By all logic, it should have been a pleasantly cool summer night. But tonight was a little different. Because someone else had also been woken by hunger.
Mei was even hungrier than Shiraha. She hadn't eaten lunch before the kidnapping. She'd spent the entire afternoon starving in that abandoned apartment. And after getting home, she hadn't touched a thing. She was now so hungry she felt utterly drained.
She turned on the light and made her way downstairs. Then she saw Shiraha, crouched in front of the open fridge, one leg seemingly propped against something. Her sleepy, half-lidded eyes slowly widened.
"Someone's coming."
Elysia had already warned him.
"It's fine. Like I said I don't care what other people think."
Shiraha didn't move. He stayed half-kneeling against Elysia's lap, still holding out the bread in a feeding gesture.
Elysia couldn't do anything about it. If Shiraha didn't mind being seen as a lunatic, what did she have to mind?
That was how she convinced herself.
The only casualty... was Mei.
She stood in the doorway, watching a piece of bread vanish into thin air. Her eyes rolled upward involuntarily. Her small body swayed, then went limp.
Shiraha realized he'd taken the joke too far. "Mei-nee!"
He lunged forward and caught her. But Mei's body stayed completely limp. When he gently lifted her eyelid, all he saw was white.
Mei-nee had apparently lost consciousness completely.
Elysia remained leaning against the fridge. She finally couldn't hold it in anymore, a soft laugh escaped her.
'Ahem... Little Mei, your big sister has done you so wrong!'
...
Mei had passed out thoroughly. She didn't stir until dawn broke the next morning. She woke to the sight of her familiar ceiling. She touched her familiar blankets and her familiar big bed.
"So it was just a dream?"
Her stomach growled again. The hunger was becoming unbearable. She scrambled to get up and then froze.
On her nightstand, amid her neatly arranged decorative dolls, there was a piece of bread and a carton of milk. Next to them... a napkin had even been placed.
Mei's eyes slowly widened again.
Thud thud thud!
The familiar knock at the door.
"Who is it?"
Her voice was weak, listless. Her eyes stayed fixed on that breakfast. She didn't reach for it.
"It's me. Mei-nee."
Her hope evaporated. Mei silently buried herself back under the covers like an ostrich with its head in the sand, never mind the rest of the body. Only when the second knock came did she rally herself.
She threw off the blankets, tore open the bread, and took a fierce bite. 'It's fine. Maybe Shiraha really is haunted by some evil spirit. Like yesterday, all that gray streaked with red...' The image made her pause mid-bite.
But then she bit down again, harder.
'Shiraha needs my help right now! I said I'd look out for him!'
She wolfed down the bread in three bites, gulped a mouthful of milk, and ran to the door. She threw it open. Shiraha stood there, same as always, grinning.
"Time for breakfast, Mei-nee." He tilted his head. "It's a really good spread today."
Mei stared at him. Shiraha stared back with genuine puzzlement. His expression was perfectly normal, as normal as could be. Like nothing had ever happened.
That tiny, fragile hope crept back into her heart.
"Shiraha... who were you with last night?"
While watching Shiraha, she glanced downstairs. Her father, unusually, wasn't reading his newspaper this morning. That settled her nerves a little.
Shiraha answered frankly. "You, Mei-nee. You came downstairs in the middle of the night, remember?"
Just as the doubt began forming in Mei's mind, Shiraha added, "Before you got there, it was just Elysia-nee. She was starving last night too."
Elysia: 'Since when was I starving?'
...Alright. Having tasted food again after so long, she had been craving it badly.
"Elysia-nee?"
"Yeah. Yesterday, when you went missing, I was really worried. And then Elysia-nee appeared."
Shiraha paused as if remembering, then naturally wrapped an arm around the empty air beside him. "It's all thanks to Elysia-nee. She might have been a little... harsh, but the important thing is that you're safe, Mei-nee."
Shiraha was still smiling, his arm draped around the space next to him with perfect ease. Mei tentatively reached out and poked at that space. Her finger passed straight through.
Her expression froze again.
"If you two don't finish your whispering soon, breakfast is going to get cold."
Ryoma's voice drifted up from downstairs, carrying a note of fond exasperation.
"Coming, Uncle Ryoma!"
Shiraha replied brightly, his voice crisp and cheerful.
Then Mei watched as he seemed to take someone's hand and jog downstairs.
She stood rooted in place, her hand still extended from that tentative reach.
An indescribable emotion surged up inside her, absurdity, fear, and something else... something she didn't know how to name.
'So ghosts really do exist in this world? And one so ruthless,'
Those images of spraying blood surged back into her mind. Her small frame shivered again.
'A cold-blooded, murderous evil spirit!'
Downstairs, Ryoma Raiden was watching Shiraha with a subtle, unreadable expression. The boy seemed to be... holding something.
He probed gently, "Are you playing some kind of game with Mei?"
Shiraha looked confused.
Ryoma pointed at the empty air beside him.
"Why are you asking the same thing, Uncle Ryoma? Mei-nee just asked me that too."
Shiraha looked genuinely baffled, his six-year-old face scrunched in confusion. "Can't you see Elysia-nee?"
Elysia couldn't help herself. "Is this really necessary?"
Shiraha acted as if he hadn't heard. It was necessary. After all, his current established persona was: six-year-old child. He wasn't supposed to know anything about Stigmata or related matters.
Technically, he could know, a complete Stigmata came with inherited memories, after all. But he'd played the part of pure, innocent ignorance too well in the beginning. Changing the act now would be too messy. He'd just stick with the "Seele template."
Ryoma Raiden was silent for a long moment. He looked again at the empty space beside Shiraha, straining to see something, anything. But it was impossible.
He chose his words carefully. "This... Elysia-nee of yours. When did she come to visit?"
"Just yesterday. Yesterday, Elysia-nee helped me find where Mei was. She taught me how to defeat the bad guys. And she rode back home with us in the car."
Shiraha earnestly painted the picture of Elysia-nee's existence and deeds.
Behind him, Mei, who had just come downstairs froze mid-step. She remembered yesterday, huddled under that blanket in the apartment, sniffling quietly. Shiraha had seemed to be talking to someone.
Her nose twitched. She felt a sudden chill.
Ryoma Raiden had no idea what to say. His Honkai resistance was decent, sure, but lofty concepts like natural-born Stigmata had nothing to do with him.
All he could do was watch as Shiraha busily ran off to the side and dragged over an extra chair.
No chopsticks were lifted from the table. No forks moved either. For a moment, Ryoma genuinely couldn't tell if Shiraha had developed schizophrenia from yesterday's trauma.
Then the food before his eyes simply vanished, annihilated by some unseen force. Ryoma shot to his feet!
Both of them jumped in shock. But just as quickly, Ryoma sat back down. He spoke slowly.
"Shiraha, Mei. You may both need to take a leave of absence from school for a while."
When faced with something beyond his comprehension, it was time to call in the old fossils... the elders of the organization.
Shiraha blinked. He'd been hoping to scout out future Pseudo-Herrscher candidates at school. Those were preordained S-rank assets, perfect future recruits for his own personal faction.
"I investigated yesterday's incident. It appears a religious organization in the underground market detected something... an 'Origin signature.' That's what triggered this particular... transaction."
"I'm going to send you both to the Americas for a while to recuperate. I have friends there, Teachers. You can rest and recover there."
Despair welled up in Mei's heart.
'Why isn't Dad asking about this 'Elysia-nee' person? Has the evil spirit already brainwashed and possessed him?
And right now... I really don't want to go on a relaxing retreat with Shiraha...'