Chapter 11
Silence fell over the club room. Wind blew outside the window, the branches and leaves of the cherry trees swaying gently, casting shifting light and shadow across the wooden floor.
Eriri gripped her pencil tightly.
"You…" Her voice was a little dry. "Do you often… exorcise them?"
"I used to," Genji said. "In the Heian period, there were far more cursed spirits than now, and they were much stronger. There were no barriers back then. People's negative emotions directly turned into cursed energy, feeding all kinds of monsters. After I subjugated Mahoraga at sixteen, I spent about twenty years traveling and exorcising cursed spirits."
He said it simply, as if it were something ordinary—like "I went to the store yesterday." But Eriri could imagine it—a boy in hunting robes with his shikigami, walking across Japan a thousand years ago, fighting invisible monsters.
"What happened then?"
"Then I created a barrier," Genji said. "A cursed energy absorption barrier covering the entire world. It collects the cursed energy unconsciously emitted by ordinary people, preventing them from forming into cursed spirits. After that, the number of cursed spirits dropped sharply. There shouldn't have been any cases of them harming people for many years."
He looked out the window, his gaze a little distant. "I thought the barrier would last longer. But it seems… the pressure on modern people is too great. The population has exploded. Information has exploded. Anxiety and negative emotions have grown exponentially. The barrier's processing power can no longer keep up."
Eriri processed his words. She thought about her own anxiety when rushing to meet manuscript deadlines, the pressure before exams, the sleepless nights—it turned out those emotions could actually give birth to monsters.
"So…" She asked quietly. "You'll still go and exorcise cursed spirits?"
Genji turned his head, looked at her, and suddenly smiled.
"If I see one, I'll deal with it. It's just a flick of the wrist."
Eriri opened her mouth to say something, but didn't know what to say.
Thank you? That sounded too cheesy.
Then please continue? That sounded like she was ordering him around.
In the end, she just turned her head away and muttered, "Yeah, yeah. Whatever. It's not like you have anything better to do anyway."
Genji's smile widened. He didn't tease Eriri for her tsundere attitude, just nodded. "Fair enough."
Silence fell over the club room again. But this time, the silence wasn't oppressive. A thin, wordless understanding flowed between them.
Eriri picked up her pencil again and started drawing seriously. The shock of that moment gradually faded, replaced by a strange sense of calm—knowing that there was a dark side to the world, but also knowing that there were people who could fight that darkness.
Minutes passed.
The sky outside the window gradually turned orange-red. The noise in the club building slowly faded. The music club's practice stopped. The shouts of the sports club grew distant. Only the occasional footsteps of students echoed in the hallway.
Eriri finished a page of sketches and looked at the clock on the wall.
5:20 PM.
Forty minutes had passed since the time Tomoya Aki had agreed to meet.
Her eyebrows furrowed.
"That idiot…" She muttered. "He's late again."
Genji floated over to the window and looked down. "The one you're waiting for still hasn't come?"
"No," Eriri said irritably. "We agreed to meet here at 3:40, but there's not even a sign of him. He's not answering his phone, not replying to LINE—ah, LINE is a modern communication app. You wouldn't know it."
"I do know it," Genji said. "I used something similar in my previous life." He paused. "So… your childhood friend. Is he often like this?"
"Always!" Eriri gritted her teeth. "When he gets excited, he agrees to everything he says, but the moment he turns around, he forgets it all. This time, he probably saw some 'masterpiece' on the way and went to a bookstore or game shop to browse!"
The more she spoke, the angrier she got. Her golden twin tails were practically standing on end. "And he even called Utaha Kasumigaoka! Do you know how valuable that gloomy woman's time is? She's a popular light novel writer with a deadline approaching, and she still made time to come. But that idiot Tomoya actually dared to be late! If Utaha were still here, she would have left ages ago!"
Genji looked at Eriri's flushed face and thought it was a little interesting. This girl usually appeared as the perfect young lady at school, only showing this genuine side in front of people she knew well.
"You care about him?" He asked.
Eriri's face turned red.
"W-Who cares about him?!" She retorted loudly. "I just hate people who are late! And his plan this time is probably some kind of weird fantasy. I didn't even want to come. He's the one who said 'destiny' and 'masterpiece,' so I reluctantly agreed to take a look!"
Before she finished speaking, the club room door burst open with a bang.
Tomoya Aki rushed inside.
He was out of breath. His glasses were crooked. His shirt was misbuttoned again. In his hands, he carried a large pile of miscellaneous items—several books, a few CDs, and a crumpled paper bag. The most ridiculous thing was that he still had a cherry blossom petal stuck in his hair, and no one knew where it had come from.
"Sorry, sorry, sorry!" He apologized repeatedly as soon as he entered, his voice so loud it echoed through the entire room. "I'm late! I'm so sorry! But Eriri, listen to me! I met destiny on the way here! Real destiny!"
Eriri's anger flared up instantly.
She stood up, put her hands on the table, leaned forward, her blue eyes blazing.
"Tomoya Aki!" She said, each syllable squeezed out from between her teeth. "Do you know how long we waited? Forty minutes! Forty minutes! Utaha-senpai got tired of waiting and left ages ago! I sat here and finished an entire page of sketches! And you—"
She took a deep breath and raised her volume another notch. "And you actually tell me you met 'destiny' on the way here?!"
"It's true!" Tomoya wasn't intimidated by her outburst at all. Instead, he became even more excited, his eyes shining behind his glasses. "It was at the Detective Conan event! A girl! In our school uniform, but I've never seen her before! She was standing on the ramp, her long hair blowing in the wind. Her face, her aura—"
He danced around, gesturing wildly, nearly dropping everything in his hands.
"She's the heroine I've been looking for! No, not just the heroine—she's the soul of the entire game! I ran after her to ask her name, but she walked so fast that she disappeared around the corner! I searched the area several times, that's why I'm late! But Eriri, believe me, she really is—"
"I don't believe you!" Eriri cut him off, her cheeks burning with anger. "It's always like this! Last time it was 'I met a girl reading in a bookstore who looked like a heroine.' The time before that it was 'I overheard a conversation at the station that perfectly fits the plot.' And this time it's 'A mysterious girl at a Detective Conan event'! Tomoya, can you be realistic?!"
"This time is different!" Tomoya insisted. "I really saw her! And I have all the inspiration now! The game's title, the theme, even the composition of the key scenes—it's all clear in my head! I'll write it down for you right now!"
He said this while frantically rummaging through his pile of junk, finally pulling out a crumpled piece of A4 paper and slapping it onto the table.
"See! This is the plan!"
Eriri stared at the paper.
It was very wrinkled. It looked like it had been stuffed at the bottom of a school bag and rubbed countless times, the corners folded in. A few lines were written on the paper in black pen, the handwriting almost illegible, with traces of corrections.
She suppressed her anger and leaned in to look.
Line 1: [Goal: Create a masterpiece that will move everyone.]
The corners of Eriri's mouth twitched.
Line 2: [Artist: Eiri Kashiwagi (planned)]
Her eyebrows furrowed.
Line 3: [Writer: Utaha Kasumigaoka (planned)]
Her breathing began to quicken.
Line 4: [Budget: Work a few more part-time jobs after school and try to save up enough money for the game engine.]
Finally, there was a hand-drawn, crooked signature: Tomoya Aki.
Eriri stared at the paper for ten seconds.
Then she slowly raised her head and looked at Tomoya. Her expression was calm. Frighteningly calm.
"...Is this it?"
"Huh?" Tomoya was still caught up in his excitement, completely unaware of the danger.
"You stayed up all night," Eriri's voice was very soft and slow, "and this is what you wrote?"
"Huh? Isn't it great?" Tomoya blinked innocently. "The goal is clear, the staff is ready, and the budget has a solution—"
"What's clear about it?!" Eriri finally exploded. She grabbed the paper and thrust it in front of Tomoya's face. "What kind of goal is 'Create a masterpiece that will move everyone'?! How are you going to achieve it? Who are you going to move? What about the plot? What about the character settings? What about the game genre? The platform? The release plan? There's not a single word about these most basic things!"
With each sentence, she pressed the paper an inch closer to Tomoya's face.
"And this!" She pointed at the words "Eiri Kashiwagi (planned)." "Did I agree to this? Did you just 'plan' me without asking? Do you know that my current schedule is booked through next year? Do you know how many editors are hounding me for manuscripts?!"
"But Eriri, this time it's really—"
"And Utaha-senpai!" Eriri didn't listen to his explanation at all. "Do you know how much her manuscripts cost right now? Do you know how many publishers are bidding for her new work? Why would she come to write a script for you—a high school student who can't even put together a proper plan—with just this piece of scrap paper?!"
She slapped the paper back onto the table. The paper let out a pitiful smack.
"Let me tell you something, Tomoya," Eriri crossed her arms and looked down at the cringing Tomoya Aki. "With this kind of scrap paper that isn't even as good as an elementary school student's essay, you want to drag me and Utaha Kasumigaoka into your little club? Dream on!"
Dead silence filled the club room.
Tomoya opened his mouth, as if to defend himself, but seeing Eriri's expression—"if you dare say one more word, I'll kill you"—he finally shut his mouth.