Chapter 148: Makinohara Shoko's Desire, Invitation from Touma Kazusa
With the calling of the Soul True Name, a set of pure white, gorgeously decorated with pale golden patterns outfit quickly emerged on Miko's body.
Rio's outfit formation speed was slightly slower than Miko's, showing that she was still slightly inferior to Miko in the application of Soul Manifestation power.
Like last time on the train, Rio was still wearing that pale white outfit with sharp bone spurs at the joints and a bone full-face mask.
Although both were mainly white, one leaned towards gorgeousness, and the other, like Rio's personality, leaned towards calmness, distinguishable at a glance.
And Mai's Soul Manifestation ability hadn't become strong enough to form a set of clothes directly without affecting combat performance.
She just chose to form an animal half-face mask decorated with pale pink.
As for what animal...
Looking at the two upright ear-shaped ornaments, it was a rabbit.
"Going up, Miko, Mai."
Hearing Rio's words, Miko and Mai both nodded.
"Hone-Onna!"
"Yes."
Hone-Onna wearing a kimono appeared again, pulling out two bone spurs from her body and handing them to Mai and Miko.
Next second, the dozens of evil spirits opposite finally reacted.
Doctor evil spirits wearing blood-stained white coats and female evil spirits wearing blood-stained nurse uniforms pounced towards Mai, Rio, and Miko standing there with ferocious and twisted faces.
"Do it, Ame-no-Uzume."
As Mai's voice fell, Ame-no-Uzume, wearing a pale pink dancer outfit, with a charming and beautiful face and graceful figure, appeared behind her.
"Okay."
Ame-no-Uzume replied with a chuckling tone. An elegantly shaped, brightly colored oil-paper umbrella appeared in her white jade-like right hand.
Immediately after, she turned the oil-paper umbrella slightly.
A burst of scattered cherry blossom petals began to float in the field.
After this beautiful scene appeared, those dozens of evil spirits seemed to be bound by something, their movements becoming much slower.
Miko certainly wouldn't miss such an opportunity.
She threw the bone spur in her hand directly, piercing three evil spirits on the line.
Immediately after, Miko quickly came to Makinohara Shoko and Hachishaku-sama in the field, extending her right hand to Hachishaku.
Hachishaku-sama understood immediately, taking out the long sword Miko usually used from her body and handing it to the opponent.
"Open your eyes, Hyakume!"
Hyakume, with a ribbon tied over her eyes, looking very erotic, emerged behind Miko.
As soon as she appeared, she scanned the surrounding evil spirits with the eyes on her body and quickly made a judgment.
"Most are vulnerable weak spirits, only that one...."
Hyakume extended her right hand, pointing her index finger at the evil spirit hiding behind the other spirits, with twisted and disgusting appearance, waving tentacles.
"That guy is strong; be careful, Miko."
"Sure enough..."
Miko looked as expected, looking at Yoru sitting not far away watching the show with a smile, couldn't help shaking her head helplessly.
She realized.
Yoru's evaluation criteria for evil spirits were completely different from hers, Rio's, Mai's, and others.
In the opponent's eyes, evil spirits were not divided into strong or not, but into three other levels.
Want to eat.
Barely edible.
Too lazy to eat.
And the evil spirit considered "not too strong" by Yoru was already a rare and terrifying thing capable of causing huge disasters in the real world.
Facing the remaining dozens of evil spirits, Miko just held the long sword with both hands and spoke slowly.
"Ready to go, Hyakume."
"Okay."
As the voice fell, Miko and Hyakume rushed towards the dozens of evil spirits in front simultaneously with extremely tacit movements.
Tacit understanding was expected.
After all, strictly speaking, Miko and Hyakume were originally one, with connected minds.
Miko's movements were crisp and neat. Every slash could cut off an evil spirit's head.
And, as an exorcist's professional experience, she didn't forget the instinctive follow-up attack (making sure they're dead).
In comparison, Mai's Ame-no-Uzume had only developed an auxiliary function of slowing down evil spirits' movements and controlling the field.
Plus she and Rio themselves didn't have as strong psychological quality as Miko, unable to remain calm when contacting terrifying evil spirits at close range.
So, Mai and Rio were basically on the outside, playing an auxiliary role.
Seeing the evil spirits under its command being eliminated one by one by this human girl with golden pupils, the human head of the Tentacle Evil Spirit showed a ferocious and twisted look.
Its two eyeballs connected to tentacles scanned back and forth in the field.
These three human girls and that tall white-clothed evil spirit didn't make it feel apprehensive.
Killing everyone might not be possible.
But snatching that human little girl with alluring aura in the chaos, it was confident it could do.
However....
The Tentacle Evil Spirit's gaze swept over the human man sitting not far away with a relaxed smile on his face.
Not knowing why.
Just by him sitting there, it had an instinctive premonition of danger in its heart.
Like every cell in its body howling to escape.
"Usually disguised as human..."
Yoru took out his phone, scrolled the screen, searched for the photo of the director of Kyoto City Hospital on the internet, and compared it with the Tentacle Evil Spirit in front.
Sure enough, looked exactly the same.
Another special strangeness fused with an evil spirit due to human twisted desires.
"It seems you have a certain degree of wisdom, and your character is also very cautious."
Hearing Yoru's chuckling tone, the danger in the Tentacle Evil Spirit's heart increased.
Next second, it heard a sentence from the opponent's mouth with a very flat tone but an undeniable meaning.
"Of course, no matter how cautious the prey is, it ultimately cannot escape the fate of being hunted."
Hearing this, the Tentacle Evil Spirit didn't hesitate at all. The meat ball of its lower body shrank suddenly.
Immediately after, it bounced directly into mid-air like a bouncy ball, fleeing quickly into the distance.
"Eh?"
Seeing this scene, Miko, who had just killed all those doctor and nurse evil spirits and hadn't had time to breathe a sigh of relief, froze directly.
Even the always calm and cool Rio looked astonished, obviously not expecting this to happen.
"Evil spirit... ran away?"
They rarely encountered evil spirits who could suppress the instinctive killing desire towards humans and choose to escape directly.
This wasn't a good thing; instead, it made Rio feel heavier in her heart.
This showed that the opponent's power was strong enough to feel instinctive danger even if Yoru restrained his aura.
Moreover, judging from the point of escaping, this evil spirit possessed a certain degree of rational thinking ability, not acting entirely on instinct.
Last time just eliminating a minion under it, the opponent could be cautious enough to remain silent for nearly a month without any movement.
If letting this guy escape this time, which dark corner would it hide in again?
And there was the most important point.
Rio couldn't determine whether this special evil spirit fused with a human body could disguise as human again after revealing its true form.
If it could really do that....
That would be troublesome.
"Yoru! Quick..."
"I know, I know."
Listening to Rio's shout, Yoru stood up, stretched lazily, looked at that evil spirit which had fled nearly a hundred meters away, and revealed a kind smile.
"This guy runs quite fast."
After saying this, Yoru looked at Rio and others, asking an abstract question they didn't expect.
"Say, will this kind of frequently exercising evil spirit be more delicious than ordinary evil spirits, just like free-range livestock?"
"Uh...."
Mai, Rio, Makinohara Shoko, Miko, even Hachishaku-sama who was an evil spirit, facing this abstract question, all looked speechless.
How to answer this?
Except for Hachishaku-sama, the others hadn't eaten evil spirits either.
Eaten other things quite a lot....
"Don't be crazy here."
Rio walked up, patted Yoru's shoulder grumpily, untied her high ponytail, looking like she started to give up (rot).
"Then the follow-up work is left to you; anyway, we can't catch up."
"Sure."
Yoru responded casually, looking at that evil spirit gradually disappearing at the end of the field of vision into a small black dot. The smile on his face disappeared, replaced by madness and excitement in his black eyes.
"Just want to watch them fear; this is interesting."
Black flames ignited on his face.
Seeing this scene, Makinohara Shoko was about to exclaim, but saw layers of black flames forming a pure black mask directly.
And Yoru's whole outfit changed from casual clothes to that black coat worn when fighting evil spirits.
The hem of the coat was like burning black flames, leaving only a trail of flame in the air.
Watching Yoru leaving only a black afterimage chasing the fleeing evil spirit in the distance, disappearing quickly from the field of vision, Makinohara Shoko froze for a long while first, then surprise appeared in her eyes, slightly opening her lips.
"So... so cool."
Menma nodded in agreement from the side.
"Mmhmm, indeed very cool, like a superhero!"
"Sigh, this guy..."
Rio canceled Soul Manifestation, took out her glasses from the pocket of the white coat, and put them on again.
She had to admit.
The scene of Yoru transforming was indeed cool.
Especially combined with his usual frivolous personality playing abstract and crazy games, unknown what he meant, then becoming very serious in that instant, with a cruel attitude without any mercy....
Also playing with gap moe (contrast).
Thinking of this, Rio even felt inexplicably excited.
"Mai-oneechan, can I become an exorcist too?"
Hearing Makinohara Shoko's question, Mai's eyes fluctuated slightly, then showed a kind smile, replying softly.
"Mmhmm, you persist in treatment. When you grow up a bit more, definitely can. At that time, you can join our Super-Quant Club."
For a spirit medium like Makinohara Shoko possessing Yin-Yang Eyes, if met in school, Mai and others would indeed want her to join the Super-Quant Club and become a helper against strangeness.
Besides, Makinohara Shoko's personality was also very good.
Unfortunately....
Thinking of Makinohara Shoko's illness, Mai and others felt a bit heavy in their hearts.
What a pity.
"Grow up..."
Makinohara Shoko murmured these words, disappointment appearing in her eyes.
If I could grow up, become a high school student like Yoru...
How good would that be?
....
On the other side.
"Running quite fast."
Looking at the Tentacle Evil Spirit fleeing very quickly like a bouncy ball hopping on the ground, Yoru commented with a chuckle.
This was the first time he saw such a cowardly evil spirit.
But just as Rio thought.
Cowardly didn't mean this evil spirit's danger level was low; instead, it meant it was harder to deal with than those evil spirits who only had power and knew only slaughter.
This guy was a twisted existence attempting to occupy Makinohara Shoko's body.
It wasn't that it had no malice towards humans, just felt current power wasn't enough.
After becoming more powerful, this evil spirit disguised as the director of Kyoto City Hospital on the surface, hard to imagine what terrifying things it would do.
Just as Yoru said.
Just running to the intensive care unit to pull plugs every night could kill dozens of people a night.
Although the Tentacle Evil Spirit's moving speed was fast, obviously not as fast as Yoru.
The distance between the two was closing at a speed visible to the naked eye.
Moreover, it began to feel exhausted.
Just then, the Tentacle Evil Spirit saw a 24-hour convenience store in the distance still emitting light.
It should have avoided human sight, but it ran straight towards the convenience store entrance.
Immediately after, the tentacles on the evil spirit's upper body retracted into the suit.
The wriggling meat ball on the lower body also turned back into normal human legs, disguising as a human again.
It took three steps in two, ran to the convenience store entrance, just bumping into a human girl with long straight black hair walking out holding a rice ball.
"Save... save me!"
The evil spirit's disguise was flawless, rushing towards the human girl in front like an innocent middle-aged man being chased.
Different from the panicked expression on its face, its eyes revealed twisted ferocity.
This evil spirit was much more cunning than ordinary evil spirits.
It didn't believe this black mask chasing it dared to kill itself, who looked completely human, in front of other humans.
Even if the opponent dared to do such a thing, as long as it hijacked this human girl with long straight black hair in front, there was a great hope of escaping.
The plan this evil spirit came up with could be described as very vicious.
But in the next second, something it completely didn't expect happened.
"Don't come near me."
The human girl with long straight black hair frowned. A sharpness appeared in her delicate slender eyes. Protecting the rice ball in her hand, she kicked the evil spirit rushing towards her to the ground with an extremely perfect side kick posture.
"Save... save me..."
While being kicked down, the evil spirit hadn't even finished reading its lines.
Yoru walked over slowly, not even glancing at it lying on the ground, a black pistol appearing in his hand.
Bang!
With the gunshot, the bullet formed by evil spirit power pierced the head of this evil spirit directly.
Until death, it couldn't figure out.
Human beings... have they become like this now?
Facing itself seeking help in panic, not only not helping but also delivering a side kick directly?
The pitiful Tentacle Evil Spirit, possessing power much stronger than ordinary evil spirits, played schemes and got itself killed, shot directly in the head.
"Kazusa."
Hearing Yoru's voice, Kazusa tucked her long hair behind her ear, nodding extremely calmly.
Watching the evil spirit's body on the ground gradually dissipate, she spoke.
"Exorcising?"
"Otherwise what do you think I'm doing? Cosplay?"
Kazusa frowned, puzzled.
"But, can ordinary humans see evil spirits?"
Yoru rolled his eyes and complained.
"Regarding such existences, didn't we talk about it many times during internal meetings? You really didn't listen at all."
Kazusa nodded very honestly.
"Mmhmm, I didn't listen at all."
Yoru asked curiously upon hearing this.
"Then what did you think it was at first? Human?"
"Mmhmm, I thought it was some perverted middle-aged uncle."
"Then you watched me shoot him in the head..."
Kazusa still looked calm, her eyes not fluctuating at all.
"Not important. Even if you kill people in front of me, I will only help you hide it."
Kazusa said this extremely loyal dog-like sentence in a flat tone, then brushed her long hair, a few nervousness flashing in her eyes, speaking softly.
"Um... are you free tomorrow night?"
Yoru replied casually.
"Tomorrow, Saturday? Free, what's up?"
Kazusa pursed her lips, hesitating.
"Can... accompany me to a place? Of course, if you have more important things, forget it."
"Sigh, look at what you're saying."
Yoru smiled, using his signature straight ball attack again.
"What else can be more important than you?"
Hearing this, shyness flashed in Kazusa's eyes, but she maintained a cold appearance on her face, snorting lightly.
"Cut it out; see you tomorrow then."
"Okay, see you tomorrow."
After Kazusa left, Yoru maintained the "Mask" appearance and walked into the convenience store.
The convenience store cashier, who just witnessed the whole process, was leaning against the wall, shivering.
Yoru walked to the freezer, took out a bottle of Coca-Cola, then took out money from his bosom and put it on the counter.
"What are you looking at?"
Seeing the cashier looking like seeing a ghost, Yoru's voice carried a smile.
"Righteous Kamen Rider also needs a bottle of ice-cold Coca-Cola after finishing work."