Novel Bin Chapter 11
Welcome to Underground
Forced and Artificial \'Boy Meets Girl\'
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Takahashi Shouta-kun (14), second year junior high school student living in the Adachi district of downtown Tokyo, is the Amaterasu member candidate that I submitted as a rival to Touka-chan. I had hoped that, after our first time recruiting, we would increase our efforts, but now that we\'re on our second round of recruiting, the method we\'ll be using has become clear. Kaburagi-san and I plan to recruit people one-by-one until we get used to managing a secret organization.
Let\'s, as we usually do, set up the profile and examine what our psychokinetic investigation revealed. Additionally, since Shouta-kun is a boy, Kaburagi-san\'s heartless prohibition of peeping on people in the toilet or while changing clothes doesn\'t apply. Well, I won\'t peep on him anyhow, since, if I have a choice, I don\'t really want to see a fan-service scene starring a male.
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Takahashi Shouta, age: 14. Short black hair, average height and build. Born and raised in a condo in Adachi, Tokyo. He\'s part of a family of four: both parents, himself, and a brother that\'s older than him by 3 years. Grades: below average. He doesn\'t study even if his parents repeatedly tell him to, which results in him studying right before the test, if he studies at all. His reflexes are slightly better than average. For someone who\'s part of the \'going home club\'1, it\'s passable. His hobbies are; watching TV, playing mobile games, going to karaoke, and reading manga. Recently, he can often be seen searching for erotic content while uneasily keeping an eye on his surroundings.
He has an ordinary friend group. After school, they usually do things like going out to a hamburger place, buy games that they\'ll later play together on their days off, or go do karaoke. Before the test, they\'ll gather together for a supposed study group, but it usually ends up in them idly chatting about this and that. It seems like there are no girls in this friend group, but it\'s not that girls are banned from the group, it\'s just that none of them have had a girlfriend for longer than 3 months.
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His personal history so far has been super-ordinary. It\'s not especially enriching, nor has he faced any misfortune or adversity. He seems to be enjoying his life and having fun, so much so that he doesn\'t even seem to be experiencing any sort of existential crisis either. After investigating the personal histories of Kaburagi-san and Touka-chan, it\'s so ordinary that it almost feels too ordinary. But still! That\'s really all there is to Shouta-kun\'s personal history.
There\'s nothing strange about him! If I had to name something, then I guess I would say his reason for breaking up with his previous girlfriend; "Because she wouldn\'t allow me to rub her breasts", but that\'s not a noteworthy thing given that he\'s a male junior high school student.
There\'s no dark past! He hasn\'t faced any persecution or been bullied in any way. All of his family members are still alive, and though they sometimes argue, it never reaches the point of it being abusive or violent.
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It seems that while Kaburagi-san understands my choice, she cannot agree with it, but that\'s fine. To me, Shouta-kun is bored and desires the extraordinary ~ *ku*, I understand. Manga and mobile games are amusing, so he is entertained to some extent. But it\'s easy to get tired of them, so he ends up vaguely unsatisfied.
Reading a battle manga and wanting to be in it, I was also like that! It makes your blood hot. But, it\'s impossible. You can\'t do it. There\'s a wall called reality standing in the way. A fantasy world full of all kinds of events, beautiful girls, playing an active role, adventure, romance, being the strongest! We\'ve grown accustomed to this type of exciting stimuli, so much so that the reality that we should\'ve found fulfilling has become unsatisfying.
It\'s an extravagant desire. Even if we already have a fulfilling life, we still want more, you know? And yet, though we\'re constantly searching for something more exciting, for the extraordinary, we don\'t even particularly make an effort! "I wonder if a beautiful girl will fall from the sky," or "I wonder if I\'ll be summoned to another world," we\'re just 100% passively waiting. We\'re just waiting, even though the real world is shit and nothing will happen unless you make it happen yourself.
Ah! My heart hurts just thinking about it!
I used to be Shouta-kun. Shouta-kun is me before my psychokinesis awakened. In modern Japan, I\'m sure there are mountains of young people, not just Shouta-kun, who don\'t know what to do with their ordinary, boring, fulfilling lives. But to Shouta-kun, an ojisan with psychokinesis and an onee-san that can stop time are going to present the (refined and cultivated version) of the extraordinary. This ojisan knows that recently, Shouta-kun has been addicted to fantasy light novels and has been exchanging them with his friends. I also know that he definitely has a notebook full of delusions and is hiding it in the bottom of his desk drawer.
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Our \'introduction to the extraordinary\' for Shouta-kun was carefully prepared. First of all, we got Touka-chan to transfer into the same private junior high school as Shouta-kun and even managed to get her put into the same class. Here too, the power of Kaburagi-san\'s wealth was on full display. She donated a large amount of money even though she had no reason to; she didn\'t have a child enrolled there or was an alumnus of the school, after all. As compensation, she asked to (secretly) have a say in the class divisions.
I was an idiot and was suspicious of this plan, but it turns out that a [Banknote Attack] can be more powerful than psychokinesis. Kaburagi-san\'s clever speech bulldozed flat any resistance. I was planning to resort to using unnatural methods (the worst kind of psychokinesis) to secretly switch out the transfer documents and class placement sheets that were stored in the staff room, so I was glad that we were able to take care of it with a frontal attack (money).
After that, we had to introduce Touka-chan to where she would be moving to. She had moved into the company owned house, which \'just happened\' to be right next to Shouta-kun\'s condo. It would be difficult to create a "shocking reveal of the beautiful female transfer student\'s secret" development if they didn\'t head home in the same direction.
Touka-chan and Shouta-kun need to both be in the same class and head home in the same direction after school. This is very important. If one or both of these things doesn\'t happen, they won\'t be able to encounter each other, even on holidays. Shouta-kun would graduate middle school without noticing the beautiful girl until it\'s too late, and nothing would happen. I’m troubled because this kind of thing usually happens.
Now then. The advance preparation is over. It\'s time to commence operation \'Boy Meets Girl\'.
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"Shouta-kun\'s class was excited. A beautiful girl had transferred in over summer vacation. Touka-chan was the source of their excitement. Due to Touka-chan receiving beauty advice from Kaburagi-san, after summer vacation, she looked like a completely different person. She was taught about make-up, became concerned about her appearance, her personality had softened due to the improvements in her situation at home and having adults she could rely on, and she possessed self-confidence due to having superpowers.
She was different from her normal self, more confident, more composed. Her fellow students sensed this atmosphere from her, and Touka-chan instantly became immensely popular with her class. During break times, she ended up surrounded by other girls and got bombarded with questions. A guy tried to approach her using the excuse that he was assigned to help her out and to show her around the school. The girls attacked him and kept him away from Touka-chan, as if driven by some sense of duty.
She was incredibly popular. Touka-chan interacted with them calmly, even though she had become a bit tense due to her quiet nature. I was worried that she would be persecuted by the girls because they were jealous of how popular she was with the guys, just like she was at her old school, but it seems my fears were groundless.
My heart was warmed by the fact that her class seemed nice and kind, but Kaburagi-san explained,
"They\'re only making a fuss because they can tell that they can\'t compete with Touka-chan and don\'t need to reject her because she lives in an entirely different world than them. And their merit with the guys increases when they are friends with a cute girl."
I despaired. Doesn\'t the world\'s darkness already exist within female society? How scary.
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A bishoujo that\'s like a flower on a high peak2 and somehow very mysterious. She\'s cute, and while she\'s not very good at sports, she is very diligent. That was the consensus of the class a few days after Touka-chan transferred. Additionally, Touka-chan is hiding her hobby of Buddhism. She was asked by a likeable girl "*Ne-ne*, what\'s your favorite song?" but she wasn\'t so bold as to answer that it was the Heart Sutra. She started to, but "Hea-" was the only thing that came out of her mouth.
As for Shouta-kun, like all of the other boys who tried to talk to Touka-chan, he was driven away by the girls guarding her. During swimming lessons he ogled at Touka-chan in her swimsuit, but that\'s normal for middle-school boys. The have the same route home, but the girls had even accompanied her home, so Shouta-kun ended up disappointed. Touka-chan was assigned a seat in the very back due to her being a transfer student, and is far away from Shouta-kun, whose seat is in the front. Well, I wouldn\'t have chosen Shouta-kun as a candidate to be a secret organization member if he seemed like an aggressive person who would do something like finding out where Touka-chan lives and stalking her, so it makes sense that he can\'t break through the wall of girls surrounding Touka-chan. That\'s just how it is.
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The class was restless for about a week after Touka-chan transferred, then gradually started to calm down. Shouta-kun was stubborn (well, so were most of the guys in the class), but while passively awaiting a chance to befriend Touka-chan, they started to realize that things wouldn\'t happen that easily, and became satisfied with being fortunate enough to be in the same class the school\'s number one beauty.
That satisfaction.
It\'s useless. Not good. Really not good. The story ends.
Thus, we begin the event.
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One day after school. Like always, the girls invite Touka-chan to go home with them, but, like always, Touka-chan politely refuses. She doesn\'t want to get them involved with the fight against the world\'s darkness. Touka-chan has already experienced actual combat with the world\'s darkness, and has had a total of three battles since transferring. This is so that we would make progress towards the event.
In the first battle, Touka-chan was nervous and nearly cried when she received a [Tentacle Punch], but once she got some distance, she emitted flames which caused it to flinch and weaken, and after establishing a style where she delivers a flying kick to the nucleus, she\'s managed to consistently defeat it. She\'s also able burn the nucleus to ashes by concentrating her flames at one point and gradually wearing it down.
The world\'s darkness is set up to be the embodiment of mankind\'s desire and hunger for power, which is why it targets ESP\'ers. Basically, it appears at night starting at sundown, and doesn\'t appear in places where there are a lot of people. Why? If we\'re talking about the meta, appearing unreservedly in broad daylight would cause Touka-chan to have to miss school due to being dispatched, which may cause her to have to repeat a grade if she has too many absences. Additionally, the secret organization would no longer be a secret if it appeared in a public place and caused an uproar.
So, therefore, because it\'s "mankind\'s desire for hunger for power", it supposedly on some sort of subconscious level is aware that it\'s dangerous to cause violence in a place with a lot of people. Plus, it\'s exciting to obediently go to school during the day, then beat up monsters behind the school building in the evening.
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That\'s why Touka-chan went home alone. As Touka-chan is heading home, Shouta-kun is seeing his friends off, promising to regroup with them later after he drops his things off at home. But then, on his way to the shoe-lockers, he notices a piece of paper that was dropped in the hallway. When he picks it up, he discovers that it\'s a reminder about parents\' day addressed to Touka-chan! What a coincidence! It surely can\'t be because someone used psychokinesis to secretly take the note out of Touka-chan\'s bag and perfectly timed it to drop on the floor as Shouta-kun was passing by! It must be fate!
Not a lot of time has passed since Touka-chan left school to return home. Shouta-kun hesitated a little, but instead of making the \'safe\' choice and placing it on Touka-chan\'s desk for her to find tomorrow, as I had hoped, he ran to catch up with Touka-chan. Good. It\'s a chance for him to approach and possibly befriend a cute girl. There\'s no reason to miss this opportunity.
While Shouta-kun is leaving the school, Touka-chan is having a long talk with Kaburagi-san over the phone and has stopped walking. Suddenly, Kaburagi-san cut off their conversation, and with a serious voice told Touka-chan that the boss had detected the appearance of the world\'s darkness. Kaburagi-san told Touka-chan the details, then Touka-chan, in a slightly stiff voice, acknowledged it and headed towards the scene of the crime.
As Touka-chan hung up the phone, Shouta-kun, with perfect timing, caught sight of her in the distance from behind. Touka-chan started running, her short hair fluttering in the breeze. Shouta-kun was surprised when Touka-chan suddenly started running, but he immediately chased after her. It\'s now sundown. The sky is starting to turn red. Everything\'s ready. It may not seem important, but getting the timing just right can be said to be one of the most difficult tasks for a match-pump.
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Touka-chan gradually heads toward a less crowded street, with Shouta-kun chasing after her. Shouta-kun’s legs are faster, so the difference gradually shrinks. And now, as we steadily approach a distance where his voice can reach her, Touka-chan heads into a narrow back alleyway. Naturally, Shouta-kun also rushes in shortly after. Tightly grasping the parents\' day notice in his hand, Shouta-kun took a breath and started to call out to Touka-chan, but then he saw a bishoujo in a sailor suit shooting flames out of her hands and quickly reducing what looked like some sort of bizarre black slime monster to ashes.
"Hasumi, san… ?"
"Ah!"
Takahashi Shouta, an ordinary boy, murmured while in a daze. Hasumi Touka, the beautiful transfer student, can\'t hide her face (oops), and her eyes open wide.
That day, the boy\'s ordinary life burst into flames."
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"What\'s with the narration?"
"Huh! Oh, Kaburagi-san. You should\'ve said something when you arrived."
At Amanoiwato, I was adding a bit of narration while eating some surume3 when I was caught off guard by Kaburagi-san, who had intentionally stopped time in order to enter the store unnoticed, causing me to jump out of my seat. How embarrassing.
For quite a while afterwards, Kaburagi-san had an absurdly broad grin on her face.
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Footnotes:
1: People who don\'t participate in extracurriculars after school are said to be part of the going home/go-home club, since it\'s assumed that they go home right after school.
2: Takane no hana no (高嶺の花の). Expression for a woman that\'s out of one\'s league or something that\'s unattainable.
3: Snack that\'s made of dried squid ⇒ Dried Shredded Squid