The girl who finally returned home
Welcome back.
The old, worn room door was slowly pushed open. A girl in a gray coat ambled in from outside, casually placing the convenience store bag in her hand on the shoe rack. Kazumi first unzipped her coat, then bent down, took off her shoes, and changed into soft slippers for home. She walked into the house, which seemed like it hadn’t been entered for a long time.
Looking up at the dim ceiling light, which appeared especially dim in the night sky, Kazumi felt a sense of apprehension. Although it had only been an evening, the events she had experienced felt like several months had passed. Returning to this comfortable and safe home now gave her the illusion that everything was over and she just needed to rest well.
“Phew—”
She patted her cheeks, pushing away all those unrealistic fantasies from her mind. The girl understood that time was the most important thing for her right now. She picked up the convenience store bag beside her, turned to lock the door, and then walked into the bedroom without looking back.
“Cough—cough-cough-cough-cough!”
In Kazumi’s all-black bedroom, in front of the desk, the skinny little girl was coughing violently. On the desk lay a cigarette butt, which had not been burning for long, and a notebook filled with ink, which had been scribbled over.
“Is smoking this difficult?”
While helplessly complaining about the acrid, bitter taste she had just experienced, Kazumi frantically tidied up the mess on the desk. “Little Black” inside her also emerged from her abdomen at the right time. It opened its long, thin mouth and, together with the girl, swallowed all the trash into its belly.
Then Kazumi stood up, casually took out the already-opened cigarette pack from the convenience store bag, and threw it into “Little Black’s” mouth. She also took out a lollipop that had been prepared beforehand, unwrapped it, and put it directly into her mouth. The sweet strawberry flavor spread from her nostrils, diluting the bitterness caused by the burning tobacco. Kazumi then turned to the window beside her and gently opened it, wanting to dispel the pungent smell of tobacco burning in the room.
“A complete mess.”
…
The fresh air, carrying a hint of coldness, drifted in from outside the window, dispelling the suffocating smell in the room and cooling down the girl’s originally chaotic and irritable emotions a bit. Kazumi was in a state of confusion. The impact and volume of information from the day, or rather, this one night, were overwhelming even for Kazumi. This was why the troubled girl had broken convention and chosen to buy a pack of cigarettes from the convenience store to calm down.
This was once a cheap way to relax for her, as someone who had one foot in society in her previous life. But for the girl now, whether it was her habit of smoking or her soul-transformed body, which had a calming effect, this thing tasted in Kazumi’s mouth like a burning log, only acrid and foul-smelling, with no other sensation.
“It’s good I don’t touch drugs, or anything else.”
Sighing, Kazumi knew she was grasping at straws. To put it simply, the calming effect of her soul-transformed body was equivalent to an enhanced version of smoking. She had directly placed her hopes on this bad habit from her previous life. Her hopes were merely to alleviate the overwhelming pressure she was feeling, so much so that even the special effects of her Rin-like eyes were not working properly.
Then, the coldness of the night wind suppressed the烦闷 in her heart. The girl bit down hard on the lollipop in her mouth, crushing the originally round candy into a sweeter, more crumbly piece. Kazumi closed the window and walked back, flipping open the notebook again. Biting the lollipop, she turned her gaze to the row of things neatly arranged in front of the notebook. These were all Kazumi’s gains from today: a standard-sized USB drive that showed no distinguishing features, a black glass test tube, and an irregularly shaped crystal filled with dark blue energy.
“Things my parents left behind…”
The girl’s gaze lingered on the USB drive and the test tube for a long time. From her previous conversations with the leader of Kuromon, Kazumi understood to some extent what these things were for. To be honest, whether it was the content on the USB drive or the potion in the test tube, which had the effect of eliminating abilities, they were more of a纪念意义 to Kazumi than practical significance. But the girl’s thoughts couldn’t be pulled away from the items before her. The memories buried deep in her heart seemed to have opened a door, pouring out uncontrollably.
“I was too foolish, thinking I could plan an outcome like this for others, and got myself involved.”
Rubbing her slightly sore eyes, Kazumi said helplessly, not knowing if she was talking to herself or someone else. Shaking her head, she forcefully ended the memories in her mind. The girl firmly closed the box and then looked at the USB drive beside it.
“There’s no computer at home to play this. Information of this level can’t be viewed at an internet cafe, or borrowed from Zhenyi? With his conditions, he must have a laptop. Hmm, that won’t work either. It seems I’ll have to buy a new one myself.”
This was something Kazumi underestimated at the time. The leader of Kuromon should not have expected that the girl, who had reached such a state within the organization, was still a miserable commoner with nothing in reality, not even owning a computer. But this was not necessarily bad news for Kazumi. To be honest, knowing herself, if she were to open the content on the USB drive right now and see the appearance and words of her parents, she probably wouldn’t have the mood to do anything else all night. It was better to leave it all for later. After all, Kazumi had already come this far, and she couldn’t completely give up her abilities. Not to mention, the girl had more pressing matters waiting for her.
“This one…”
After composing herself, Kazumi finally pushed the test tube potion and the USB drive to the side of the desk, leaving only a bare, bright red crystal quietly placed on the desk. The dark blue ice energy in the crystal continuously surged. Just the energy Kazumi could feel was far more than all the ice crystals the girl had obtained before put together.
“I can only say that they live up to the title of [Great General]. Not only their abilities, but their planning mind makes me unable to resist.”
Recalling the conversation from before in the underground base, the gentleness in the girl’s eyes instantly froze. She picked up a pen with her right hand and wrote heavily in her notebook.
