Chapter 3: Monika and Her Merry Band

After spending some time with Yuichi and the others on the roof, Kanako declined lunch with them, then went straight home.

“I’m back,” Kanako said as she opened the door, but there was no one there to greet her.

Technically, she lived with her father, but her father was always busy with work and almost never at home. In practice, she basically lived alone.

Kanako’s mother had left home when Kanako was in middle school; an amicable divorce.

The world had assumed the cause had been her father, for neglecting his family life in favor of work.

That was around the time Kanako had started thinking about killing herself. After meeting Mutsuko, though, she’d become unable to go through with it.

Today, Kanako had gone to the roof to test Mutsuko’s curse. As strange as it might seem, the purpose of it was to give her courage. If she couldn’t kill herself, she had no choice but to do her best.

She entered her room, changed, and laid down for a little while.

She had been thinking all this time about what she had seen from the roof.

If that was Zalegrande Castle, then perhaps she had come upon something that would take her to an isekai. That would be a wonderful thing. The problem was that it was the castle that was part of her story.

It wasn’t the Zalegrande Castle she had seen in her youth, and still saw in her dreams. The original Zalegrande Castle was beautiful, but much more simple. When she had decided to set her story there, Kanako had added more towers and such, and the castle she had seen today had those. The tall black and white towers were especially conspicuous.

Yuichi hadn’t seemed to have seen it, but Aiko had, which meant that it wasn’t a hallucination.

As her mind tumbled over the meaning of that upside-down castle and the falling armor, Kanako grew restless, and eventually sat up. She didn’t have time to be distracted by such ambiguous matters.

She went to the kitchen and ate the leftovers of the impromptu stir-fry she had made the night before, returned to her room, took a seat at her desk, and booted up her laptop.

Her novel had been published just a few days ago, and now she had to write the second volume. It was a grueling schedule, with no time to rest.

Kanako plunged into the task. She knew where the plot was going, so now all she had to do was write, write, write.

As her fingers quietly danced over the keys, the sound of her ringing cell phone brought her back to herself.

She answered it swiftly. It was her supervising editor.

“Sorry to disturb you so late at night,” the editor said. “Could I have a minute of your time?”

Was it really that late? Kanako wondered. She checked the time, and found that at some point, it had gotten past midnight.

“Yes, what is it?” she asked. “I’ve finished half of the second volume of Demon Lord, so the deadline shouldn’t be a problem...” Thinking it was a motivation call, Kanako decided to nip it in the bud. She didn’t need him nagging her over something that was already dealt with.

“Um, I’m sorry to say this, but the second volume has been delayed,” he said uncomfortably.

The words struck her dumb. She felt herself plunging backwards into an abyss.

“Hello? Hello?” The voice called again, sounding terribly far away.

The realities of publishing were harsh nowadays. If the sales weren’t good enough, your line could be canceled with the wave of a hand. She knew that, and she had feared it, but she had thought she had been able to avoid it.

“Um... but you said it was selling rather well, didn’t you?” she asked faintly. “You okayed the second volume’s plot, and I’ve been working on the manuscript...”

She barely managed to wring the words out of her throat, but she could hear her voice trembling. She had been told that volume 1 was doing well. They had told her to construct it as a series because they intended to keep publishing them.

“Um, well, I didn’t say it was canceled,” the editor said. “Just that it was delayed...”

“But that’s how these things work, isn’t it?” she burst out. “You see it all the time! They won’t say clearly that the book is over, they just stop putting them out...” She had lost control of her tone. The next thing she knew, tears were streaming down her cheeks. She only now realized how much she had invested in that story.

“It’s okay,” the editor said quickly. “It will be published, I guarantee. We just want you to write another story. You submitted a few plotlines, didn’t you? We were thinking of putting one of those out, first.”

That calmed Kanako down a little bit. “...Understood. Do you want the one where the hero is split into seven people?”

“What? Did you have a plot that challenging? No, I meant the one where the school gets sucked into an isekai...”

“Um... does it have to be that one?” She didn’t have much confidence in that plot. They had asked her to submit every plot she had in mind, but she had never actually planned to write that one.

“Yes, that’s what the president wants. We like the basic plot of it, but we think it’s lacking something. Could you make the protagonist stronger? One of those ‘strongest in the world’ types, maybe add some ‘god mode’ elements? Those are very popular lately. It might be hard to sell without it.”

“Yes, um... okay. I’ll think about it...” Kanako mumbled. A school story. A god-mode protagonist story. Both were fields Kanako was weak in, but she couldn’t turn down the job.

“We’d like to publish it in November in place of Demon Lord, so please start right away,” the editor said.

“...It’s the beginning of September right now, isn’t it?” Kanako was starting to feel slightly dizzy. She would have to write an entire book based on something she had only a rough plot outline for. In practice, considering everything else on her schedule, she would have less than a month to do it in.

“We’re still in startup mode, so we need to guarantee a certain number of titles,” the editor explained. “I know it’s asking a lot, but we hope you’ll find a way to make it happen.”

The conversation was over, but all Kanako could do was grip her phone and stare into space.

“What am I going to do...?”

A school story, about students.

Kanako didn’t know much about either.

✽✽✽✽✽

It was the second day of the second term.

For once, Yuichi was walking to school with Mutsuko.

“Hey, Yu, when was the last time we walked to school together?” Mutsuko seemed to be in even more high spirits than usual.

“Before I was in high school, at least,” he said. The thought of walking to school with his older sister embarrassed him. But at the same time, seeing Mutsuko so openly happy about it made Yuichi wonder if he was being too stubborn.

“I bet you’re all, ‘If we walked to school together, all our friends would spread rumors about us! It’s embarrassing!’” Mutsuko said the line — Yuichi was sure he had heard it somewhere before — with gusto.

“No, but what kind of guy in high school wants to walk to school with his big sister every day?” he asked.

“Are you saying there’s something embarrassing about siblings walking to school together?” Mutsuko put a hand to her chest with exaggerated indignation.

“It’s less that we’re siblings and more that you’re embarrassing!” he shot back.

As usual, Mutsuko’s theatrics — giving no consideration to what anyone around her thought — had made her the center of attention. It was hard to ignore someone overreacting to everything at peak volume.

Just as he was starting to regret his decision to walk to school with her after all, Aiko joined them. “Morning!”

Nero was beside her, in his dog form, just as he had been yesterday. Nero had decided to serve as her bodyguard until she got to school. Aiko had awakened as a vampire, if still incompletely, which meant that the denizens of the world of darkness now had their eyes on her. Yuichi didn’t know the full story, but he had heard that some people might try to kill her.

“Noro! You said you saw something weird in the sky? What about now?” Mutsuko asked eagerly, broaching the subject the moment she arrived.

Aiko looked up at the sky above the school. “I... guess I can’t see it now. It was the same way yesterday, though. After I left the school grounds and turned back, I couldn’t see it anymore.”

“Well, we’d better get up to the roof and have a look!” Mutsuko declared. “Let’s all meet up there during lunch break! Oh, and while we’re up there, maybe we can have lunch around the armor?”

“What kind of plan is that?” Yuichi asked. “Besides, wouldn’t other people go up to the roof during lunch? The fallen armor might cause a big commotion...”

But there was a commotion already in progress.

As Yuichi reached the school gate, the first thing he saw within was a large crowd of students, looking up at the sky and talking to each other. Getting a bad feeling in his gut, Yuichi swiftly passed through the gate.

“There! There’s something hovering!”

“What? Are you sure you’re not crazy?”

“What? Am I crazy, too, then? There’s obviously something there!”

“I don’t understand a single thing you guys are talking about!”

The atmosphere felt a little bit dangerous. Yuichi looked up at the sky like the rest of them, but he couldn’t see anything.

“Ah... I actually can see it...” Aiko arrived next to him, and looked up at the sky.

“That’s amazing!” Mutsuko cried. “What is it? An upside-down castle? I see castle walls, but there doesn’t seem to be much emphasis on defense... hmm, can’t identify the architectural style, but I guess it’s less of a castle and more of a palace, huh? A style-over-substance thing?”

“Huh? ...Sis, you can see it?” Yuichi asked.

“Huh?! I don’t believe it! Yu, you can’t see it?” Mutsuko said with a theatrically teasing tone.

“Dammit! I feel so left out...”

It didn’t seem like everyone could see it, which meant the students gathered around the gate were divided into those who could and those who couldn’t. It seemed like there were more students who couldn’t see it, but enough of them could that it couldn’t be dismissed as lying, or a figment of their imagination.

“I wonder what’s going on here...” Yuichi strained his eyes as he looked up into the sky above the school, but nothing had changed. He still couldn’t see anything.

Having a castle floating in the sky was definitely a bizarre situation, but that was all it was. It didn’t seem to be affecting the students on the ground in any way.

Of course, none of the students were so obsessed with the bizarre castle that they were willing to be late to class, so the chaos rectified itself naturally.

It was quite the subject of conversation inside the school, too, but since there was no proof, no amount of discussion could resolve it. Those who could see the castle eventually began giving up on trying to convince the others that it was there.

“Sakaki, didn’t you promise to come by my restaurant?” Tomomi was waiting in front of the classroom with a smile on her face. Thinking it wasn’t a subject to be discussed in the classroom, Yuichi led Aiko and Tomomi to a landing on one of the less popular stairwells.

“I forgot. Sorry.” Yuichi hadn’t given much thought to Tomomi’s one-sided promise. He had gone home with Aiko and eaten at a different restaurant instead.

“Wow, you are so good at making it feel like it’s the end of the conversation. Truly amazing, Sakaki...” Tomomi had been angry, but Yuichi’s attitude had taken all the fight out of her, it seemed.

“I guess it’s why he’s so shameless about it...” Aiko said.

It upset Yuichi slightly to hear even Aiko say that.

“Well, if you forgot, you forgot,” said Tomomi. “But could you seriously come by after club today? I want to hear the rest of the story.”’

“Okay.” Yuichi nodded after she pressured him. At any rate, it probably would be good for them to talk about it. She might know something that would be useful to him.

Lunchtime arrived.

With lunchbox in hand, Yuichi and the others — Mutsuko, Aiko, and Natsuki — headed for the roof.

Once they arrived, Yuichi immediately took stock of the situation. The armor that had fallen there yesterday was gone, and the other students on the roof showed no signs of panic at all.

“It’s gone,” said Aiko.

“Yeah, gone,” Yuichi responded lightly, then went to check the spot the armor had fallen the day before. There was quite a bit of damage to the floor, but that was no infallible proof that something had fallen there.

“It’s not here! You said it fell here?” Mutsuko’s disappointment was plain to see, which made Yuichi feel slightly guilty, even though he hadn’t actually done anything wrong.

“It did, but... hey Noro,” Yuichi said. “Is there still a castle in the air?”

“Yeah... huh? It feels like it’s gotten bigger... is it descending?” Aiko said in confusion as she looked up at the sky.

“Do you see anything, Takeuchi?” Yuichi asked.

“Nothing,” said Natsuki, looking up at the sky, too.

“What could it mean? Did someone carry the armor away?” Yuichi wondered.

According to Kanako, the armor was quite heavy; about 30 kg. It should have caused quite a commotion if someone had found it lying there.

“I see,” Mutsuko began. “The lack of commotion indicates that someone quietly carried it off before it was discovered by the student body. That would be the logical thought. But!” She raised a finger, her expression that of someone about to raise a brilliant counterpoint. “Consider this: what if the armor stood up on its own, and walked away in the middle of the night?!”

“That made perfect sense, right up until the ‘but’!” Yuichi exclaimed. If that counted as a legitimate hypothesis, then nothing was off limits.

“Um, but we can’t say for sure that that didn’t happen...” Aiko murmured. She must not have found anything odd about the idea of armor walking off on its own.

“Maybe there was a commotion in the morning, and it was carried to the lost and found?” Natsuki pointed out, cool-headedly.

Given the fuss about the flying castle that morning, it was possible that the commotion over the armor had just been overshadowed by that. If so, they could find out more by going to the teachers’ office... but “Did you find some armor on the roof?” would be a difficult question to ask.

“Maybe the owner came out of the sky and picked it up?” Aiko offered, sounding like she was trying to propose anything that came to mind.

“It’s more logical than claiming the armor just walked off somewhere...” Yuichi was starting to get a vaguely uneasy feeling about all of this.

After class, they headed for their club room.

They entered the old school building and walked up the creaking wooden stairs to the second floor. At the far end of the corridor was the survival club’s meeting room.

The old school building was used for the liberal arts clubs, but Yuichi didn’t know anything about the other clubs that met there. All he knew was that the newspaper club’s room was next door to theirs.

As usual, the room was filled with random clutter. Kanako was sitting at the long table, resting her head upon it. Her gaze was distant, which wasn’t unusual, but there was something especially listless in it today.

“Orihara, you didn’t come here with Sis?” Yuichi asked.

Kanako sat up as she realized Yuichi was there. “It seems the elder Sakaki is helping a friend with a lesson. She said that she’d come soon, though.”

“...Does my sister have friends at school?” The idea was a mild shock to Yuichi. He knew that Mutsuko had weird friends, but he couldn’t imagine she got along well with the regular people at school.

“What a rude thing to say,” Kanako said teasingly. “I’m one of her friends, you know.”

Kanako technically was a bit weird, but Yuichi wasn’t going to say that out loud.

“Sakaki the Younger, what are you doing here by yourself?” Kanako asked. “Where are Noro and Takeuchi?”

“They’re on cleaning duty today, so I came by early. Is something the matter, Orihara?” Yuichi added as he sat down across from her.

Kanako had always had a nonchalant air about her, and it was hard to know what she was thinking — in a different way from Natsuki’s poker face — but something about her seemed different today.

“I suppose I have something on my mind.” Kanako gave him a gloomy smile.

Yuichi changed the subject. “By the way, the armor that was on the roof yesterday is gone. I wonder what was up with that... It seemed like you knew what kind of armor it was, right?”

“It was heavy armor, the type worn by cavalry,” said Kanako. “It covered the head to the knees, which let a horseman ride a horse and fire a gun. No matter how tough they made the armor, though, advances in firearms always superseded it, so they eventually abandoned it altogether.”

Yuichi thought back. Now that she’d mentioned it, there had been no armor below the knee. So that was the full set, just as it was.

“Um, why did you want to go to the roof, Orihara?” he asked. Maybe it was rude to ask that again, after she had already refused to answer once, but Yuichi was really curious.

“I was wondering if I could kill myself now,” she said.

Yuichi froze. Was she serious?

Kanako giggled. “I knew you would be surprised. Your sister would say ‘that’s boring’ right away.”

“Um, can I ask why you would want to do that?” Yuichi ventured.

“It’s very simple,” said Kanako. “My story got an awful review on the internet. It made me want to kill myself.”

“...That’s pretty drastic...” He didn’t know what criticism she was receiving, exactly, but it made Yuichi worry about her mental state.

“But once I was up on the roof, I couldn’t find the courage to kill myself, so that just confirmed it,” she said. “It means I’ll have to keep soldiering on.”

Yuichi wasn’t sure how to respond to that. It was a problem beyond what a high school freshman could handle.

After a short pause, Kanako spoke up again, timidly. “Hey... may I ask you for a favor, Sakaki the Younger?”

“The roof again?” he asked. This was how she had asked him the last time.

“No. I was wondering if you’d go into town with me, to help me with my research.”

“Sure, but your story is fantasy, isn’t it?” he asked. “What research would you be doing in town?”

“Well... actually, they’ve delayed the second volume of Demon Lord...”

That explained why she was acting so strangely. “You mean, um, it was canceled?” That was another question that was hard to ask.

“They wouldn’t give me a clear reason... but they asked if I would write a story with a different plot. A school story and a god-mode protagonist story. So I wanted to do some research out in town. I don’t go walking around town very often, so I don’t know where it is that normal high school students like to go.”

“Sure... but shouldn’t you go with your boyfriend or something?” Yuichi asked. Kanako was so pretty, Yuichi naturally assumed she had a boyfriend.

“Um... I don’t have a boyfriend,” Kanako answered, seeming surprised by the suggestion.

“Huh? Really? You seem like the type of girl who’d have guys beating down her door...”

“It’s just that... I don’t have any confidence that I could love my children,” she said.

“That’s quite a leap!” Yuichi couldn’t figure out how she had gone as far as children in an instant.

“Oh? I mean, I think that dating is a lead-up to marriage, which would naturally lead to children...”

Yuichi was at a loss for how to respond. Now that she’d explained it, he sort of understood, but most people weren’t thinking that far ahead when it came to something as simple as dating.

“Um, if we’re just walking around town, that’s okay, I think,” he said at last. Instead of pursuing that any further, he decided to bring them back to the original subject. He didn’t mind indulging his senior in club by hanging around with her in town for a little while.

“Really? Would this Sunday be all right?” Kanako clapped her hands together, sounding genuinely pleased. It was as if the weighty subjects from before had never even been broached.

“Sure. Where in town do you want to go?”

They decided to go to the shopping district close to the school, and that they’d meet up in the station around noon.

“By the way, you mentioned a ‘god-mode protagonist’ story earlier. Is that really your style?” Yuichi asked.

The other club members hadn’t arrived yet, so Yuichi decided to inquire about a subject he’d been curious about in the previous conversation. Although she liked fantasy, Yuichi had assumed from her appearance that she liked more peaceful stories.

“Well, my editor said it’s what’s popular right now, so I should put one in,” said Kanako. “It’s a bit of a problem for me... um, it’s not that I don’t like fighting, or anything like that...”

“Well, I know that much...” She was so knowledgeable about Warring States Period and armor, after all.

Realizing that if the conversation continued they’d end up talking about Kanako’s novel, Yuichi was just wondering how to proceed when the door suddenly opened with a bang.

“Leave the god-mode stories to me!” Mutsuko announced, barging in.

“That was sudden!” Yuichi exclaimed. “How did you know we were talking about that?”

“I’m always monitoring this room! And not just the club room! I have ears in all the major school facilities!” she declared.

“Oh, yeah... you mentioned that once...”

When Aiko’s brother Kyoya had taken over the school, Mutsuko had mentioned that she had the whole school wired. It was clearly a crime, but Mutsuko had a tenuous relationship with the law to start with, so he knew that it would be pointless to try to object.

“Now! What would you like to know about god-mode stories?!” Mutsuko took her usual spot in front of the whiteboard, addressing the room with unnecessary theatricality.

“Um... nothing,” Kanako said.

“Why not? You were just talking about it with Orihara, you flirt!”

“I’m not a flirt!”

“Liar! She mentioned something about having children, and things were clearly about to get hot and heavy here in the club room! Of course, it was with Orihara, so I’ll forgive you this time, but...”

“We were not talking about that! I think your bugs need some maintenance!” Yuichi exclaimed.

“W-Well never mind!” Mutsuko stuttered, then came back with renewed force, perhaps to cover her embarrassment. “Anyway! As someone with a lot of opinions about god-mode stories, I also have extensive thoughts about the current state of what are considered god-mode stories!”

“Yeah, didn’t you call yourself a god-mode purist once?” Yuichi asked. He had heard that Mutsuko was the type of person who liked her protagonists to be invincible, but he couldn’t imagine what else that entailed. Not that he actually wanted to know.

“Yes! They say that light novels nowadays don’t sell unless they’ve got god-mode elements, and I also hear a lot of authors complaining about that! But then none of the stories actually see the god-mode through, so I’ve gotta wonder, what are they talking about?!”

“Really? I’ve heard that’s all you get these days,” Yuichi said.

“Not at all!” Mutsuko exclaimed. “Even if they start in god-mode, they never commit all the way to the end! They introduce a rival on the main character’s level, or a final boss who’s stronger, or they give him a moral dilemma, or some kind of challenge! And even if they don’t, they’ll still have them be dominated by a violent love interest, or something else to try to keep it balanced!”

“Well, yeah... if the protagonist just dominates everything the whole way through, there’s no tension, is there?” he asked. Any enemy who appeared would just be instantly vanquished. A perfect protagonist who solved all his problems in seconds, without anything to worry over... wouldn’t it just get monotonous?

“Yes! That’s what the writers think! However! That’s not what I’m after! I want them to be god-mode from beginning to end! And this is not a minority opinion!”

“That’s true,” Kanako admitted. “I agree that most writers want their stories to be full of ups and downs. I tried thinking up a god-mode protagonist story when you recommended it, but there wasn’t anywhere to go from there. It ended up being an ensemble story where it was the Demon Lord Army the protagonist was associated with that was the strongest in the world.”

“A god-mode group story, right?” Mutsuko asked. “But that’s fleeing from the god-mode concept, in its own way! God-mode should be about a lone protagonist! Those teacher stories that are getting popular lately are another form of running away from the concept! Those don’t count as god-mode either!”

“What are you even talking about?!” Yuichi burst out. He hated how she treated these things like common sense, but Mutsuko was always like this, so Yuichi gave up. He’d just let her finish her rant.

“They’re stories about a god-mode protagonist teaching a bunch of dunces!” Mutsuko declared. “A hybrid, where the protagonist can be strongest, with the character development given to the dunces, like a camphor to the god-mode monotony! And making the protagonist a teacher makes it okay for him to have a superiority complex and be condescending!”

“You just wanted to say ‘camphor,’ I think...” Yuichi muttered. He had a feeling she was not using that word correctly.

“But I think that’s a cop out! A truly god-mode protagonist wouldn’t do something as boring as training others, he’d take care of everything himself! If he can take care of everything himself, why would he spend all his time training dunces? And if he can’t take care of everything himself, he’s not really god-mode! That’s what I think!” Mutsuko struck the whiteboard with a bang.

“That doesn’t leave much to work with...” Yuichi sighed, just as the door opened and Aiko and Natsuki arrived.

“Oh, everyone’s here!” Mutsuko exclaimed. “Then let’s hold today’s meeting about god-mode protagonists! Let’s start with the element that you must never include in a god-mode story, the ‘runs while crying’ scene! This is nothing but a betrayal of readers’ expectations!”

“Um?” Aiko was clearly confused by the subject as she took her seat.

Once club was over, Yuichi led Aiko and Natsuki to the back gate of the school.

Most people didn’t go out the back, so at the moment, they were the only ones there. That made Monika, in her elementary school uniform, stand out all the more as they saw her waiting just outside the gate.

“Hello, Big Br—” Monika was waving, but whatever she was about to say was cut off as a pale hand reached out from behind the gate, grabbed her, and dragged her off.

“Huh?” Aiko asked, stunned.

“Oh, no need to worry.” Yuichi kept walking, leaving the school grounds. Behind the gate, they found Yoriko and Monika. The former had balled her hands into fists, and was grinding them against the latter’s temples in a way that looked extremely painful.

Sitting nearby was Nero, in his dog form, minding his own business.

“I suppose you didn’t panic because you recognized your little sister, but it’s a bit creepy that you can identify her by only her arm at that distance,” said Natsuki, walking beside Yuichi. She evaluated him with her usual cool gaze. It wasn’t any different from how she usual did it, but he felt a slight sense of rebuke in her words this time.

“Takeuchi... was that analysis a little malicious?” Yuichi asked.

He could identify not just Yoriko, but Mutsuko, Aiko, and Natsuki that way. But he restrained from commenting on that. It would just be kicking a hornet’s nest.

“Even if you are a creepy siscon, I still accept you,” Natsuki said. “Don’t worry.”

“I wasn’t worried, and I’m not a siscon!” Yuichi snarled.

“It’s worst when they don’t even realize it,” Natsuki said. “But it’s all right. Even if society finds out about your shameful fetishes and ostracizes you, I will not abandon you.” She almost made it sound like she wanted that to be the case.

“Um, Yoriko, what are you doing?” Aiko asked in concern as she arrived, a few steps after.

“For her to casually call my brother ‘big brother’ just because she is in elementary school is, in my eyes, a tremendous crime,” Yoriko said viciously. “Thus, I was punishing her. As my brother’s true little sister, the right to refer to him as ‘big brother’ belongs solely to me. In light of the fact that I was nearly stripped of that right, I hope you will understand that this is a very mild punishment. Naturally, I know that she is very familiar with him, and I have complicated feelings about her referring to him by his first name, but if my brother has chosen to allow that, then I will not complain. However, intentionally referring to my brother as ‘big brother’ was a clear attempt to undermine me, personally, so I will not deny that my actions also contain a measure of revenge.”

Yoriko continued applying the painful hold as she spoke. The middle knuckle of each fist was extended just a little bit as she ground Monika’s temples with them.

“I’m sure she won’t do it again, so please, let her go,” Aiko said with a wince.

“I’m not stopping because you asked me to, but I do think I’ve done enough. I don’t wish to displease my brother by going too far.” Yoriko abruptly pulled her hands apart, and Monika slumped to the ground.

“H-Hey! You can’t do that to a little kid!” Monika immediately stood up again and forcefully complained at her.

“Huh? I thought you just looked like a kid. You’re actually the same age as my brother, aren’t you? And my elder, as well.” There was no respect in her words; Yoriko just seemed to be mocking her.

“That doesn’t matter!” the girl shouted. “Once everything’s resolved, I’ll be starting over from elementary school! My mind and body are both trapped this way!”

“Tee hee. What kind of niche are you trying to fill?” Yoriko theatrically put a hand to her mouth as she laughed.

“Oh, jeez! You really get on my nerves!” Monika exclaimed.

“I said we were meeting at the restaurant, right?” Yuichi asked. “What are you doing here?”

“I caught sight of Yoriko and decided to tease her, and it ended up like this!” Monika started angrily, but perhaps realizing it had been her own fault, she calmed down immediately. “Anyway, are you sure this restaurant is okay? I don’t want to be attacked again, so I want some place without too many people.” This time it was Monika who had asked for the meeting, but she had let Yuichi choose the place.

“I have no guarantee we won’t be attacked, but there definitely won’t be many people there,” Yuichi said, knowing Tomomi would yell at him if she heard him say that.

The group headed for the nearby Chinese restaurant, Nihao the China.

As usual, the restaurant’s interior had a slightly grimy air about it; Tomomi insisted they cleaned it properly, but Yuichi had his doubts. The floor was slippery, like it was slick with oil, and the condiment holders on the table were dirty with dripped seasonings.

For once, the shop already had a customer when they showed up, but it was a familiar face.

“Hey! Been a while, huh?” The boy sitting at the round table stood up. He had blond hair, blue eyes, and foreign-looking features. His name was Kyoshiro Ibaraki. He was a type of oni, as indicated by the label above his head: “Ibaraki-doji.”

Apparently his ancestors had come to Japan from somewhere else, which was why he looked Western, but he insisted that he himself was Japanese.

“What are you doing here?” Yuichi asked, not bothering to hide his disappointment at seeing him.

“I’m taking care of Monika, so it’s my business, right? Why didn’t you call me?” Ibaraki accused.

“But I did call you. Didn’t you get all the vibes I was sending?” Yuichi said in as dry a tone as possible.

“What, are you psychic now?” Ibaraki demanded. “You know there’s this modern invention called a cell phone, right?”

“I don’t have your number.”

“Then let’s exchange numbers!” Seeming excited about the prospect, Ibaraki pulled his phone out of his pocket.

“Nah, takes too long,” said Yuichi. “If I need to get in touch with you, I’ll use a messenger spirit or something.”

“That would take even longer! Can you even use those?”

“I’ll start studying now,” Yuichi said.

“You’re not gonna try to contact me at all!” Ibaraki cried. “Anyway, Monika, you’re the one who called the meeting, right? Why’d you leave me out, huh?”

Monika was currently holed up in the oni village. The attack on the cafe had made it clear that there were people after Monika, so Yuichi had had no choice but to leave her in Ibaraki’s care.

Which meant that even if Yuichi didn’t contact him, Ibaraki had clearly assumed that Monika would bring him along.

“Huh? I didn’t think it was any of your business,” Monika said with a dumbfounded expression. It was an awful thing to say to the person looking after you.

That being the case, Ibaraki must have learned about the restaurant from overhearing Monika talking on the phone.

“I thought this might happen. That’s why I was sending you all those vibes...” Yuichi said, consolingly. He actually felt a little bad for him.

“You think I’m gonna thank you for that?!” Ibaraki shouted. Not even he was that desperate for kindness.

“Anyway, quit hanging around in the entrance. You’re blocking the other customers!” announced a stern-looking waitress in a cheongsam, Tomomi Hamasaki.

“But we chose this restaurant because there would be no other customers,” Yuichi said.

At Tomomi’s urging, the group took seats at the round table Ibaraki had staked out. Clockwise from Yuichi, the seating was Aiko, Natsuki, Ibaraki, Monika, and Yoriko. There were no other customers, as usual.

The second Monika and Yoriko sat down, there was a scramble over the menus.

“Monika and Yori seem pretty close, huh?” Yuichi commented.

“Hmm, I’m not sure about that. I suppose they get along well enough, though,” Aiko said with a slightly pained smile.

“Wow, six whole customers!” Tomomi stopped by with a bright smile and a tray of water glasses.

“I know you said something about customers coming, but do you think you could close up?” Yuichi asked. He didn’t want anyone else to overhear what they were talking about.

Tomomi made a big show of thinking about the matter. “That’s an awfully big thing to ask on the spur of the moment, but... six actual customers weighed against our potential customers... sure, okay.”

Tomomi took each of their orders and was on her way to the kitchen when Monika stood up.

“Okay, the Monika Army for the Divine Vessels War is hereby assembled!” Monika looked to each person around the table in turn.

There were six people there: the serial killer, Natsuki; the oni, Ibaraki; the vampire, Aiko; the Outer, Monika; the ordinary middle school student, Yoriko; and the high school student, Yuichi.

The werewolf Nero, who could be considered part of Aiko’s forces, was also waiting outside.

“This balance is terrible! What kind of party is this?” Monika erupted as she took stock of the “army” in front of her.

“How should I know?” Yuichi said with a sigh. “And you’re the one who picked them out...” It seemed a little late to start complaining, in his opinion.

“The only useful ones here are the oni and the serial killer!” Monika protested. “What use is a normal middle school student going to be?”

“I contribute more than you do, Monika,” Yoriko muttered in annoyance.

“I think Nero would be useful,” Aiko said, tacitly admitting that she herself would not be.

“Anyway, we all know Yuichi’ll win any fights they throw at us, right?” Ibaraki added.

He spoke with the weight of authority, having lost to Yuichi once before. Natsuki nodded in agreement.

“W-Well, never mind!” Monika said. “Anyway, we need to decide our strategy from here on out!”

“Hey, hey! Stop this right now!” Tomomi, having brought the food, struck the table to interrupt.

“Hamasaki, what kind of a waitress are you?” Yuichi stared, appalled by her lack of professionalism.

“How can you talk about this without me here?” Tomomi demanded. “Weren’t you going to tell me what happened on your summer vacation?”

“Who is this?” Monika asked, baffled. She had apparently thought Tomomi was no more than staff.

“Her name is Tomomi Hamasaki,” said Yuichi. “She knows a lot about a lot of things. She’s the one who told me about that worldview stuff, so it’s possible she could be useful for this, too.”

“Okay,” Monika said. “If Yuichi trusts you, that’s enough for me. But if you hear what I have to say, it means you’re on our side. Is that okay?”

“I don’t mind joining you, as an individual,” said Tomomi. “But as part of Nihao the China, I have to stay neutral. Is that good enough?”

“How is that different?” Yuichi asked.

“Well, I guess it means, don’t count on my dad’s help.”

“We weren’t planning on it,” Yuichi said. Tomomi was already sticking her neck in in a way Yuichi hadn’t asked for. He had no desire to grow the team any further. It was too large already, in his opinion.

“Anyway, tell me what happened after the truck crashed into the restaurant.” Tomomi leaned over the table, bubbling with curiosity. “Something else must have happened to get you all gathered here, right?”

Just to get the whole story straight, Yuichi decided, maybe he should just tell everyone the whole story.

He picked up after the event at the cafe.