The Interstice
Asaka Takatou was living with Yogiri in the mountains of a certain prefecture. Since leaving the Institute, they had come across mysterious cults and monsters from urban legends, but that was at least a step up from the world-destroying gods and kings of the world they were dealing with underground.
Currently security around and observation of Yogiri were extremely tight, making sure that nothing out of the ordinary occurred. There didn’t seem to be any threat to the world at the moment, so they had been able to live in relative peace.
“Are you saying I’m fired?” Asaka asked in a dumbfounded voice, sitting in the living room of their house. Across the table from her was her supervisor, Shiraishi.
“More or less. I guess that’s what they’d call a dismissal like this nowadays.” On the table between them was a stack of papers labeled “Advanced Notice of Dismissal.”
“Don’t you think a topic like this deserves a heavier atmosphere?!” Asaka had been totally blindsided. She couldn’t even imagine it actually being possible. She joked like it wasn’t a big deal, but that was only because she wasn’t able to process that it was actually true.
“I considered being a bit more solemn about this, but I figured I’d try to just say it outright.”
“Wait, wait, wait! This is a serious topic! I’m out of a job here!”
“Legally, we have to give you thirty days notice, so that should be plenty of time to find something else.”
“Don’t act like it’s that easy!”
“And it might not be my place to say, but you’ve probably got quite the bank account balance by now, don’t you? You went pretty wild with that first paycheck, but after that you haven’t really spent much.”
“That might be true, but I can’t just bum around without a job because I have money!” In reality, she had been paid an unreasonable sum to take care of Yogiri. If she avoided indulging in extreme luxuries, she could probably live the rest of her life on her savings alone.
“Again, it might be weird coming from me, but did you really see yourself doing this job forever? Luckily, you’re in a position where you can quit in one piece, so I think you’re better off taking the opportunity while you still can.”
“Are you saying there was a chance I wouldn’t be in one piece? Well, I guess that’s obvious. You do run this place like some sort of secret society.”
“For the record, we are technically a government institution, but you’re more or less correct. It’s not normal for someone who’s come into contact with ALOM to be able to quit. To be blunt, we typically deal pretty violently with people who try to quit.”
“Violently?”
“Most Class C employees have bombs implanted in them.”
“Huh? Wait, me too?! You said anyone who’s seen Yogiri is a Class C employee, right?!” On the surface, his claim seemed ridiculous, but employees of the Institute held a mountain’s worth of secrets that they couldn’t risk getting out. Maybe it wasn’t all that unbelievable after all.
“You don’t have to worry about it. You were a special exception, and were never made into a Class C employee, so you don’t have the bomb. Of course, you are still bound to confidentiality, so you’ll be monitored for the rest of your life. It would be quite a problem if you were to tell anyone about what you learned here. But don’t worry, we’ll make sure it’s not obvious that you’re under surveillance.”
“Why am I being fired anyway?” she asked, remembering she hadn’t actually heard the most important part of this conversation. The shock of the notice had made her forget to ask.
“The main reason would be that you’ve completed the objective we hired you for. Though ALOM’s behavior is still abnormal in some sense, he’s solidified his identity as an ordinary Japanese middle school boy. So the work we asked you to do is finished.”
“Well...I guess he is going to school now and has friends and everything, so there isn’t much left for me to teach him.” Yogiri was pretty intelligent, so there wasn’t much left for Asaka to do. He was doing well in all of his subjects in school, so he didn’t need any supplementary lessons from her. At this point, her job was just to take care of his everyday needs. That meant mostly cooking, cleaning, and other household chores, but that wasn’t something only she could do. In short, if he was saying her job was complete, she couldn’t argue.
“The biggest thing is that his power has been successfully sealed away. He won’t be using it indiscriminately or unintentionally anymore.” The major issue with Yogiri coming into contact with society at large was the way in which his powers worked. He himself had agreed that was a problem and had cooperated with the Institute to seal them off.
Of course, no one else could interfere with his power, so it was necessary if they wanted to avoid hiding him away underground. The seal was something Yogiri had put on himself. He could freely remove it at any time, so in reality, things weren’t that different from before, but the fact that he would have to consciously release the seal to use his powers was a big change. With that in place and the persona of an ordinary Japanese person, the issue was mostly resolved. That agreement had been enough to allow him to begin attending school.
“Hmm. But will things be that simple? Maybe it’s not my place to say, but can you really fire me that easily? What will Yogiri—”
“They already talked to me about it.”
Asaka turned at the sound of the voice behind her and saw Yogiri step into the living room, home from school.
“Oh, welcome back. So, what do you mean?”
“I figured this situation is pretty strange for you. I’m sure there are lots of things you want to do with your life. You’re still young, so I thought it wasn’t fair to make you take care of me forever.”
“Well...I can’t say the thought never occurred to me.” She wasn’t necessarily happy about the thought of growing old watching over Yogiri for the rest of her life. But she couldn’t just throw everything away and run. If things went wrong, she could even be considered responsible for bringing about the end of the world.
“I think I’ll be able to manage on my own now, so I think you should get a proper job.”
“Really? Even Yogiri is going to say that to me?” She couldn’t help but feel impressed. She had never imagined he would be so considerate of her situation. “But where do I go from here?” Even if Yogiri was sending her away out of consideration for her, it didn’t change the fact she’d be left unemployed. Memories of her hellish experience hunting for jobs made her want to curl up into a ball and cry.
“We’re not planning on forcing you to leave,” Yogiri said. “We don’t want to cause problems for you, so you’re welcome to stay if you want to. I just thought it was too much to ask you to stay forever. You don’t have to leave right away; you can wait until you’ve found another job.”
“Another job, huh? What is it that I wanted to do, anyway?” Thinking back, she hadn’t really considered anything other than being hired at a major company and figuring it out from there. Perhaps her difficulty in finding a job was that her prospective employers had seen through the shallowness of her thinking.
“Anyway, I’m going out in a bit,” Yogiri said, heading to his room.
“That was a bit curt, don’t you think?” Shiraishi asked, a little taken aback.
“It would be stranger for him to be glued to his family at this age, don’t you think?”
“Is that all it is? Also, I noticed he’s started using ‘ore’ to refer to himself.”
“That’s also an age thing, I bet. I was a bit surprised at first too, but I think that’s pretty normal for middle school. There are some kids who say ‘boku’ forever, but it does sound a bit childish.” Asaka recalled when her male friends had suddenly started referring to themselves by the more mature-sounding “ore.” It seemed the change was a deliberate one.
“That aside, is there any job you could recommend me for?” Asaka asked.
“Are you sure you want to work somewhere that has any connection to us?”
“That’s...a good point. Oh, speaking of which, what should I write about this place on my resume?”
“The Institute is a public organization, so you can feel free to mention us by name. Of course, you’ll have to lie about what you did here.”
“Hmm...that’s going to make things pretty vague. I can’t imagine that will go well in interviews.”
“I’m sure you’ll manage.”
“You really act like it’s not your problem at all.”
“That’s because it isn’t my problem, but I’m confident in your skills. Your ability to adapt to the situation here has been incredible. Normally, no one would be able to remain calm in a mind-boggling situation like this. I think you’ve proven yourself quite well here.”
“I wouldn’t say I dealt with it all that calmly. So, where am I supposed to get work that will only look at how ‘adaptable’ I am?”
“How about a business that trades goods in rougher parts of the world?”
“Even if I could do that well, I’m not sure I’d want to. You’re not really thinking that hard about this, are you?”
“I think I’m giving it rather serious consideration.” Shiraishi wasn’t exactly in tune with the outside world himself, so job advice from him probably wouldn’t be much to count on.
“If I go off to work somewhere else, won’t I get attacked by weirdos again? I’ve been through some ridiculous stuff already.”
“I can’t really say much to that...but most of those events were caused by ΑΩ himself. Once you separate from him, I imagine those kinds of things will stop happening.”
“I’m not so sure about that, though I’d be more than happy if those people from the dark side of the world or whatever decided I have nothing to do with him.” She understood that most of the supernatural experiences she’d had were caused by being around Yogiri, so she wasn’t especially worried about those kinds of things happening anymore. The problem was people and organizations that had an interest in him.
“I don’t think those kinds of people have the time to be messing with you. Any organizations with that kind of influence are kept pretty busy, so I wouldn’t expect them to waste efforts going after someone who’s washed their hands of the whole affair.”
On top of scientific advancements that far exceeded what was known to the public, there were plenty of supernatural powers in the world, from gods and curses to magic and youkai. While those things might have had a faint connection to the surface of society, the vast majority of their dealings were hidden in darkness.
“Are you sure?”
“Quite sure.”
And so, Asaka began looking for work.
◇ ◇ ◇
Yogiri felt like it was possible he could die now. He had sealed away all of his powers, so he could neither see killing intent nor kill anyone anymore. He could remove the seal and use his power again, but otherwise he was like any other middle school boy. That said, he couldn’t be sure his powers were really sealed away. He thought they were, but he didn’t understand his own abilities all that well. He had been born with them and could use them as easily as his arms and legs, but that didn’t mean he really knew how they worked.
He hadn’t told any of that to the people at the Institute, though. He didn’t want them to realize he was vulnerable. If he could still detect killing intent, he could remove his own seals to defend himself. He wanted them to think that. He didn’t know how the Institute had felt about his report, but for now he was able to live peacefully.
“Hey, you’re gonna get hit by a car!”
“Huh?” Yogiri turned to see his classmate, Mari Matsushima.
“The light is flashing.”
Turning to look back at the traffic signal, he saw that the pedestrian light was indeed flashing, but he was still standing in the middle of the intersection.
“Oh, sorry.” Yogiri hurried to the other side of the street. He was so used to living a life where no matter what happened, the other party would die to keep him safe, so his sense of danger to himself was extremely weak.
I need to be a lot more careful, he thought. He was prepared to accept his fate if he was killed in a traffic accident, but that would still have a traumatic impact on the people that hit him. Him dying in a traffic accident wouldn’t be the end of the story.
“You space out a lot, huh?” Mari said.
“I guess so. I don’t think that’s a good thing.”
“I’m not saying it’s bad. Thanks to that, fate was able to bring us together here. Can we go hang out at your place?”
“Why?”
“Why? Because we’re friends!”
“Are we?”
“What? We’ve been through so much together, of course we have a deep bond now!”
Did her memories not get erased properly?
Yogiri had been wrapped up in a bizarre supernatural incident with Mari and another girl, Ichiko Mita. Mari had told them about a ghost named Lady Shirokubi, who appeared if you heard her story, and it had actually happened. Many people had been killed in that incident, so in hopes of sparing them the trauma of having witnessed it, a fox youkai had used her powers to wipe their memories of the incident. But even if she had forgotten the incident, it seemed Mari still remembered having spent that time with him.
“But why my house?” Yogiri asked.
“I was interested in it because it looked like a haunted house, but you live there, so you don’t like people thinking about it that way, right?”
“Yeah, it’s annoying when people dare each other to come to our house.”
“So, if someone goes there and sees for sure that it’s not a haunted house, they can tell people about it and stop the rumors, right?”
“I don’t know about that. But if you really want to come, I guess that’s fine.”
It was no more than an old mansion. There was nothing there that they needed to keep hidden. There was always a chance they’d be visited by some youkai, but if the intruders saw ordinary people there, they would likely be able to tell what was going on and respond accordingly.
“Okay, let’s go!” said Mari.
“Right now? It’s pretty far.”
“You walk to school every day, don’t you? It can’t be that far.”
“Well, if you don’t mind, that’s fine.”
Yogiri started heading home with Mari in tow.
◇ ◇ ◇
“Why is it so far away?!” Mari cried as they made it to the outskirts of the city where Yogiri lived.
“It’s only a little farther.”
“You walk this every day? Are you insane?!”
“Normally, I get a ride part way.”
“So why are you walking today?! Are you trying to scare me off?!”
“No idea. Sometimes they don’t come to pick me up.” The people who drove him around worked for the Institute. It was possible they were avoiding the two of them because they were on guard against Mari.
“Oh! Yogiri, are you heading home now? With a friend?” As they climbed the hill leading to Yogiri’s house, they came across Asaka, riding by on a bike.
“Yeah. You on your way home from an interview? I guess I shouldn’t ask how it went, huh?”
“Your consideration is rather painful, Yogiri.”
“Is this your sister?” Mari asked, confused.
“Nope. I’m not sure how to explain it.” Yogiri realized he had never considered how he’d explain his relationship with Asaka to people outside the Institute.
“Hmm. Maybe something like a live-in tutor?” Asaka offered, climbing off her bike.
“You don’t have to walk with us, you know,” Yogiri said.
“There’s no starting again once I’ve stopped going uphill. I don’t have the stamina for that.” Recently Asaka had been taking her bike to the closest train station, where she would commute into the city for job interviews. “Did no one come to pick you up?”
“Nope.”
“I guess that happens sometimes.” They had never promised they’d come to get him, They typically just showed up on his way to and from school. “So, who’s this?”
“Ah, I’m Mari Matsushima. We’re in the same class. I asked him to show me his house.”
“Oh? Is our place in good enough shape to be having visitors?” Asaka sank into thought. It didn’t seem like their house was in a condition where they could confidently invite guests over anytime. Yogiri hadn’t thought about it that deeply, but maybe this wasn’t a great idea after all. It wasn’t like there was so much garbage lying around that there was nowhere to walk, but it might not have been in a state that was acceptable for inviting people over.
“Maybe I’ll head home first and make sure everything is okay inside, so please wait outside for a bit. Actually, do you smell something?”
“What do you mean?”
“It smells like something’s burning,” Mari observed, after which Yogiri noticed it too. And as they kept walking, the smell grew stronger and stronger. As they made their way off the main road onto the street leading to their house, it was accompanied by billowing smoke.
“Well...I guess we don’t need to worry about whether it’s in good enough shape to have guests over,” Asaka commented.
“The house is on fire, huh?” Yogiri said.
“Huh? You guys are awfully calm about this! Your house is on fire here!” Mari was far more shocked than either of them.
“We deal with a lot of things like this.”
“You do?!”
“Mari, was it? Sorry, but I think you’ll have to head home now. Here, you can borrow my bike.”
“Huh? Uh...okay?”
Asaka pushed her bicycle at Mari. There wasn’t much else Mari could do, so she hopped onto it. The way back was all downhill, so it wouldn’t take her long to get home.
“I might not be able to make it to school tomorrow, Matsushima. Could you tell the teacher for me?”
“U-Uhh, sure?” Not quite sure of what was going on, Mari took off.
“Let me call someone... Hello, Shiraishi? Our house is kind of on fire... Huh? You’re dealing with something too? Another king of the world? You’re under attack? And still dealing with it? What do you mean ‘run away’?! Shouldn’t you be the one calling me, then?! Hello? Hello?!”
“What happened?” Yogiri asked.
“They’re pretty tied up right now, so it looks like they won’t be able to send help for a while. What should we do? Can your power deal with this?” Yogiri could likely use his power to stop the fire. The target was pretty clear, so the only victim would be the house itself.
“I could, but then we’d get an earful from the Institute later.”
“Hmm. I don’t think the Institute is in a spot to care much about your seals, but it’s just a house fire, so we can probably deal with it normally. I’ll call 119 for now.” Asaka pulled out her smartphone and made a call. “No answer. It just keeps ringing. Is that normal? I’ve never called 119 before.”
“Maybe you’re out of cell range?”
“I’m still getting a signal, though.”
As Asaka tried calling a number of times, Mari came speeding back on her bike.
“What’s wrong?” Yogiri asked.
“Something’s happened! Something huge!”
“Something huge?”
“I can’t really explain; just come with me!”
They couldn’t just leave the building to burn, but they were curious about what had Mari so flustered. There wasn’t much they could do about the fire now, so they followed her. Making it back to the main road and following it through the forest back to town, they immediately realized what had shocked her. The sky was red, and the buildings and telephone poles were all black, as if they’d been drenched in ink.
“You’re right, this is pretty big.”
“That’s all you have to say?!” Mari exclaimed.
“Well, this is a problem. I feel like I’ve seen something similar before,” Asaka murmured.
“You mean the time you wandered into that weird world?” Yogiri said. “I think this is different.”
“If this is a different world, can you get us back?”
“I don’t know. I don’t really know what this place is, so it would be pretty hard. For now, I’ll undo my seal.”
“Are you sure?”
“I don’t have a choice. This isn’t normal.” They’d be totally helpless without Yogiri’s power. It wouldn’t be strange for them to be killed, never knowing what was going on.
“Let’s go take a look in town for now.”
“You want to go in there?!” Mari shouted.
“Well, our house is still on fire, and we can’t reach anyone by phone.”
“Ugh...I wanna go home...”
They wouldn’t accomplish anything by standing here and talking, so the three of them decided to head into the city.
◇ ◇ ◇
“Huh, you can see the bath from in here.” Yogiri looked around the room, rather interested.
“Is it okay for us to be here?” Understanding what this place was, Mari was hesitant to step inside.
“Yeah, I don’t know how I feel about bringing middle schoolers here. How did we end up in this situation?” Asaka sat down on the bed, phone in hand. She couldn’t reach anyone she called, most of the contacts in her phone having turned into a garbled mess. Among them was one name that was still clear. Desperate for anything, Asaka had called the number to have one of her old friends pick up on the other end. Her friend had told them to head here, a hotel with flashing neon lights, standing among a crowd of pitch-black buildings.
“Well, I was looking for help, and it’s nice to have a place to rest! But what is going on here?!” Asaka shouted into her phone, still connected to her friend.
“That’s what I want to know. How did you end up in the Interstice?”
“The Interstice?”
“It’s that weird-looking world you’re stuck in. It’s a little offset from ours, in a way related to our world, and in a way not. That’s where people involved with the occult take their battles when they don’t want them to happen in the real world.”
“How do you know so much about it?”
“You know what my family does, right?”
“You run lo— Er, leisure hotels, right?” she corrected herself, though she wasn’t sure if there was a point in front of the kids.
“Actually, we do the same thing in the dark side of the world as well. It’s a pretty gloomy place, right? There’s quite a bit of demand for places like ours there.”
“Okay, that’s fine, but how do we get out?”
“That depends on how you got in, I guess.”
“Can’t you come help us?!”
“No way. I can get in and out using my family’s methods, but I have no idea if that’ll work for you guys. And I don’t want to go there anyway.”
“I guess that makes sense. Sorry. So then, can I ask you to contact someone for me?”
“I should be able to do that much.”
Asaka gave her a message and the contact information for the Institute. They had a working knowledge of the occult there, so they might have been able to do something to help once they knew about the situation.
“Either way, thanks for helping us so fast.”
“I hadn’t heard from you for a while, so I have to say it was pretty funny seeing a call from you coming from the Interstice.”
Her friend had given them a place to stay despite Asaka not explaining their situation, so she couldn’t really complain. After saying thanks again, she hung up.
“I feel like no matter where we hide, if some mysterious organization sent us here, they’ll find us in no time,” Yogiri said.
“According to my friend, this is something like neutral territory. There shouldn’t be any fighting in the hotel itself...but that’s just a gentleman’s agreement, really.”
“Can you contact Shiraishi?”
Shiraishi’s number was still intact in her phone, so after succeeding in contacting her friend, Asaka tried calling him a number of times, but to no avail.
“Doesn’t look like it. I couldn’t quite get what he was saying last time we talked, so it might just be a misunderstanding, but it sounded like there was some sort of underground organization, and a king of the world was fighting them.”
“A king of the world?”
“One showed up at the facility while we were still there. I wonder what happened to him? I’m pretty sure I remember him going to find you, Yogiri...” After rampaging through the facility, he had gone to go look for Yogiri but then disappeared. Yogiri had probably killed him, but it was possible Yogiri wasn’t even aware of that.
“Lots of people have tried to kill me, so he was probably one of those? I don’t remember.”
“There were five of them originally, so with him gone, I suppose there are four now,” Asaka explained. “The five of them had struck some kind of balance, keeping each other in check, so now that one of them is missing, I guess there’s been a bit of upheaval as they work to settle things. I guess that whole thing has reached the Institute now.”
“Does that have anything to do with us?”
“The ninjas were able to fight off the guys that attacked us, but it was basically mutual destruction, so they didn’t have the manpower to deal with the fire afterwards.”
“We have ninjas, huh?”
“Assuming I heard him correctly, of course. Anyway, it seems they attacked the Institute as well, so they’re pretty busy. He told us to run away until things calm down.”
“Uh, what are you two talking about? Is this safe for me to hear?” Mari asked, still in a state of total confusion.
“It’s fine; we can just erase your memory later,” Yogiri replied.
“Seriously?!”
“We’ve done it once already.”
“You’ve been casually erasing my memories?!”
“Speaking of which, where is that fox lady? She seemed reliable in situations like this.” Asaka was speaking about the mysterious woman with fox ears. She was the one who had previously erased Mari’s memories.
“I don’t have any way of contacting her,” Yogiri replied, before boredom led him to turn on the television. The device displayed some incomprehensible images, accompanied by what sounded like Buddhist prayers. Asaka immediately turned off the unnerving show.
◇ ◇ ◇
They spent the next few days in that room. Despite being in this strange world, the hotel had staff and room service. However, since communication with them was proving a bit difficult, they had kept contact to a minimum. Maybe because it called itself a leisure hotel, the room was equipped with a number of things for entertainment, like a karaoke machine and video games.
They had figured once things settled down, they’d be contacted by the Institute, but no matter how long they waited, no word came. With no way to reach the outside world, they had no clue what shape the Institute was in.
Asaka had phoned her friend again to see what she could find out, but it appeared the other woman had also failed to make contact.
“We can’t just stay here forever, can we?” Asaka said as she hung up the phone.
“We’ve missed a few days of school already,” Yogiri replied.
“Even if I get home, I’m gonna look totally suspicious for disappearing for so long and having no memory of it...” Mari added.
Asaka and Yogiri could probably manage fine, but the real problem was that Mari had been caught up in the situation too.
“I’m sure the national whatever will be able to do something about that for you.”
“The national what? For starters, who are you, Takatou?”
“Who knows? I don’t really know that much myself.”
“I was pretty excited at first to find this mysterious world where good and evil do battle, but all we’ve done is stay in this room, sing karaoke, and play video games.”
“I’m pretty bored too. Maybe we should get going,” Yogiri agreed.
“But go where?”
“To the Institute, I guess. We don’t really have any other clues.” The facility that had contained Yogiri had been moved nearby when he had come to this city. There was a similar underground space here, so the organization had continued to contain dangerous creatures there. This strange world seemed to take its form based on the real world, so if they went to the Institute’s facility here, they might find the same buildings.
“We don’t have any other ideas, do we?” Asaka admitted.
The three of them left the hotel behind. The city was dark as always, the neon lights of the hotel the only thing breaking the monotony.
Asaka covered her ears as a sudden roar split the air. It was loud enough to cause the sky to shake along with the blackened buildings around them. Looking towards the source of the noise, she saw an enormous bird flying through the air, its rainbow-colored feathers standing out as it soared through the red and black world. Something was firing from its mouth, reducing the buildings in front of it to dust. It seemed what they were hearing was the side effect of that attack. The enormous bird seemed to be fighting something. They couldn’t see what its opponent was, but the beast was moving around, trying to chase it.
“Shouldn’t we run?!” Mari cried out.
“That thing could probably attack us anywhere we went just by turning a little,” Yogiri answered. “I don’t think running will get us very far.”
“Then what do we do?!”
“If it attacks us, we’ll just have to kill it.” Yogiri had no intention of preemptively killing the bird, but at this rate he wouldn’t have a choice. It was only a matter of time. The bird’s attacks were getting closer and closer.
However, the enormous creature’s assault soon came to an end. A terrifyingly large explosion consumed it, blowing away the blackened buildings and creating an updraft that lifted clouds of dust and debris into the air. An explosion that massive should have created a huge amount of light and sound, but the area around the three of them was more or less untouched.
“Uhh...I’m pretty sure I’ve seen one of those in a textbook before,” Mari said, dumbfounded. “That’s a mushroom cloud.”
“I don’t really know what it is, but I killed the stuff that looked like it was going to hurt us,” Yogiri said offhandedly.
“Oh, is that why I didn’t hear anything?” Asaka asked.
“Yeah, if this is what the fights look like, it’s no wonder they can’t do it in the real world,” Mari said, unexpectedly casual.
“Either way, this place seems dangerous, so let’s get going to the facility. I get the feeling it’ll be better out in the mountains!” Asaka suggested. She had no proof of that, but she couldn’t help but be suspicious of the blackened townscape.
“Yo. Sorry for bringing you here without saying anything.”
As they made to leave the city behind, they found a boy standing on the road. He seemed a bit younger than Yogiri, probably in the lower grades of elementary school.
“Who are you?” Yogiri asked.
“I thought I was pretty famous in this world, but I guess you don’t know me. I’m the king. I just finished dealing with the other pretenders, so I’m the one and only king of this world now,” he said, his voice bright and cheery. The power balance between the five kings made it so that they couldn’t do anything to each other, but it didn’t mean they recognized each other’s authority. They were destined to fight if there was a chance to do so, and Yogiri had created that chance for them.
“I don’t know about any king, but if you brought us here, can you take us back to the real world?”
“Of course; that would be easy. I’m the one who created this world. I can bring anyone here and send anyone back.”
“Then can you do it? I don’t really care why you brought us here, but we can’t stay forever.”
“I don’t want you here forever either. I don’t acknowledge his claims, but there was a guy who called himself a king and one of you might have killed him. I can’t just let that slide, can I?”
“I don’t care about you at all,” Yogiri said. “If you’re not going to get involved with normal society, you can be the king of the dark side of the world all you want. I won’t mess with you. Is that enough?”
“Of course not. If I leave you alive, there will always be that shadow over my throne. I want to be able to proclaim myself king with nothing left hanging.”
“Then that means you want to fight?”
“I don’t think it’ll be much of a fight,” the boy replied. “You’re just going to die.”
“If I die, will you take them back to the real world?”
“I could, but the moment you die, the heat and radiation in this place will kill them instantly. I can’t do anything about that.”
“You know about me, then?”
“Yup. You might think of yourself as something special, but there are plenty of sealed off spaces around the world. There are a lot of people like you. We’ve been studying you, so we have ways of dealing with you.”
“Oh, really?” Yogiri said in a tired voice as the boy fell to the ground.
“You know, maybe you should have thought a bit more before killing him...” Asaka said.
With the boy dead, there might have been no way left to get back home. At least, that’s what she was worried about, but it quickly proved to not be a problem. Color soon returned to the area around them. They had made it back without too much effort at all.
◇ ◇ ◇
They made up a stupid story about Yogiri and Mari being stranded in the wilderness. Of course, all of Mari’s memories of the Interstice had been erased. After a while, they were contacted by the Institute, which had been caught up in the strife between the remaining kings of the world, but it seemed the organization would be able to recover.
In the meantime, Asaka and Yogiri moved to an apartment near his school. If there was a chance of something happening no matter where they lived, they figured it was best to live somewhere convenient for them. That said, it was still too dangerous to have ordinary civilians around, so the Institute had purchased all the rooms in the buildings so that everyone who lived there was now affiliated with them.
After that, Asaka put her job search on hold, deciding to start searching for a husband instead.
“All right, I’m heading out now!”
“Another party today?” Yogiri asked over the breakfast table, looking a little confused.
“Today is something like a class reunion.”
“What’s happened to you all of a sudden, Asaka?”
“I’ve been thinking, you know. Maybe it’s a bad idea to leave you on your own.” Yogiri had made considerable progress towards becoming an ordinary middle school student. But the fact that he had been able to kill an enemy who looked like an elementary school student without the slightest hint of hesitation was a bit of a concern. “I thought I’d adopt you, then you won’t have to worry about me anymore.”
“What? You’re going to become my mom?”
“Yes. So now I need to find you a father!”
“You’re not just trying to become a housewife so you don’t have to find a job, are you?”
It wasn’t impossible for someone to adopt a child while single, but it wasn’t particularly normal either. That’s why she was looking to get married. Yogiri’s guess wasn’t entirely wrong, but that wasn’t the main reason for what she was doing—or so she tried to convince herself.
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