Instant Death

When Tomochika returned to her room she packed her things right away. Her belongings were few enough to fit in a backpack, so it didn"t take too much time.

『Can we talk for a second?』

Tomochika was just about to leave the room when her guardian spirit, Mokomoko, spoke up.

"What? If I don"t hurry up I"ll make Takatou-kun wait."

Yogiri most likely didn"t require much time himself, and they were supposed to meet up in the corridor after getting ready.

『Don"t worry about that, tell him you needed more time because you"re a girl and he won"t even question it. It won"t be a long talk, don"t worry.』

"Well, alright then."

There most likely was value in whatever Mokomoko wanted to talk about if she was going to bring it up under such circ.u.mstances, so Tomochika agreed and took a seat on the bed.

『We don"t know what they"re after, but this time someone is targeting you in particular. Sure the youngster can perceive killing intent, but it looks like that perception loses a good deal of precision when it"s not him that"s being targeted. Might be that I"m better at sensing danger to you than he is.』

"Yeah, I already guessed that just because Takatou-kun is safe from danger the same doesn"t have to go for me."

『There"s also the matter of you two not being guaranteed to always be together. What I"m saying is that you need to become able to handle this world on your own.』

"Well sure, but there"s nothing I can do about that, is there?"

Tomochika didn"t possess any of the powers bestowed by this world"s system, nor a special power like that of Yogiri. Those degrees of strength weren"t something a normal person could reach just through effort.

『I"ve given your situation some thought myself, but indeed, there"s no way for you to become that strong right away. For the time being you"ll have to get by with just your current strength.』

"You say that, but am I strong enough for that right now?"

Tomochika was fairly familiar with martial arts thanks to her family being so closely connected to it, but she only ever practiced her skills on her relatives. Present day j.a.pan didn"t offer a lot of opportunities to put one"s martial arts skills to the test, so she couldn"t actually tell how strong she truly was.

『You"d easily win against someone who only had physical strength going for them, a knife wielding maniac shouldn"t pose a problem either. Against some martial arts master I suppose you"d be able to stall for time and find a way to escape.』

"That... sounds pretty amazing."

『In terms of our own world, yes. However, the arts of House Dannoura won"t do much against this world"s system and skills and what not.』

"Alright, so what should I do? You brought this up because you know a way to change that, right?"

『We shall lift your seal.』

"This turned really suspicious really quickly! ...B-but maybe I"m interested, go on!"

She hesitated for a moment, but her curiosity soon outweighed her feeling of being made fun of. If there was some secret potential lurking within her, then maybe it was possible for her to be of help after all.

"So, what will happen after lifting this seal? Do I get some kind of super power? The old me would have thought you"re just s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g with me, but after seeing Takatou-kun"s power I guess you might be serious."

『Mhmm, now I feel bad for raising your hopes. You won"t awaken to some special power, you"ll only gain the mindset required to kill people.』

"That"s all!?"

The resolution to kill a person was certainly a kind of strength itself, but Tomochika was expecting something much greater, so her disappointment was rather great as well.

『Don"t go "That"s all!?" now, just executing an attack with the preparedness to kill someone makes it much stronger already. A normal person can"t kill that easily, no matter how resolute they may be. There"s always some part in them that subconsciously tries to avoid dealing a fatal attack.』

"Isn"t that a matter of mental fort.i.tude then? What"s that got to do with a seal?"

『You"ve heard of tsukimono lineages, right? House Dannoura is similar to that: all its descendants are born with an offense oriented soul. You included.』

The blindmen of all beings know not of their blindness

Death upon death upon death upon death ends in darkness

"Isn"t that what they call eighth grade syndrome!?"

『That"s a paragraph of Kukai"s Hizou Kuron, alright? Happens a lot in martial arts, having to chant some esoteric mantra. Anyway, go ahead and recite that.』

She left her room and met up with Yogiri.

Yogiri and Tomochika, both with all their belongings with them, headed towards the emergency stairs. For now they had only decided that continuing to stay at the hotel was dangerous, the matter of where to go after leaving it was postponed until later.

『I agree that the emergency stairs are safer than taking the elevator, but won"t the enemy realize where we went right away? How about jumping out of the window, no way they"ll see that coming.』

"You do remember that we"re on the fifth floor, right?"

Mokomoko"s proposal was a little too absurd for Tomochika.

『I remember a guy from our original world that could jump from this height without problem.』

"Are you sure he was human!?"

"There might be something like an escape slide around here actually, but we don"t really have the time to search for something like that. On top of that it would stand out pretty badly, not the best method for secretly escaping."

"Yeah, the emergency stairs should be safe enough."

The hotel was built in the shape of an L. To the right of their room was an elevator, to the left a corner. After going around that corner and walking to the end of the corridor there should have been some emergency stairs.

Someone was coming from around the corner, and before long a woman appeared before them.

"My oh my, what might have you two so fl.u.s.tered?"

The woman spoke with a gentle smile, wearing a fluttery white dress and carrying an excessively ornamented staff. Yogiri didn"t feel any immediate killing intent, but he doubted a person that appeared with such timing could be unrelated to the people targeting them. Without bothering with politeness, Yogiri threw her a question.

"And you are?"

"Lisa of Yuuki-kun"s personal guards. Don"t let my looks deceive you now, I"m actually the group leader."

The woman replied with a completely calm, carefree voice. So she truly was part of Yuuki"s followers -- not one of the girls Yogiri and Tomochika had met before, however.

"What do you want?"

The woman didn"t make them wait with her response, although it wasn"t a verbal one: Ice pillars. That"s what they suddenly found themselves surrounded by, caged in even -- thin pillars of ice blocking all four directions in the form of a fence.

"Yuuki-kun ordered me to take Dannoura-san with me, so if you just let me do exactly that we won"t have any prob――"

Yogiri kicked the ice, upon which it shattered and formed an opening just wide enough for a person to pa.s.s through.

"Huh? Are these really brittle or something?"

Tomochika carelessly tried punching a pillar herself, but threw up her hands and screamed when she ended up with the same result one would get from hitting a wall.

"So cold! What did you do!? These are super tough!"

"Tried killing the part of ice that I kicked, looks like it worked."

It appeared that Yogiri"s power also worked on objects created by magic.

"What do you mean you killed ice!? Are you getting philosophical again!?"

Tomochika, albeit shocked, followed Yogiri on his way out of the cage of ice while Lisa could only stare at them in disbelief; their escape wasn"t within her calculations.

Yogiri was preoccupied with how to ask her about what was going on and as such failed to react in time. The spell was cast and even if he killed the sorceress now, there was a good chance the ice block would still be fired. With that in mind Yogiri used his power not on the woman, but on the huge icicle.

Now that she directly attacked them there was little to criticize Yogiri for if he killed her, but instead he turned his eyes to her staff. It was conspicuously big, but perhaps that was necessary for magic. Since he could kill her any time he decided to try killing her staff first.

Witnessing that, Lisa sunk to her knees, her eyes wide open with fear. Although too late, it seemed she finally realized that the person before her was of a different caliber than she was familiar with.

"Can you use magic without a staff?"

"N-no, I can"t!"

She answered instantly -- the right choice in her current position, for Yogiri intended to kill her the moment she turned out to make it difficult to deal with her.

Thanks for reading. Next chapter Thursday. Special thanks to everyone pointing out typos and mistakes.

＊We couldn"t find an official English translation for that pa.s.sage of the Hizou Kuron, but the text is real, describing all creature"s inability to truly grasp the cycle of reincarnation.

＊For those unfamiliar with it, here an explanation of eighth grade syndrome: