It's been about a week since we encountered Azamume. Since that first meeting, I've been keeping a careful eye out for her whenever me and Yuna got out together. But so far, she had never made an appearance again. I started to wonder if maybe she gave up on stalking Yuna, but when I voiced my thoughts to the others during our latest club meeting, this was what Mirai, apprised to the stalker situation, had to say:
"Doubtful," he said. “Highly doubtful.” He stood with his back to us, staring out the window while swiveling a water bottle in his hand like it was a glass of wine. "The vengeful phantom still stalks our huntress, but has grown wise to the power of the great Iron wall General, Oota!"
Sometimes, it’s like he’s just pushing out these delusional acts any chance he got.
I turned to Isaneko for a translation.
“There’s a chance that that ghost girl, Azamume is still stalking Yuna,” she said. "Only she's being more careful about it now that she knows that her power doesn't work on you, Oota. Basically, she's likely using more normal stalker tactics to avoid being seen."
“Indeed, my strongest general,” Mirai said. “We must remain vigilant, for the phantom’s constant lingering shadow could spell doom to our journey for world conquest. The huntress is vital to our plans.”
At that point, even Isaneko was getting tired of the act.
“Toshiro, you’re being really annoying,” she said. “Quit spouting stupid nonsense out of that ugly mouth of yours and talk like a normal person.”
Her face was gentle-looking and her voice was soft and calm, but her words were harsh and she had a dangerous air around her shoulders that sent shivers down my spine.
Predictably, however, Mirai’s response was, “Ha! Ha! Ha! I refuse!”
He was undoubtedly a big idiot.
I didn’t need to have Omoyo’s powers to know how annoyed Isaneko must have felt, and it was scary to think what she would do next. Isaneko was one of those people you do not say no to if you knew what was good for you. But it looked like it was Mirai’s lucky day, because at that moment, there was a knock on the door.
"My!" exclaimed Mirai. "I wonder who that could be."
Isaneko shot Mirai a withering glare, but said nothing as he ordered me to open the door. He must have known that someone would be at the door to save him in the nick of time.
I obliged his request and went over to see who came to visit us, and was surprised to find the student council president standing outside our door.
"Shoyu? What are you doing here?"
Soushu's right eye twitched and she said, "Would it kill you to say my name right?"
There was nothing I could say, so I quietly stood aside to let her in.
"Oh ho?" went Mirai. "And to what does this great demon lord owe the pleasure of meeting the esteemed queen of the human kingdom face to face?"
Soushu scowled and said, "Please drop the act already. I'm tired enough as it is."
Resting his chin on his hands as he leaned over the table, Mirai responded, "I have no understanding to what you refer to as an act, but I can see that you're very tired. Could it be your kingdom has fallen in disarray?"
Soushu rubbed her temples and shook her head.
"I really don't have the time or energy to translate whatever babbling nonsense is coming out of your mouth, so please just speak normally already," she implored Mirai.
Mirai frowned.
And he said, "No biting retort today? Things really must be serious, then. What have you come to us for?"
Soushu looked around the room at all of us, and we all sat down in our chairs. Yuna pulled out an extra one for our guest. When we were all seated, Soushu began.
"Let me be blunt," she said. "I want you to find the arsonist."
I blinked. "You want us to find the arsonist? Why? Isn't that a job for the police?"
Soushu frowned and sighed. "It's obvious the arsonist is a power user," she said. "Except for a few cigarette butts from the first fire, nothing was ever found in the others. No gasoline. No oil. No matches. Nothing. And witnesses have said that the fires appeared out of nowhere right before their eyes. Do you really think the police can handle someone like that?"
"Don't they have their own psychics?" I asked. "Like in T.V. shows, there should be a secret department in the police force that specializes in that sort of stuff."
But Soushu said, "That might be true in the big city, but this is us psychics' territory. Even though normal people live here too, we're expected to police ourselves."
I looked at her and said, "Wait, what? I was just spitballing. There's actually a secret department in the police force that specializes in policing psychics?"
"There's been one since the 1950s," Soushu said. "Though they mostly work doing cover-ups."
Mostly to myself, I muttered, "My life's turning more and more like a comic book."
"But even if the police here can't help, this is still a problem for the grownups, don't you think?" Isaneko said. "I don't see why you would take the time to come ask us to look for someone as dangerous as an arsonist. And what makes you think we would even be able to find them? We're not exactly great detectives like Sherlock Holmes or Akechi Kogoro."
"But you guys have the next best thing," Soushu said, "a guy who can see into the future and use that power like his own personal spy cam."
We all looked at Mirai.
He blinked and said, "Wow, that sounds like a nifty power, but at the same time a little scary. There'd be no privacy with a guy like that around. Who could you be talking about?"
"I'm talking about you, you moron," Soushu said. "I want you to use your power of future sight to track down the arsonist."
"Well, I'm flattered that you think so highly of my powers, meager as they are," Mirai said. "But like Isaneko said, this is a problem for the grownups. Even though we have powers, we're still just high schoolers. And it's pretty dangerous for kids like us to go after an arsonist, especially one with superpowers."
"I'm not asking you to catch the guy," Soushu said. "I just want you to be on the lookout and if you find anyone suspicious to let me know."
"What about using your family's clairvoyants?" Mirai asked. "Surely they would have more luck finding the arsonist that I would."
"My dad's already got them on the lookout," Soushu said. "I just thought it wouldn't hurt to have more people with their eyes peeled."
"And why would you think that?" Isaneko asked. "Surely the daughter of the great Soushu family would think that their clairvoyants alone would be enough. It's like you're in a desperate rush to see this arsonist caught."
"Well, of course," said Soushu. "None of the groups gathered in this town have territories, but we do have areas where our supporters are more concentrated. Many of the fires were at places with or near Soushu family supporters. It'd look bad if we can't keep our supporters safe, right?"
"That's all the more reason you should not want to get outsiders like us involved," Isaneko said. "It would hurt the Soushu family's image if someone else found the arsonist before them."
"That'd still be a lot better than our image being torn apart by violent idiots who believed baseless rumors!" Soushu snapped.
Isaneko, Mirai, Omoyo, Yuna and myself exchanged looks.
"Rumors?" said Omoyo.
"Yes! Rumors!" shouted Soushu. "Those damn rumors that the Shirogamis spread that the Yamimuras are the cause of the fires. Because of that, things are even worse now between the Soushus and the Yamimuras, and our supporters are up in arms against each other!"
Soushu had gone to the trouble to keep a cool image, but in an instant, her mask fell off and her true feelings spilled out. She had completely lost her cool.
"You sound like you don't believe those rumors yourself," Mirai said. "How come? Aren't the Yamimuras your sworn enemy?"
"I don't think highly of the Yamimuras since I'm a Soushu, but I can't see any reason why they would pull something like that off," Soushu said. "Unless some of them are even stupider than I thought, they must know that committing crimes like that would only make life here worse for themselves. Besides, there's no evidence that proves they're the culprits, which makes us Soushus attacking the Yamimuras all the more stupid. That's just grounds to make us out as bad guys taking advantage of a bad situation to bump off our rivals with false accusations."
"But what makes you think the Shirogamis spread the rumor?" Omoyo asked.
"Oh yeah," I said. "I think I heard you say something like that, Shoyu."
Soushu rolled her eyes and replied, "You're kidding right? Of course the Shirogamis are behind this. They're the only ones who'd benefit from a full blown war between the Soushus and the Yamimuras. At the very least, they're the only ones I know of who'd have something to gain from my family and the Yamimuras going at each other's throats."
"Have you tried telling everyone that?" I asked. "Maybe if you explained -"
Soushu cut me off and replied, "Even if I did, I don't think they would all believe me, or even listen to what I have to say. I might be the next head of the Soushu family, but right now I'm just a kid in high school. Besides, some of the people in my family are so biased against the Yamimuras that they don't care whether the rumors are true or not. And those people are dumb enough to jump on them regardless of what that'll mean to them and everyone else in the end!"
Her fingers balled into a fist and I half-expected her to hammer it against the table. But she restrained herself, took a deep breath and looked ahead at Mirai.
"The only way for this to end is to catch the arsonist," she said. "And that needs to happen fast. Things are already hot between the Soushus and the Yamimuras thanks to the Piper, and it's distracting our sensory-type psychics from doing their jobs right. I don't want to think about what would happen if we reach the breaking point. That's why I want you and your power, Mirai."
Mirai never took his eyes off Soushu's. And then, after a brief pause, he said, "Alright. I'll help you find the arsonist. But on one condition."
"A condition?" Soushu raised an eyebrow. "What condition?"
Mirai's lips spread into a wicked grin.
"Have a psychic kendo match with Oota."
I blinked.
"Wait, what?"
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