dimensional projection, she had firmly rejected him. She didn’t need any sealing. She didn’t need any friends. She was fine so long as she could simply exist unmoved, so she said.
He had struggled at one point with those mechanical words. He thought perhaps he was barking up the wrong tree, that he had no right to intervene if this was what she truly wanted.
Yet if Mukuro—the Mukuro whose heart was unlocked—actually wanted to be a part of the world…
“I’ll leave her weak in the knees, you can count on it.”
This was his desire. He made a fist, strengthening his resolve. Any trace of hesitation in his heart vanished.
Kotori nodded at Kannazuki and the crew of Fraxinus.
He had made his decision, and he had the backup he needed to support him in his mission. They had before them the optimal conditions for a Spirit attack.
There was just one problem.
“…So, Kotori,” he said slowly.
“What?” she asked in response.
“…Where am I gonna meet her?”
“…”
Kotori furrowed her brow and said nothing.
This was really no surprise. The day before, Mukuro had promised to see him today, then vanished into thin air. There were no details exchanged for the rendezvous. She had simply said, “Let’s go on a date tomorrow!” and nothing else.
He pressed a hand to his forehead, troubled. However firm his resolve, there was no point to any of it if he didn’t know where to find her.
“Th-there’s no way she ghosted us with grace, right?” Nailknocker Shiizaki said, scratching her cheek where she sat on the bridge’s lower deck.
“…No.” Analyst Reine Murasame closed groggy eyes and shook her head slowly. “If she were ghosting us, she wouldn’t have shown herself yesterday. We should assume she’ll contact us. Maybe she’ll open a door behind Shin again—”
At that exact moment, the space behind Shido twisted like a vortex, and a black door opened wide.
“Huh?!”
“I-is this…?!”
Kotori and the crew gasped and cried out in surprise.
Shido alone was silent. Not because he wasn’t surprised, but because the door was generated behind him, which rendered him a heartbeat late in noticing this anomalous phenomenon.
“Huh—”
And before he could react, a thin arm stretched out from the door, pulled him by the shoulders, and dragged him backward.
“Uh. Aaah?!” he shouted.
“Shido?!”
Kotori’s cry ringing in his ears, his world faded to black.
A second later, a clear blue sky and…
“Hm-hmm. It’s time, my lord.”
…Mukuro crouching next to him filled his field of view.
“M-Mukuro?” he said, opening his eyes wide in amazement.
“Mm.” Mukuro grinned. “What now, Shido?”
“Oh, uh, where are we?” he asked as he slowly sat up and let his gaze wander, checking out the area around them. “Wh—?” He gasped.
It was only natural. He was lying on a road paved in asphalt…
“…Huh? Those kids…”
“Wait, what? Are they cosplaying?”
“No, but did you see that…hole there just now?”
“Mommy! Why is that boy lying on the road?”
…with people coming and going and chattering.
He knew this street. It was a corner of Tengu he sometimes passed through.
“…! Crap…!” He gasped. The Spirits’ existence was a secret, and the consensus was that the general populace was better off not knowing about them. Not to mention, if Mukuro did anything conspicuous, the Self-Defense Forces’ AST or DEM Industries might sniff them out. He hurriedly leaped to his feet and grabbed her hand. “M-Mukuro, let’s go!”
“Whither?” she asked.
“S-somewhere without people!” he cried.
“Hm-hmm.” She nodded slightly and started to raise Michael, the enormous key-shaped staff in her hand.
“S-stop!” he yelped. “What are you doing?!”
“Hmm? We shall travel to a space without people, yes? Then, Michael—”
“No! J-just come with me!”
“Ooh, how daring! Using force?”
He grabbed her hand and pulled her into an alley. She followed him without resistance, smiling merrily.
The pedestrians in the area looked at them curiously but soon returned to their own doings. They may have been interested if Shido and Mukuro were being funny, but given that they were just weird, the passersby likely wanted to avoid getting too involved. Shido was so grateful for the general disinterest of city dwellers.
“Phew! We should be okay now.” He finally let out a sigh of relief in the deserted alley. At the same time, he heard a burst of static in his right ear and the voice of Kotori aboard Fraxinus.
“Aah, we’re connected! Shido, you okay?!”
“Y-yeah. More or less,” he whispered to keep Mukuro from hearing. He was glad he’d already been wearing his communication earpiece in preparation for Mukuro.
“I never imagined she’d up and yank you away like that,” Kotori said, a note of relief in her voice. “Caught us off guard. Good thing we had your earpiece in. It’s also a relief that you didn’t go too far away. We would’ve had a real time of it sending drone cameras if she’d taken you to the other side of the Earth.”
Shido smiled faintly. She was right; at the mercy of Mukuro’s whims, he could have been abducted somewhere much worse. He was a bit surprised to still be in Tengu, but it may actually have been a decent place to end up.
“And some good news. We went ahead and checked your likability with Mukuro right off the bat. Compared with before, when it didn’t twitch from absolute zero, we saw some quiet variations.”
“S-so then…”
“Yep. You really did manage to open her heart. Keep it up, and we’ll hit a value that’ll be more than enough for you to seal her Spirit power.”
“Yeah?” he said. “That’s great.”
Mukuro peered at him curiously. “You mutter to yourself. What do you say?”
“Ah! O-oh… Sorry.” He jumped and turned back to her.
She nodded, satisfied, and continued. “Now, how do you intend to make Muku happy, my lord?”
“Um,” he said slowly. “Well, you know, all kinds of stuff…”
“Then you will show them all to me. Shall we hurry?” she said and started out as if to lead him. But her own long hair tangled around her feet, and she nearly fell. “Mm?”
“Whoops!” He reached out to steady her. “You okay?”
“It has been some time since I was on this planet. Mm-mmm. It is slightly dirtied now,” Mukuro said as she held up a lock of hair and tenderly brushed off the dirt.
This was indeed Earth, an environment different from the outer space where Mukuro had spent so much of her time, a world atop of dirt bound by gravity. And while her long, long hair was partially tied up in buns on either side of her head, enough of it trailed down to impede her walking.
“Wherever we’re going, it might be best to do something about that hair first,” Shido said. “Hey, how about we give you a little trim—?”
“No,” Mukuro replied flatly, her gaze sharpening. “I do not wish my hair to be cut. You are indeed special to me, but this I will not allow.”
“…?!” He shuddered.
This, too, was natural. Mukuro’s cheerful demeanor had, in an instant, changed into a fiery one.
He heard an alarm over his earpiece, a familiar warning that blasted when a Spirit’s mood took a dark turn.
“Shido! Say something!” Kotori cried in a panic, and he wrestled with how to pacify her.
But a few moments later, Mukuro herself gasped as though she had realized the sharp edge in her words. “Apologies. I cannot recall the reason…but I do not wish it.”
The alarm blaring in his ear stopped, and he let out a sigh of relief.
“Y-yeah? I think I’m the one who should be apologizing, though,” he said, glancing at her hair. It was fantastically blond with soft waves rippling through it. It was only natural she would prize it. He got that. They say a girl’s hair is her life. He’d maybe been a little hasty in suggesting she cut it.
That being said, like this, she risked getting her precious hair dirty walking through town.
“It’s gotta be hard to walk like that,” he said, peering at her tentatively. “Wh-what if… Would you hate having it tied up?”
“Hm-hmm.” Mukuro stroked her hair and shook her head slightly. “…So long as there is no cutting, that would be acceptable. What shall be done?”
“Um. Well,” Shido stammered, then heard Kotori’s voice in his right ear.
“Shido, we’ve got options.”
Three choices were displayed on the main monitor on the bridge of Fraxinus.
1. SHIDO GOES TO A SALON AND ASKS A PROFESSIONAL.
2. SHIDO NEATLY TIES IT UP FOR HER.
3. SHIDO WALKS BEHIND MUKURO, HOLDS HER HAIR UP LIKE THE TRAIN OF A WEDDING DRESS, OCCASIONALLY RUBBING HIS CHEEK AGAINST IT LOVINGLY AND SOMETIMES LICKING IT.