Chapter 23
Genji turned and looked around the bus. His gaze swept over the terrified passengers—they were still lying on the floor, some crying, some trembling, some with vacant eyes, clearly not yet recovered from that moment between life and death.
His hand formed a very simple seal—thumb pressing against middle finger, the other three fingers naturally extended.
Reverse Cursed Technique.
A pale blue halo spread out from him, rippling through the bus like water waves. The glow was soft, not harsh, with a cool, almost minty aura.
Miracles happened.
The passengers' rapid breathing gradually calmed. Their pounding hearts returned to normal. Their muscles, tensed from fear, relaxed. The crying child stopped sobbing. The trembling elderly man's hands steadied. The person with the vacant eyes refocused.
It didn't erase their memories. It smoothed over their excessive emotional reactions and returned their minds to calm.
After all this, Genji returned to where Eriri and Utaha were.
They were still sitting—the sudden stop had just thrown them out of their seats. Utaha's black stockings had been torn a little at the knee, revealing the white skin beneath, oozing a bit of blood. But she didn't seem to notice. She was just staring at the spot where Genji had just been standing, her crimson eyes filled with indescribable emotions.
Eriri wasn't much better. Her forehead had bumped against the back of the front seat, raising a small bump. Her golden twin tails were half undone—a mess. But right now, she didn't care about her image at all. She was just looking at Genji, her lips trembling slightly.
"You…" She said hoarsely. "You just… with your bare hands… stopped a bus?"
"To be precise, it was a buffer layer created with cursed energy," Genji corrected, his voice still calm. "The principle is similar to a non-Newtonian fluid—it becomes liquid under slow pressure and solid under instantaneous impact. I made this cursed energy layer particularly 'sticky.' The stronger the impact, the harder it became."
He paused and added, "But it was costly. The main thing was controlling the cursed energy density precisely—too thin and it wouldn't hold, too dense and it would have bounced the bus away. Fortunately, this bus wasn't going too fast. If it had been twenty kilometers faster, I would have had to use other methods."
Eriri opened her mouth to say something, but all her words seemed pale and powerless in the face of what had actually happened.
Stopping a bus with bare hands.
Exorcising a cursed spirit like it was nothing.
Casually calming an entire busload of people's emotions.
Things like this were as ordinary as "I ate bread for breakfast today" coming out of Genji's mouth.
"You…" Utaha suddenly spoke, her voice very soft but extremely clear. "Are you 'Genji'?"
She couldn't see Genji, but she could feel him—when that cool breath had passed by just now, the pain from the scrape on her knee had decreased by more than half. Moreover, Eriri was clearly talking to some "entity."
Genji looked at Utaha and raised an eyebrow.
"She's sharper than I thought," he said to Eriri. "When ordinary people encounter something like this, their first reaction is to deny reality or look for a 'reasonable' explanation. But she directly accepted the existence of the supernatural and started reasoning about the details."
Eriri relayed these words to Utaha.
The black-haired girl gave a faint, self-deprecating smile. "Because I write novels. Novelists are best at constructing worldviews and finding logical holes within them. What just happened cannot be explained by existing physical laws, so that means… the setting needs to be updated."
She stood up, holding onto the seat, and brushed the dust off her skirt. The skin exposed through the hole in her black stockings was no longer bleeding, and the scrape was healing at a speed visible to the naked eye—another effect of the Reverse Cursed Technique.
"So," Utaha turned to Eriri, "what do you know?"
Eriri told her some of the basics about sorcerers and cursed spirits. Although she had only learned about it all yesterday, that didn't stop her from acting like an experienced teacher of the inner world.
After listening, Utaha was silent for a few seconds.
"Can I… see him?" She suddenly asked, her tone serious. "Not through Eriri as an interpreter. I want to see him with my own eyes."
Genji thought for a moment, then nodded.
He stepped forward, and his figure slowly emerged from emptiness.
First came the indigo sleeves of his hunting robes, shimmering like silk in the morning light. Then his black hair, tied up, the white jade hairpin, and his slender figure. Finally, his face—a face Eriri already knew, but one completely unfamiliar to Utaha.
Zen'in Genji appeared for three seconds.
Three seconds were enough for Utaha to see his appearance clearly—young, handsome, with the calmness of a thousand years between his brows, and a faint hint of bright curiosity typical of youth. His eyes were especially unique—not pure black, but a deep indigo, with faint lights flowing within his pupils, like stars in the night sky.
After three seconds, he disappeared again.
Utaha stood there, silent for a long time.
Her expression was complex—shock, confusion, acceptance, and a certain… excitement. It was like an archaeologist suddenly unearthing the ruins of a legend, or an astronomer suddenly discovering a new galaxy.
"A thousand years ago…" She murmured. "The Heian period… sorcerers… so the 'onmyoudou,' 'shikigami,' and 'curse exorcism' described in those ancient texts… it's all real?"
"Most of it is real, but there are also exaggerations and misunderstandings," Genji's voice sounded in her ear—this time, it was directed straight to her, using some trick to make his voice audible in the air. "But we can discuss the details later. For now, we need to deal with the aftermath."
He looked out the bus window.
Sirens were very close. Flashing red and blue lights were clearly visible on the other side of the street. An ambulance had also arrived, and paramedics were getting out to prepare for initial examinations of the passengers.
"The situation with this bus needs to be explained," Genji said. "The brakes and steering wheel suddenly failed, then suddenly recovered, and finally stopped inexplicably in the middle of the road… that's too suspicious."
"Can you… modify memories?" Eriri asked quietly. "Like in the movies?"
"Yes."
He formed hand seals again—this time with both hands simultaneously. His fingers flew, moving so fast they left afterimages.
Invisible ripples spread through the bus, covering a radius of about fifty meters.
Everyone within that range—the passengers, the police and paramedics who had arrived, even the pedestrians watching from the roadside—received a set of "reasonable" information:
The brake system had suddenly failed, but the driver was experienced and at the last moment made an emergency turn, causing the bus to scrape against the guardrail and stop. Although it was thrilling, no one was seriously injured—a blessing in disguise.
As for the black hands and the person who appeared out of nowhere and stopped the bus with his bare hands… those memories weren't erased, but "rationalized." The passengers would think they were hallucinations caused by excessive fear—illusions common in near-death experiences.
"It's done," Genji lowered his hands. "The human brain is very good at self-deception. Give them a reasonable explanation, and they will automatically ignore the unreasonable parts."
Utaha nodded and said nothing.
The police and paramedics reached the side of the bus and began evacuating the passengers, checking for injuries, and investigating the situation. As Genji had expected, although the passengers' descriptions were a bit muddled, they mainly revolved around the core narrative: brake failure—driver's emergency turn—lucky stop.
No one mentioned the black hands anymore. And even if someone did, they would be drowned out by others saying, "You were definitely scared and confused."
Eriri and Utaha also answered a few simple questions. They said the same things and tacitly cooperated, not raising any suspicion.
Twenty minutes later, they stood on the sidewalk, watching the bus being towed away by a wrecker. The accident scene was gradually being cleared.
"I'm going to be late," Utaha glanced at her phone—8:20 AM. The first period was already halfway through.
"If we hurry now, we can still catch the second period," Eriri said. "But… how do we get there?"
They looked at each other, then at the "empty air" beside them.
Genji sighed.
"I know, I know," he said. "One last time. In the future, you'll have to wake up earlier. Don't expect me to be your humanoid taxi."
He appeared for a moment, reaching out both hands—one hand grabbing Eriri's wrist, the other pressing against Utaha's shoulder. Although Utaha couldn't see it, she could feel a gentle, lifting force.
"Close your eyes," he said.
They did.
In the next second, the sensation of weightlessness returned.
This time, Genji used a higher speed—after all, time was of the essence. Shadow Crane's massive figure streaked through the clouds, almost turning into a single streak of indigo light.
The wind whistled past their ears, but they were protected by a barrier of cursed energy and didn't feel the strong airflow.
A few seconds later, Toyonoki Academy appeared below.
Genji chose to land in a secluded corner behind the school building—few people usually came here. Discarded sports equipment lay in the corners, and several cherry blossom trees cast dense shadows.
After landing, Utaha opened her eyes and smoothed down her long hair and skirt, which had been ruffled by the wind. Her movements were very calm, as if she hadn't just flown two kilometers through the air, but had simply walked there.
"Thank you," she said to the air.
"You're welcome," Genji's voice sounded in her ear. "But I suggest you tidy yourselves up—Eriri, your hair is loose. Utaha, your stockings are torn."
Eriri quickly took out a small mirror to fix her hair. Utaha looked down at her knee—the hole in her black stockings was not small, and the white skin was particularly conspicuous against the black fabric.
"Is there a way?" She asked.
Genji reached out, his fingertips hovering over Utaha's knee. A very fine thread of cursed energy penetrated the fibers of the stocking, causing the torn edges to "grow," intertwine, and repair themselves.
A few seconds later, the hole was gone. The stockings looked like new. Even the scrape that had been oozing blood was completely healed.
Utaha touched the repaired area of the stocking. The texture was exactly the same as the original.
After they had tidied themselves up, they headed toward the school building. The hallway was quiet—the first period was still in session. They easily made it to the back door of first-year Class C. Eriri was about to go in when—
"Sawamura-san."
The homeroom teacher's voice came from behind.
They froze and slowly turned around.
The homeroom teacher was a middle-aged woman in her forties, with gold-rimmed glasses and a serious expression. She stood in the hallway with a lesson plan in her hand, her gaze sweeping over the two of them.
"It's already halfway through the first period," she said. "Can you explain why you're late?"
Eriri's mind raced—traffic jam? Broken alarm? Feeling unwell? Which reason was more convincing?
Utaha spoke first.
"Teacher, there was a bus accident on the way here," her voice was calm, with the right amount of lingering fear. "The brakes suddenly failed. The bus almost crashed at an intersection. Although we were lucky and everything turned out fine, I was frightened, so I'm late."
She was telling the truth, just omitting the key details.
The homeroom teacher was stunned. She looked at them carefully—Eriri's face was indeed a little pale, and although her hair was tied up, the hair tie wasn't her usual elegant style, but a plain black elastic band. Utaha's skirt had slight traces of dust—although she had brushed it off, a closer inspection still revealed it.
"An accident?" The teacher's tone softened slightly. "Are you okay? Any injuries?"
"No, just scared," Utaha said. "I already went to the hospital for a check-up. The doctor said there were no problems."
That was also the truth—Genji's Reverse Cursed Technique was far more effective than any hospital.
The teacher was silent for a few seconds, then finally nodded. "Alright, go back to your seats first. Bring me a medical certificate after class—if you have one."
"Yes," Utaha lied without changing her expression. "I'll bring it this afternoon."
The two of them slipped into the classroom as if granted amnesty. Students threw curious glances their way, but no one dared to talk during class.
Eriri sat down in her seat and let out a heavy sigh of relief. She looked out the window—Genji had already appeared, "standing" there, looking at her with his arms crossed and a narrow smile on his face.