Welcome to Yamiyami City

I hated moving.

There’s so much stress involved: packing, making sure you didn’t forget anything, and the long trip. All of these compound into making a truly miserable life experience. But that was something unavoidable for me, Akina Fudo. If you got offered a place to live after your parents kicked you out for failing the entrance exam to the best university in the country, then you have to take it.

I didn’t see how kicking me out solved my doing badly on the exam. But maybe they were hoping that it would motivate me to get back in their good graces. That was an interesting idea, but I think if I were kicked out my first logical plan would be to somehow find a way to survive.

Which I did. Barely. I had a friend of a friend offer me a place to stay in another city, which was great news to me because I was dirt poor. The problem is that despite my failure, my original life in Kyoto was very cushy. I got fed by my parents, had my own internet, and everything, now, here I was, heading to a city that I’ve never been in before.

I had been told all of my stuff had arrived at the apartment, so all I needed to do was get there myself. I was busy passing time with my phone on the train, waiting for my next station to arrive.

I’ve heard a lot of weird stuff about the city I was heading towards, Yamiyami City. They said it was the most… weird city in all of Japan. It was relatively small for a city, but that was because it was very new compared to most other cities. And also, there was magic.

Crazy, I know. Apparently this city was a hotspot to all of the weird nonsense in the country. There’s a conspiracy that somehow the government was involved in roping together all of the strange phenomena in Japan and confining it to this one city, but if I had to be honest I also didn’t care to look into that.

Admittedly, this makes the city relatively unpopular for normal unpowered peasants like me. In fact, I don’t even know how I got lucky enough to get a contact that lives in this place. But once again, out of options. If I had to deal with a few weird magical beings, then so be it. I need to eat.

The train stopped, and I got off at the station. It was already nearing the evening, and the sun was setting. Tall buildings stared back at me in the distance just as I got off, but I wanted to head to my abode for the time that I was here.

Out of the station, and down the empty street. It was quite quiet. With the rumors I was expecting there to be magical nonsense as soon as I got here. But now? It seemed like they were overblown, which was honestly pretty strange. You would think that there’d be something more exciting once I stepped into this place. But the silence was deafening. Fortunately, my apartment was quite close to the train station. If I ever got a job in another city then transportation wouldn’t be a problem.

Soon, I saw my apartment. It was absolutely nothing special. I shared a spot with a few other people, but I wasn’t going to introduce myself to any neighbors late at night. I lived on the second floor, third apartment down.

With a quick walk forward, I stood outside of my future residence for the time being. I had the key in one of my jean pockets, so I opened it and stepped inside to admire the beauty of my new house. It was an empty room with a bed, a mirror, and a lot of boxes. The bathroom was to my right, and the kitchen was to my left but absolutely nothing else was set up.

One look in the mirror told me I looked like trash. It should've been one of my goals to begin to take care of myself better now that I’m on my own. My eyes were baggy. My brown hair was a mess. It was a pain to clean, and occasionally I considered cutting it shorter, but I liked the way it looked when I brushed it so I never bothered. My jeans and my turtleneck sweater today were some of my best outfit choices, if I do say so myself. Though it was probably time to get out of it for today.

At least, after I finished unpacking. There was a whole lot to do.

***

My apartment was now considered passable. That’s better than nothing, except to my parents. But they aren’t here now. So by my standards, I was excelling really. All of my stuff was put on a shelf I quickly assembled, as well as a coffee table that was similarly assembled. That let this room really feel like my own place now.

I couldn’t pat myself on the back for too long, because my stomach began to grumble. I realized I had made my first critical mistake. I didn’t pack any food.

That would mean in order to solve this problem, I would need to drag myself outside at nighttime to head to the nearest convenience store to grab something to eat. My legs didn’t want to do that, but my stomach did. Guess who won out in the end.

With a groan, I left the comforts of my apartment into the chill of the night outside. I was glad I didn’t take off my sweater yet. I would soon head out to the nearest convenience store, with nothing to keep me company on these streets besides the occasional sounds of a stray cat.

A brief walk to the store later, I encountered my first oddity. The lady at the counter had a pair of cute cat ears on her head. That caught my attention, but the girl seemed completely normal despite that. She was boredly swiping on her phone, only giving me a passing glance.

I wondered how common these oddities would be. I didn’t necessarily want to bother her about it though, even if she definitely caught me looking.

The money in my wallet was good enough to help me sustain myself for… a month or so. I didn’t have to worry about rent, but it would be a problem if I didn’t get some place to work soon. I should really polish my resume.

Regardless, I bought the essentials. Ramen, juice, rice. I liked milk as well, so I bought some of that. Some brands did catch my eye. Local, and lots of claims of magic abound. I wonder if magic made things easier to produce here.

Soon after, I walked towards the cashier lady and put down all of my stuff.

“Would you like a bag?”

“Yes. That would be nice.”

I was still staring at her ears as she bagged my goods. What was weird was that her cat ears were on top of her head but she still had a normal human-like pair of ears too. I wonder what that meant. Does that mean she gets double the hearing? Or is it four times? I’m not sure how that works.

“I see you’re staring at me a lot,” the cat girl said nervously. “Is there anything I can help you with?”

“No. Sorry, I was just curious about your uh… heritage. Yeah.” I tried to explain without sounding weird.

“My ears? We share a common ancestor with cats, that’s all. Are you not from here? I would assume this is common knowledge.”

We shared a common ancestor with everything if what I remember from my biology classes was correct, so I didn’t really get that explanation. “I’m just a human trying to get by.”

“Ah, a human. That would explain your confusion. Humans rarely come across our city. They have their own better things to do. I wonder what made you come here.”

“Not like I had a choice. I go where survival goes.”

“I think a lot of humans wouldn’t echo that sentiment in this place of all places. But, hey, maybe the attitude is changing. You are our neighborhood’s second human resident after all.”

“Well. If there’s anything I’m good at, it’s surviving. If only by the skin of my teeth.”

“I’d advise you to survive by a lot more than that,” the cashier responded. “My name is Honoha, also. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“Akina Fudo. Thanks for packing my stuff.”

With everything neatly sorted into bags for me, my mission was complete. I waved off the catgirl cashier and began to head home, back to my apartment. So far, even the abnormal seemed normal. That was good. I hoped it’d stay this way.

“GET BACK HERE, YOU DAMN ACCURSED SPIRIT! I’M GOING TO TEAR YOU APART AND RIP YOU IN HALF AND SELL YOUR REMAINS BACK FOR A PROFIT!”

The voice of a yelling girl echoed throughout the empty street. It definitely caught my attention and stopped me dead in my tracks. I looked around, and shortly afterwards I saw two figures emerging from a nearby alleyway.

The first was a transparent girl, around my own age. She seemed to be floating away at high speeds, going down the street. Her red cloak fluttered in the air over her brown dress as she passed by me. I managed to catch a glimpse of her face, and she also took a glance at me back. She had a cute face, with blue eyes and short brown hair. That exchange of glances was more than I was expecting from this situation.

Coming out from the alleyway after her was a very short girl with pink hair. Her most notable feature was her mouth of sharpened teeth, shouting curses at the spirit that floated down the path. Her nails were long, her eyes were red, and she looked like she was ready to pounce on someone given the chance. It was odd though, considering she wore the outfit of a shrine maiden, which didn’t seem to fit the feral angry woman running down the street on all fours.

I just stood there and watched as this unfolded, not wanting to get in the way of whatever it was. With a large leap, the shrine maiden flew through the air and landed in front of the transparent girl, cutting her off in a single move.

“I’ve GOT YOU NOW! No more RUNNING!”

I figured this would be a perfect time to make my leave and head back to the comforts of my own apartment. So I turned around and began to walk away. I managed to make it five steps forward before…

“So you’re a human! Finally! I was looking for one of those!”

I froze once I heard that, and turned around. Suddenly, the floating girl stood in front of me, holding my shoulders. That girl had a smile on her face, full of confidence as if she had just found her soulmate. With a single move of her head, she entered my body.