The Pursuer

One day after he sent Toki the totally made-up story line blurb, Itsuki decided to take a breather and run off to a nearby bookstore. He wound up purchasing ten or so things in hopes that they’d provide story inspiration—fashion and music magazines, game magazines, anime magazines, travel guidebooks, and so on. Itsuki tended to buy e-books a lot, since he had long been out of physical shelf space at home, but magazines and guides like these were easier to handle in paper form, since he could just flip through them in search of ideas instead of having to read from page one.

“Hmm…?”

On the way back, taking the long way around to enjoy the weather a bit, Itsuki ran into someone he knew. It was Setsuna Ena—a short kid with dyed hair and a, shall we say, unique sense of fashion. Setsuna worked as an illustrator under the pen name Puriketsu, and he was responsible for the art inside Genesis Sisters of the New World, which had led to them hanging out and traveling together as of late.

Itsuki assumed Setsuna was going somewhere. But he was just standing at a street intersection, looking around and pacing. Must be waiting for someone, he thought as he approached.

“Hey, Setsuna.”

“Oh! Hey there, sir! How’s it going?”

“Um, good! What’re you doing here, though?”

Setsuna’s face became bizarrely stern.

“I’m looking for an ass.”

“…An ass?” asked Itsuki dubiously, struggling to understand the sentence.

Setsuna explained as his head swiveled around to survey the area. “About a month ago, I saw, like, the most amazing ass in the universe! I’m just checking to see if she’s around here.”

“The most amazing in the universe?”

“Yeah, like, the ass of the century… Maybe the ass of the millennium, even!”

“……”

The explanation was not nearly enough.

“Do you have any idea who I’m talking about, sir?”

“Umm… I don’t know what the difference is between asses, really.”

“Ooh, I think you’d be able to tell this one right off. It’s, like, radiant!”

“…Her ass is?”

“It is!”

“She’s not a firefly, is she?”

“Oh, it’s just a metaphor, sir! There’s just, like, this aura that spills out right over her pants! I call that her ‘ass power level’!”

“Her…?”

Setsuna probably meant it to sound like Dragon Ball Z’s “power levels”—some kind of latent magic or occult ability invisible to the human eye. It sounded ridiculous…but if the one saying it was Puriketsu, ass-master for all time, it was instantly plausible.

“If I can get a look at that ass, I feel like I can really level up, myself,” he continued, assuming the serious countenance of a seasoned creative type.

Itsuki hoped he could work with him on something else in the future. If he could help level this illustrator up, it was bound to influence himself in some way.

“Ooh, man, I hope I didn’t scare her off…” Setsuna sighed.

“What?”

“Like, when I saw her the first time, I got so excited, I kinda wound up pulling down her pants. Not her panties, but still.”

“Uh, whether you got her panties down or not, that’s still a crime, you dumbass. I mean, if that happened to me, I’d kinda avoid this neighborhood for a while, too. I’d be amazed if she didn’t call the cops.”

“…Look, I’m sorry,” pleaded Setsuna, casting his eyes downward as Itsuki eyed him coldly. It seemed like honest regret. “If I can see that girl again, though, I definitely want to apologize to her for that. Next time, I’ll ask as nicely as I can and make sure she says yes first.”

Itsuki wondered exactly how realistic this plan was, to have a girl he knew nothing about show him her ass on the sidewalk. But if anyone could actually pull that off, it had to be Puriketsu.

“Hmm… Well, if it’ll help you ‘level up’ or whatever, I’d like to maybe help you search a little, Setsuna. I have no idea what ‘ass power level’ is supposed to mean, though… Can you tell me anything about her besides her ass? Her face or clothes or whatever?”

Setsuna took a moment to think. “Yeahhh… She had a pretty cute face, I think! My mind was so full of her ass that I don’t remember much else, but…”

“Yeah, thanks for the help.”

“She’s probably about my age, I think… Oh, right! She had a tracksuit on!”

“Hmm… So a cute girl in a tracksuit, about sixteen years old…”

That didn’t really narrow things down, but a girl in a tracksuit might be a little less common.

“Wouldn’t that suggest she was coming home from the gym, or from practice for whatever sports team she’s on?”

Setsuna’s eyes opened wide at this. “Oh! Yeah! You’re right!”

“That’s still a pretty wide net…but it beats wandering around the street at random. Why don’t you try the local high schools and gyms and stuff?”

“That’s a good idea! Thanks, sir! I’ll go look right now!”

“S-sure… Nothing illegal this time, okay?”

“Sure thing! See you later, sir!”

Itsuki watched Setsuna dash off, a somewhat tormented look on his face, then walked back toward his apartment.

…Hey, doesn’t Chihiro wear a tracksuit pretty often? his mind reminded him out of the blue. But the thought quickly disappeared. His little brother couldn’t have anything to do with the girl sporting the Ass of the Millennium.