abcnovels
Chapter 8 part1
Chapter 8 part1
Welcome to Underground
The Grand Opening
Part 1
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Hasumi Touka is a second-year middle school student1 that goes to a middle school in Saitama Prefecture. Chuunibyou is the most serious at that age. Kaburagi-san seems to have investigated her personal history by hiring a private detective to stalk her on SNS, but I also used my 'psychokinetic-internet' to investigate just in case. There's no such thing as being too through when investigating the personal histories of each person invited to the secret organization 'Amaterasu'.
Even if I'm a dangerous guy for doing things like stalking middle-school girls, it can't be helped if I'm going to be giving this person a superpower. For example, as a result of doing an investigation on one of my candidates, a boy named Satou from Kanagawa Prefecture, I discovered that, every night when his parents go out, he was strangling the neck of his pet cat until it was just barely alive. And I discovered that another candidate, a girl named Nakamura from Chiba, was endlessly writing about gruesome ways to kill people she hates in her notebook instead of studying. I can't give superpowers to such dangerous people.
Therefore, it's necessary to stalk them in order to reveal their hidden nature, and determine if that hidden nature is dangerous or not. However, Kaburagi-san has prohibited stalking while they are in the bathroom or changing clothes. She was very persistent. It seems that she actually was bothered by all of the peeping I did before I reached out to her but was keeping it a secret. Forgive me.
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The results of my investigation showed that there were no particular problems in Touka-chan's personal history. Hasumi Touka is 14 years-old. She's petite, and has her black hair cut short. She lives in an apartment with both of her parents. She has no siblings, so it's a three-person family. Her grades are on the upper end of the bottom half. It seems that, by cramming right before the test, she somehow manages to pass. She's not very athletic. However, she has an excellent sense of balance and a flexible body, so her movements while dancing and doing calisthenics during P.E are really good.
Touka-chan's family first starting having problems when her father's salary decreased. Father Hasumi is a diligent and honest man, but he doesn't have a good understanding of the general essentials of business. As a result, he couldn't get ahead in the company without also amassing a lot of expenses. He's good at doing everyday routine work, so he's been able to maintain his position at the company, but he's bad at dealing with unexpected situations and new challenges.
Because Father Hasumi has been unable to get promoted, and Mother Hasumi, being incredibly dissatisfied by the current unavoidable state of affairs, works part-time during the weekdays at the supermarket. Every night, Father Hasumi comes home from work exhausted and spouting curses, which puts a damper on their dinner and causes the living room to become gloomy. Fights happen often as well. They say things like, "Don't ever become like your mother", or, "Never get involved with a man as useless as your father". Touka-chan is not directly abused. But it's painful to watch and listen to it, even if Touka-chan has already gotten so accustomed to it that she's able to read the signs that a fight will break out and quickly take refuge in her room.
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Because she was raised in such a household, Touka-chan's character has also become distorted. If she gets along well with her mother, her father is unhappy; if she enjoys spending time with her father, her mother tries to separate them. This makes it difficult for her at home, so she tries to avoid going there. On the other hand, she's also not able to kill time by playing with her friends. Touka-chan was alone.
When she was in elementary school, her father took a day off work to come visit her class instead of her mother, who had caught a cold. Her father behaved strangely, and since then her father's strange behavior became the standard gag throughout the entire school. This resulted in her having no friends. Calm and quiet, Touka-chan has become asocial and taciturn in order to avoid people.
It didn't help that she also has a nice face. I wouldn't say that she's extremely beautiful, but she's cute enough to probably compete with the 1st and 2nd rank beauties in her class or grade at school. She's suited to reading a book at the base of a tree while being surrounded by small animals. When boys seemed to become aware of her appearance and started to make passes at her, this sped up the persecution of Touka-chan by the dark side of female society who weren't pleased by that. Girls are scary.
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A depressing and gray adolescence.
Parents who are unreliable.
There are no friends either.
The teacher cannot be depended on.
The stress builds up gradually. The impulse to seek for an outlet for these negative emotions grows.
And now, Touka-chan, who has reached her limit, has awoken to Buddhism.
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I feel like there's a leap of logic at the end there. However, as far as I can tell from my investigation via stalking and psychokinetically searching the house, that's the truth.
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Touka-chan starts every morning with sutra chanting. It seems like she does it in a low voice so her parents, who are asleep in the next room, don't hear her, but she does it every morning without fail. One of the teachings of Buddhism is to 'never lie', so Touka-chan absolutely never tells lies. Sometimes you are forced to lie in human relationships, but in that situation, Touka-chan merely falls silent.
Her after-school routine is especially interesting. After school, Touka-chan makes statues of Buddha by carving rocks that are lying on the banks of the Arakawa2 river. Although it's only at the level of amateur sculpting, neither rain nor wind stop her from putting her utmost effort into it. According to what I heard when I eavesdropped a bit on her talking to herself, it seems that she does this "for the sake of increasing virtue".
She certainly seems very virtuous (I feel that she could rival Buddha himself). It may not be altogether foolish to believe in the 'divine protection' of Buddha, since the reason that Touka-chan received an invitation is that the sharp-eyed Kaburagi-san discovered a photograph of her riverside Buddha statue circulating on SNS and traced it back to her. If Touka-chan, who's completely devoted to Buddhism, becomes disqualified from joining the secret organization due to the results of the investigation of her personal history, Japanese middle-and-high-school students who are completely lacking in virtue are also out. Of course, the investigation was perfectly fine, though.
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One day at around noon during the middle of summer, we finished our last planning meeting, and Kaburagi-san, who was wearing her favorite black gothic dress, nervously got into her car. She was moving to Saitama Prefecture after this in order to pretend to 'accidentally' come into contact with Touka-chan. With this, she will be able to smoothly flow into offering her an invitation. I will be returning to 'Amanoiwato', and will play my role in the production by maintaining long-distance contact with my psychokinesis.
There's also the major task of inconspicuously shooting the home video. It's the opening scene of the world’s first supernatural secret organization, after all, so it's important to document it. If you don't record your memories while you're making them, you're likely to remember them wrong.
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Just before Kaburagi-san got into her car and put on her seatbelt, she hesitated a little and said,
"I was wondering whether or not to tell you, but I guess I will. In truth, Touka-chan is my second candidate."
"What did you say…?"
In other words, there was someone who was a good deal more appropriate for a secret organization than Touka-chan? Kaburagi-san continues to be apologetic,
"Do you know about 'Mrs. Malik'? She was a self-proclaimed psychic. A few years ago, there was an unnatural collapse at her home. I'm certain that it wasn't caused by someone setting explosives or by an earthquake since it was newly built; the way the house fell apart, it was like it was crushed flat by some terrible force. Just before the incident there seemed to be a visitor who hid his face and identity. I thought that that person may be the second natural psychic after Sago-san, but I looked it up, and I can't find their identity ?"
I was too stunned to listen to the end, so I interrupted part-way through,
"Sorry, that was me. Because my expectations were thoroughly smashed when I saw that trick making light of ESP, I got mad and crushed the house in a fit of rage."
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How nostalgic. That happened back in college when I was searching for other psychics3. Did it become a rumor? It's a little embarrassing to have the mistakes of my youth exposed like this.
"*Eh~*…so, that was you?"
However, it's far more embarrassing for Kaburagi-san, who seriously confessed in front of the person himself. Kaburagi-san, how cute!
"Uh, umm, well then, I'm leaving now!"
I warmly saw off Kaburagi-san, who was driving away in her car as if to escape the situation, then headed back to 'Amanoiwato'. Having regained my spirit, it was time to begin operation 'opening'.
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Footnotes:
1: In Japan, elementary school is 1st-6th grade, middle school is 7th-9th grade, and high school is 10th-12th grades. Since Hasumi is in her 2nd year of middle school, she's in 8th grade.
2: The Arakawa River flows through Saitama Prefecture and Tokyo, eventually emptying into Tokyo Bay ?
3: See the beginning of ch.1 pt. 3 if you don't remember ?