Yoshinobu Gakuganji and Masamichi Yaga sat facing each other.
On one side of the table sat the elderly principal from Kyoto, the embodiment of the higher-ups' conservatism and paranoia, whose perpetual scowl seemed to demand a culprit to execute as soon as possible.
Opposite him sat the imposing principal from Tokyo, stoic-faced and wearing dark glasses; a pragmatic man accustomed to serving as the exhausted bulwark between the leadership's dictatorship and the chaos of the real world.
Meeting was nothing new for either of them, nor did it necessarily imply that something serious was afoot. Most of the time, they met to discuss important matters regarding the schools and their students, such as the exchange program between the Kyoto and Tokyo campuses. Nothing out of the ordinary.
This occasion, however, was anything but ordinary. Yaga picked up one of the files scattered across the center of the table separating the two men.
The first report detailed the inexplicable appearance of massive structural domes in various areas of Wazuka. These were perfect barriers that materialized and vanished with equal ease, leaving behind not the slightest trace of residual cursed energy that might identify the entity responsible for creating them. Included in that same file, on an attached sheet, was a report drafted by Utahime Iori. The sorcerer described a rural village tormented by an immensely dangerous entity, a creature holding the inhabitants under the dark influence of a large-scale mind-control technique, and requested the school's cooperation in investigating and subsequently eliminating it.
it was the third document, the one Yaga held while visibly grimacing from a migraine, that had prompted the meeting with Yoshinobu. The file detailed a recent incident involving an ordinary high school student who, during a pursuit of a curse, had been violently thrown into the storage room of a restaurant. In an act of sheer desperation to survive, the young man hurled a box filled with cuts of raw meat at the creature to try and buy some time.
According to the student's own account, given to a window posing as a police office, a chunk of meat struck the curse squarely in the eye, inflicting such agonizing pain that it completely paralyzed the beast, giving the young man the perfect opening to escape.
At first, the board dismissed the story as a delusion born of adrenaline and fear. However, upon confiscating the contents of the box and subjecting them to laboratory testing, experts were horrified to discover that those humble scraps of animal flesh were genuinely capable of damaging the spiritual structure of curses. Literally and without a shred of sarcasm. They functioned exactly like high-grade cursed tools, yet they were completely devoid of cursed energy... and of everything else that gave such weapons their form.
Tracing the distribution invoices, health inspection stamps, and suppliers of this anomalous meat led them straight to a single location. The very same mysterious village mentioned in Utahime's report.
—¿Is this a joke? — Yoshinobu asked, holding a copy of the document. —¿Who wrote this?
—It's no joke —Yaga replied. —I even verified it myself.
—I want you to really think about the nonsense you just spouted — Yoshinobu continued, crumpling the paper in his hand. —¿Do you really expect me to believe that a piece of raw meat harmed a cursed spirit? Even my patience has a limit, Masamichi.
Yaga sighed inwardly. This meeting was going to be a long one. Without wasting another moment, Yaga listed and explained in detail the various issues encountered while investigating the village.
First, the paint on certain houses and buildings that completely prevented the deployment of Veils in the area. Second, the supply chain for the goods. Local butchers and restaurant owners flatly refused to reveal the source of the meat.
—¿And hasn't anyone considered putting a little pressure on the civilians? —Yoshinobu interrupted, striking the floor with the base of his cane. —A firm interrogation would suffice.
—That's... — Yaga shook his head again. —Well, let's just say it was a waste of time.
While the two men argued, the mini-fly hidden on one of the room's cornices was transmitting real-time video and audio to Rémy's main monitor.
However, the young manipulator wasn't holding the heavy, retro-futuristic joystick in his own hands. Instead, a crude mechanical arm handled the movements on the control panel. Rémy, seated at an adjacent workbench cluttered with simple blueprints, controlled the robotic appendage with his mind while focusing most of his attention on his work.
Since complete Evangelions and Divine-class components still appeared with a Locked icon in his system's catalog, Rémy had decided to build his own full-scale bio-mecha. Naturally, lacking Angel flesh or cloned tissue for the chassis, he was attempting to emulate the fluid synapses of the original EVAs using a system of pressurized hydraulic hoses filled with a synthetic conductive gel designed to transmit artificial nerve impulses.
A human-sized Evangelion, while perhaps not visually as impressive, was still a dangerous weapon. Built using NERV data and materials, and assembled entirely by his own hand, was one of the fantasies Rémy was more than delighted to bring to life.
At his workbench, he was dissecting linear actuators, calibrating microcontroller boards, and adjusting the servo-motor array of a second prototype arm. He muttered technical complaints not worth repeating, calculating motor response latency, gear torque, and the haptic feedback of the braided polymer artificial tendons. The goal was for the alloy exoskeleton to replicate the contraction of the Evas' own biological musculature, incorporating mechanical principles to prevent the joints from suffering a voltage overload caused by the pilot's own brainwaves when controlling the android remotely.
For a long time, Rémy had thought that those grueling years of his past life, spent meticulously designing, building, and assembling humanoid war androids, had been nothing more than technical fluff to pad a résumé he considered pathetic. He firmly believed that all that hyper-specialized knowledge would simply gather dust in his brain, serving no purpose other than bragging rights. Fortunately, as he wiped excess synthetic lubricant from a titanium finger joint and recalibrated the servomotors with a manic grin, he realized just how wonderfully, utterly wrong he had been.
But the mechanical arm he was working on spasmed violently. The elbow motors shrieked, pressurized steam hissed from the piston fluid, and the metal claw snapped shut.
—¡Damn it! — Rémy cursed. —The board's neuro-receptor architecture can't handle the amperage from the carbon nerves
He growled in frustration, rubbing his oil-stained eyes. Muttering again, he set about unscrewing the pressure valve on the malfunctioning arm, ready to bleed the hydraulic fluid and redesign the damn transmission circuit from scratch.
—I'll pretend I understand you — Shinji murmured, turning the page of his manga. —¿So, is your plan to listen to them until you come up with something better?
Rémy set his tools aside and lazily rested his arm on the table.
—¿Plan? ¿What plan? For now, I just want to stay in the loop, and... —He pointed at the LINCE screen with a pencil. —...that 'everything' is already stuff we know. I don't know, man. For a mystical, ultra-secret organization charged with protecting the world's balance, they're pretty boring.
It all boiled down to "kill this, kill that, blah, blah, blah." Nothing particularly alarming.
Deep down, their supposed "cat and mouse" dynamic with the sorcery high command had morphed into a tense game of "cat versus cat." Both sides watched each other with an almost pathological level of paranoia, yet the knockout blow never came because both factions were too cautious to risk making the first misstep. And Rémy, unless the school elders gave him a truly valid reason to drop a nuclear bomb on their doorsteps, completely lacked the thirst for combat that had initially driven him to arm himself to the teeth.
After all, provoking an armed conflict without an incentive wasn't exactly Sigma behavior.
Back at the academy, Yoshinobu, for the first time in a long time, let surprise wash completely over his face.
—¿Not a single cursed spirit? — the old man repeated. His gnarled hands gripped the head of his cane so tightly his knuckles turned white. —¿Are you telling me there's a settlement capable of naturally eradicating ambient cursed energy without any intervention from our people?
The disbelief in the Kyoto principal's eyes was almost immediately replaced by a cold, raw paranoia. If that information reached the wrong ears, or, worse yet, if the rumor spread among lower-ranking sorcerers, the entire doctrine, the balance of power, and the very justification for their ancient society's existence could collapse overnight.
And if one specific person were to find out about this, things would only become far more troublesome.
—This demands immediate action, Masamichi —Yoshinobu declared, striking the wooden floor with his cane. —I want that perimeter secured and under strict surveillance. No one enters or leaves without my knowledge. And above all, this file is classified as Special Grade Secret as of this very second.
Yaga watched him silently, maintaining a stoic expression, though he fully understood the old man's terror.
—If the higher-ups, the major clans, or curse users find out that a wretched rural civilian village has achieved what millennia of sorcery could not... the chaos will be absolute — Yoshinobu continued, leaning forward with gritted teeth. — Send your best men, organize covert expeditions, or do whatever is necessary, but I want you to find out what is causing this in that place and silence this incident before it blows up in our faces.
Yaga could only nod.
—In fact —he continued— I anticipated this situation as soon as I read the initial reports. I have already mobilized the appropriate personnel.
Spreading a detailed topographic map of the Wazuka region across the table, the Tokyo principal began pointing out specific locations with the tip of his pen. He marked surrounding towns, trade routes, and various strategic blind spots on the outskirts of the mysterious village.
—Several covert reconnaissance squads are already positioned at these coordinates —Yaga explained, sliding the map toward Gakuganji. —They are conducting the investigation from the territorial boundaries, gathering intelligence, and establishing a surveillance network without alerting the civilians...
From the ledge, LINCE's tiny optical lenses scanned the topographic map spread across the table and transmitted the encrypted file directly to the bunker's network. A printer sprang to life with a high-pitched whine, spitting out an exact replica of the document.
Without looking away from the tiny gears he was adjusting, Rémy issued a direct mental command. Immediately, a second robotic arm, as crude as the one controlling the fly drone, descended from a rail bolted to the ceiling. Its metal gripper seized the freshly printed paper and brought it into his peripheral vision.
Rémy cast a quick glance at the map, instantly absorbing the coordinates, routes, and squad positions marked by Yaga on the paper held by the cybernetic claw. He made a mental note, he needed to send his spy drones to those locations to install cameras and other gear, before pushing the paper aside. He continued working at full speed on the joint assembly of his mech prototype at the workbench.
—¡Done! — Rémy said, dropping his tools onto the metal table with a clatter as he wiped synthetic grease stains from his arms. —Pack your bags, my friend. It's time for a field trip. ¡And go get Cartman's fat ass!
—¿A field trip? ¿Right now? — Shinji replied, not bothering to put down his manga and pointing with lazy indifference at the screen where the two principals were still arguing.
—Now is the perfect time. I've got a lot of things I need to do — Rémy said with a smile. —I've basically got the Tokyo sorcerers under my microscope, but I have almost no direct intel on the Kyoto headquarters. I managed to slip one of my micro-flies into the folds of that old guy's robes, but relying on a single transmitter is too limiting. We need to go to the old capital and, well, do our thing.
And more important…
Rémy glanced toward the corner of his tactical board, where a rather ugly, yet unmistakably recognizable, drawing of a Jujutsu Kaisen character was taped up. It was a character whose story and tragic end had moved him enough to earn a little spot in his heart, and who had almost convinced him to watch the anime.
Mechamaru. Or, for the initiated, Kokichi Muta.
The boy had entered the world afflicted by an extreme Heavenly Restriction. He lacked a right arm and legs below the knees, and his skin was so photosensitive that even moonlight caused burns and constant pain in every pore. Yet, in exchange for that suffering, he possessed a colossal amount of cursed energy and a transmission range so absurd that he could pilot mechanical puppets across the entire country from the dim confines of his medical bath.
It was the tragic tale of a boy who longed for a normal body so he could walk alongside his classmates, but whose destiny was marred by misfortune and the hatred of a malevolent cat.
However, beyond all that, Rémy saw Mechamaru as a veritable gold mine. That robotic body was an interface driven by remote transmissions, and that was the true reason for his journey. He needed to locate Mechamaru before the events of the original story destroyed him.
He intended to use the analytical power of the Eye of Butters to scan the android's anatomy from top to bottom, visually dissect its joint system, understand how it channeled energy to simulate muscle movement, and record the exact frequency of its neural link. If he could unravel those secrets and adapt them to the design of his own miniature EVA, he would solve, in one fell swoop, the hydraulic spasms, latency lags, and voltage failures that had been plaguing his prototype.
And perhaps, do something more.
A knot in Rémy's stomach made him shudder. And then there was a third reason justifying the trip to the ancient capital. Killing cursed spirits.
Despite the obscene amount of credits he had amassed through his trading network, the system's virtual currency wasn't everything. No matter how compulsively he refreshed the shop, the coveted summoning token, that item of extreme rarity needed to launch an expedition, obtain exclusive weapons, or summon new characters, refused to appear in the catalog or as a reward for his efforts, as if it owed money to Rémy himself. The last time the system deigned to toss him one of those golden tickets was right after he had finished annihilating, purging, and processing the very last cursed spirit haunting his village.
And that was precisely his current problem, he had done such a ridiculously impeccable cleanup job that the place had become spiritually sterilized.
Ironically, Rémy had fallen victim to his own success. If he wanted to acquire those prized tokens to keep expanding his absurd arsenal and recruiting allies, he had no choice but to step out of his comfort zone, invade the Kyoto school's backyard, and use its streets as his new personal farming ground.
To do that, he needed to go completely unnoticed. Or rather, become utterly unrecognizable. Growing up as the only boy among nine sisters and one single-mother had been an exhausting experience, yet one that offered unexpected advantages.
Every day served as intensive, involuntary training in the art of styling. Years of being dragged in as a guinea pig, listening to heated debates about skin undertones, and being forced to help fix imperfections before every party had turned him into an absolute master of the makeup kit and someone with a genuine fear of social events.
His ability to bury stubborn pimples under invisible layers of concealer, master facial contouring, and highlight the unique beauty of any face bordered, in his very humble opinion, on professional-grade skill.
Hours later, in front of the train station in Kyoto, the automatic carriage doors slid wide open.
In its feminine form, Rémy hopped out of the train car, adjusting a radiant golden-blonde wig cut with bangs and long, voluminous ringlets that cascaded over his shoulders.
His outfit was topped off with harlequin-patterned argyle thigh-highs and black heeled ankle boots. Regaining his stance, he planted his feet wide to anchor his center of gravity, elegantly tucked his left arm behind his back, and extended his right arm forward, flashing a peace sign with his fingers pointing straight ahead.
—¡Hotaru Kurumi, r-ready for a-action! — he exclaimed, forcing a slight, high-pitched stutter to fully immerse himself in his new persona.
He glanced over his shoulder, awaiting the triumphant entrance of his loyal guardians and friends so he wouldn't be the only idiot on the scene, but his rehearsed smile froze on his face. The fear of public embarrassment, something that terrified him, threatened to wash over him all at once.
—Uh... ¿Guys? — he asked, breaking his pose to turn and face them fully. —¿Where are your costumes?
—I'm not wearing that garbage.
Cartman declared this with his arms crossed, while Shinji nodded in agreement beside him.
—Come on, guys. Please... I n-need you to do this with me...
All around him, the tide of people moving along the busy platform barely spared him a sideways glance before continuing with their routines. In such a vast metropolis, encountering someone dressed in that kind of alternative fashion wasn't an oddity worth stopping for. At most, the locals considered it a peculiar yet aesthetically pleasing style.
But Rémy was convinced that every damn passerby was secretly judging him, muttering snidely behind his back and whipping out their phones to record him in ultra-high definition. After all, it was the first time in his entire existence that he had worn a skirt in public.
And even though his current body was that of a girl, posing no real physical obstacle, the ingrained habits from his life as a man crashed head-on with every layer of makeup.
«Ugh... I think I should have picked a different costume», he thought with bitter, belated regret, feeling his cheeks burn beneath his makeup.
The atmosphere in Kyoto was radically different from the peaceful, controlled solitude he had grown accustomed to in Wazuka, and it was far more overwhelming than he remembered from his past life. There were students having fun in karaoke bars and restaurants, stressed-out, balding salarymen rushing to work, and an incessant cacophony of engines, voices, and urban clamor that drilled right into his ears.
—Yeah, I hate this — he muttered, reluctantly adjusting the ruffles of his dress. —I just want to go home.
In any case, he planned to stay for a few days, five at most, before the excuse of a spiritual journey of self-discovery and healing, which he had sold to his family, stopped working.
Rémy adjusted the straps of Joel's backpack over his shoulders. Although the system had originally classified it as an F- Rank item, it operated on the exact same logic as it had in its game of origin. From the outside, it looked like a plain, boring backpack, but it functioned as an inventory, allowing him to store a limited yet handy assortment of tools, whatever he felt like tossing in, without the bag's bulk changing or the weight wrecking his back.
A translucent system panel unfolded directly within his field of vision. Mentally navigating the backpack's inventory, he selected slot number four and materialized a small metal box in his hands. The moment he lifted the lid, dozens of Linces lit up their tiny optical sensors. They activated in unison and shot off in a flurry, scattering rapidly amidst the bustle of Kyoto to begin weaving their surveillance network over the city.
With the network deployed in the air, the farming plan was simple. Walk the capital's streets like a madman until running into an enemy. To his satisfaction, the monster spawn rate in Kyoto turned out to be a marvel compared to his hometown.
Less than five minutes into his patrol, the first victi... the first cursed spirit, emerged from its filthy hiding place. It was an amalgamation of arms and legs lurking in an alleyway, attempting to lure an innocent boy of about eight, using deceptive sounds and guttural gurgling, into the gloom of an abandoned commercial building.
«Those bastards», Rémy thought, a wave of nausea churning in his stomach.
Thinking themselves clever and untouchable enough to dare take a child's life and utterly destroy a family, leaving them to spend the rest of their days searching for a ghost.
¡Not while he was still breathing!
—¡Uclocloya, Uclocloya, uhhh Caribou!
Rémy lunged toward the gloom of the abandoned building. He sprinted across the asphalt with both arms raised above his head, letting out a battle cry.
Cartman refused to be associated with such a lowlife. He turned on his heel, ready to take off on his own. However, he had barely taken a couple of steps when Shinji stopped him, gripping his shoulder firmly.
—We're in this together.
—¡Forget it! — Cartman struck Shinji squarely in the testicles.
As the young pilot doubled over and fell to his knees, Eric seized the opportunity. Without looking back for even a second, he sprinted away, disappearing into the bustling streets of Kyoto, heading toward a destination known only to him.
Oblivious to the drama unfolding outside, the eight-year-old boy inside the building backed away, trembling, until he hit a cracked concrete wall. His eyes were wide and brimming with tears; his breath was caught in a knot of terror in his throat, rendering him unable to move. He was completely paralyzed, his own vocal cords refusing to let him scream for help. Before him, the curse's putrid amalgam rose up, twisting and drooling a dark, foul-smelling substance as it opened a maw filled with jagged teeth.
Just as the monstrosity lunged forward to devour him in a single bite, a shadow landed heavily behind it. A barely perceptible metallic glint sliced through the stagnant air.
With a swift motion, Rémy launched a thin, strong piano wire, wrapping it around the curse's thick neck. He gripped the ends with both gloved hands and pulled backward with all the strength he could muster in his lanky arms. The monster let out a strangled shriek, halting its attack abruptly just centimeters from the boy's face. The cursed creature began to thrash violently from side to side, clawing frantically at the air and scratching at its own neck in a desperate attempt to free itself from the razor-sharp thread that was sinking ever deeper into its flesh.
Rémy didn't yield an inch, not even when his arms began to go numb. He planted the heels of his boots firmly against the creature's back, using it as a fulcrum to gain leverage while resisting the monstrosity's violent thrashing.
—¿So, you like picking on defenseless people, huh, you little piece of shiet?
he shouted with hatred, pulling the cable taut as the spirit's grotesque head threatened to be severed. The curse finally gave out. It let out a last gasp before collapsing to the ground, its body gradually disintegrating.
Rémy breathed heavily. It was too much for a body unaccustomed to such physical exertion, but, swallowing the sharp pain throbbing in his joints, he slowly approached the boy, who remained huddled against the wall, trembling. He selected the fifth slot in Joel's backpack and the Neuralizer materialized directly into his gloved palm.
—Don't worry, buddy. This would be but a moment.
The flash illuminated the room.
Two days later, sitting on the edge of a modest building's rooftop, Rémy massaged his aching calves while reviewing the system logs. His elegant gothic outfit had long since been replaced due to wear and tear, but the results of his hunt in Kyoto filled him with as much satisfaction as exhaustion.
One hundred and twenty curses exterminated so far. He had been forced to use the Neuralizer on dozens of defenseless people, from office workers trapped in the daily grind and students who took the wrong shortcut home to incredibly unlucky children, to instantly wipe away the psychological trauma of having nearly been devoured. Rémy would then vanish into the shadows, leaving them in blissful ignorance while he walked away with the experience points for Cartman and some credits.
In the end, it turned out he was right.
The token danced between his fingers, waiting impatiently for the moment Rémy would press it. But he had certainly learned his lesson the hard way.
He wasn't about to repeat the disasters of the past. Opening a holographic interface, he used atmospheric data triangulated by his swarm of Lince drones to calculate the timing and trajectory of the next electrical storm. He needed the perfect natural screen. He chose a densely wooded mountain range well outside Kyoto, terrain remote, rugged, and bleak enough to ensure no stray passerby could catch a glimpse of the gigantic, telltale dome that the excursions generated whenever he claimed a reward.
Yet, geographic isolation and hostile weather were nowhere near enough to soothe his paranoia. Rémy took his precautions to the extreme, dedicating some of his resources to crafting a sturdy forged-steel chest the size of a small treasure box. He designed it with double walls, lining the interior with thick layers of high-density acoustic foam, insulation panels, and airtight vulcanized rubber seals.
In theory, it could contain the blast wave of a grenade or the roar of a lion without letting a single decibel escape. A few hours later, he finally reached the mountain range and set up the chest. He carefully placed Newt's suitcase inside, and gave Shinji detailed instructions on what to do should anyone approach while he was completing the stupid challenge that would be imposed the moment the excursion began.
He would climb into the suitcase, have the mechanisms seal the steel chest completely, blocking any escape of air or sound, and only then, while absolutely and doubly isolated, would he dare to press that blasted token. And so, while Cartman was tied to a stake for being a damn disobedient brat, Rémy walked in.
Or rather, he would have, had it not been for the terrible shiver that ran through his entire body.
Rémy prided himself on having a good memory. Although, at times, it proved to be selective, often burying what was truly important beneath tons of trivialities or blocking out entire events whenever his ego or convenience demanded it. Yet, whenever his survival instinct detected a threat, a great many details would come flooding back in an instant.
And in that precise millisecond, on the peripheral holographic screen broadcasting the N-2421 signal from the Lince swarm at the Tokyo complex, the mini-spy, a robotic fly so ridiculously tiny that, had it not been linked to his network, even Rémy himself couldn't have spotted it with the naked eye, came to a halt.
A man was watching it.
He wasn't looking in the general direction of the drone, nor was he gazing absently at the view or staring at a blind spot on the wall while lost in thought about life.
It was one of those moments when a memory slammed into him with full force. Yet, come to think of it, one didn't need a brain capable of retaining lines of code from an obsolete manual, or the exact cadence of a passerby's voice from a decade ago, to recognize the one man, or at least the most important one, with white hair who was now smiling at him, his head tilted to the side.