Date A Mysterious Being

Chapter 10 - Yoshinon

“Hey, Kurumi?” Having evacuated to the large shelter built below the high school, Tohka clutched the hem of her skirt to try and calm her racing heart as she spoke to Tamae sitting next to her.

“What is it, Tohka-san?” Kurumi turned her face toward her, just as calm she had been in the hallway.

“What exactly was that noise before? What is this place?”

“That was the alarm, the spacequake alarm. There’s a possibility of one, so we all evacuated to the underground shelter. We’ll be safe here.”

“Spacequake…?” Tohka cocked her head curiously to the side. “What’s that?”

“Heh?” Kurumi was a bit surprised. “A spacequake... You don’t know what that is?”

“…Hmm.” Tohka pulled her mouth into a dissatisfied pout. It seemed like this spacequake or whatever was common knowledge. Even though... she is a Spirit who caused multiple spacequakes before. It would've only been natural if Tohka knew about Spacequakes, which is why Kurumi was taken aback by Tohka's question.

"A spacequake is a large explosion that occurs randomly all over the world."

“An explosion?” Tohka frowned.

“Yes. The biggest one was thirty years ago. The Great Eurasian disaster. It was actually the worst catastrophe in history with more than a hundred and fifty million people killed.”

“Wh-what?! That sounds really dangerous!”

“It is. That’s why we evacuate to the shelter,” Kurumi explained, sounding like a teacher.

“Well, spacequakes that big don’t happen anymore, but in the last few years, there have been frequent small explosions in this area.”

Tohka knitted her brows. “S-so then, where did Shidou go at such a dangerous time?”

“Wha…? Uh, umm… Well.” Kurumi hesitated to say the truth. There was no telling if Tohka was mentally prepared to find out Shidou's going to date other girls and make them fall for him too. She isn't mentally strong compared to Kurumi. Tohka was like a new born baby.

Kurumi looked down on her to hide her troubled expression

“…” Tohka clutched the hem of her skirt even more tightly. “Shidou.”

Thump, thump. Kurumi heard a noise from Tohka’s chest. She didn’t know why, but she had a very bad feeling. And when the thumping noise had reached a peak, she lifted her face with a gasp.

“Umm… He’s all right, I think.. But he's probably evacuated already.” Tamae returned her gaze to Tohka. “Huh…? T-Tohka-san?”

Tohka was gone.

◇

“Phew… Is here good?” Shidou said to the small earpiece in his right ear, after being sent to the ground via the transporter in the bowels of Fraxinus.

“Yes. The Spirit’s gone inside a building. Don’t make any mistakes on first contact.”

“Roger,” he replied, perspiring profusely, and took his hand away from the earpiece. He took a deep breath to calm his pounding heart.

He was inside the large department store that dominated one end of the shopping street.

Hermit apparently appeared fairly frequently, and when Reine combined her analyses of the Spirit’s mental state with the behavior patterns they’d observed, they had come up with a rough way forward. Naturally, that path might vary to a greater or lesser degree depending on the movement of the AST, but if things went south, they could just send out Lucas to take care of them. At this point, the other members of the AST have recovered and returned to the battlefield. But this time, he was more prepared, physically and mentally.