Aichi-kun, Where Are You?!

I wandered towards a shrine in the dead of night. I was already in my battle outfit, but I could not see any sign of Aichi. Despite it being so late at night, there were still a few people inside praying to the local kami. When I arrived at the gate, I bowed once, as per the custom, before entering through the side entrance.

Something was telling me to approach closer. Perhaps it was the voice of the kami, though normally kami did not speak directly to people. At the place of purification, I performed the necessary cleaning ritual: left hand, right hand, mouth, and finally the ladle used to dip out the water.

I couldn't help but admire the beauty of the forest surrounding the shrine. Great oak trees and smaller various shrubs dotted the landscape. The shrine itself was built on a steep incline, as it was set at the foot of the nearby mountains.

However, sitting in the center of the path, about halfway between the main hall and the gate, was a cat. I didn't want to get too close to the cat, as sneezing might have been considered rude. I just decided to wait for it to move. It seemed like a simple plan to me.

But the cat did not move. It didn't even blink. It just continued to stare right at me, maybe even through me.

Finally, I gathered up the courage to ask the cat, “What do you want?”

“You are nyat welcome here, human,” the cat said quietly. At that moment, I knew right away I was dealing with a Hollow.

“What do you mean by that?” I asked back.

“It would appear you nyeed a demonstration of my power,” the cat then told me. “Flower Power! Rise up, pretty pretty please!”

What?! The cat Hollow could use Flower Power?!

A blizzard of forget-me-nots coated the shrine in a thick blanket of flowers, looking more like the fresh Hokkaido snow than anything. In an instant, the cat had transformed into a girl, looking roughly my age, but with big cat ears, green cat eyes, and a fluffy cat tail. She was dressed very similarly to a miko: red hakama, white kosode, long black hair tied in a ponytail with long, flowing red and white ribbons. The kosode, however, was embroidered with a pattern of forget-me-nots and the image of a cat.

“Who- What are you?” I asked the catgirl.

“~nya I am the forgotten thirteenth,” the catgirl introduced herself, “the one who has made the world forget its magic. Magical Neko-chan Lethe.” Lethe? Was that a flower name? Probably not. It didn't sound like any flower I had ever heard of. Also, thirteen? Fumiko said there were only nine Flower Powers, although she did admit she might have missed a few.

Instinctively, I prepared my staff for battle. I told the magical neko-chan, “I don't want to fight you. This is sacred ground!”

The catgirl, however, revealed two hidden sai and prepared them for battle. “Nyothing is sacred to you humans. That's your problem.”

With a loud “Nyaaaaaaaa!”, the catgirl changed forward, hoping to get in some quick jabs at me. Not wanting to fight, I leaped out of the way, hoping to escape the shrine in the process. Getting some distance between us actually helped me avoid my allergies.

“I told you, I don't want to fight you!” I shouted at her.

“~nya All evil will fall by my blade, human!” The catgirl then threw both sai at me, which I deflected easily with my staff.

While I was still floating in the air, I told the catgirl, “Look, I'd love to stay and chat, neko-chan, but I need to be literally anywhere else right now. See ya!”

I tried to fly away, but the catgirl was one step ahead of me.

“Drag Down! Confine x Constrict! Return Item!” The catgirl quickly snapped three spells in rapid succession. The first took away my ability to fly, forcing me back down to the ground. The second held me in place, on the dirty, muddy ground, no less! And the third brought the sai quickly back into her hands. Nobody I'd ever seen was able to whittle off magic like that before! Not even other Hollows!

“I don't know why you seem to think I'm evil!” I cried out to her. “That sounds like Hideaki has gotten into your head.”

“You think I'm on his side?! I'm on nyobody's side, because nyobody wants to do the right thing!”

“I do!” I cried.

“You lie!” The catgirl then leaped high into the air. “Fateful Crossing!!!” She performed a finishing move similar to my own, where after leaping high into the air, she would dive into a spinning top style attack. I had to summon up all the strength I could muster, because if I got hit by this attack, I would most likely die! Right at the last second, I was able to barely roll away from the spot of the attack. I was still caught in the shockwave it created, sending me flying high into the air… and right off a cliff?!

•

I woke up on the floor of my bedroom. Apparently the act of rolling off my bed and hitting the floor broke me out of that horrible dream.

After getting my bearings in check, I looked around my room to find Aichi wasn't there.

“Mom?” I asked through the door. “Have you or Dad seen Aichi?”

“He might have run out in the middle of the night, sweetie,” Mom answered. “He has been doing that a bit lately.”

Mom was right. Aichi had begun to develop a habit of running out during the night over the past few days. It had been two days since Marie and her fellow Coven members were defeated at Studio Otter. However, there was still that little issue of the phone and internet service still being out all over the island of Shikoku. The sooner that problem got solved, the sooner I could stop hearing Mr. Kaneko complain about how he couldn't watch baseball highlights on the job.

“I gotta be heading to work in a few minutes,” Mom told me. She worked at a laboratory in Kōchi. “And you'd better be doing the same, young lady.”

•

Speaking of, when I arrived at work, I was surprised to see that Mr. Kaneko called in sick today. Work was a little bit harder to get through without internet access, but with the island of Shikoku being rather small, we managed just fine by focusing more on whatever was happening here. The biggest story going on today, besides the ongoing mystery behind the internet outages, was the preparations being made for the Awa Festival starting in less than a week. Obon itself was just nine days away.

Obon was one of the biggest holidays of the year. It was a giant family reunion except also the spirits of all of our ancestors would also come along for the ride. With lots of singing and dancing and paper lanterns, Obon was always guaranteed to be a fun, but also somber, time.

There was also one more bit of news I caught wind of while at work… Susaki High, the school I went to, had managed to qualify for the Summer Koshien, the national high school baseball tournament. In addition, they had also made it to the second round of the tournament for the first time ever. They would be playing against some school from Osaka, one of the top teams in the country, or so Masuda stuttered her way into telling me. While I was never very interested in baseball, I couldn't help but be happy for my school making it this far in the tournament.

•

Overall, work was rather uneventful. It was when I arrived home from work that I had found a letter nailed to the front door.

The letter read:

Magical do-gooder,

We have captured your precious Hollow. If you ever want to see them again, you will surrender your magic to us. Bring yourself to the old plastics factory in Tokushima. The Third Coven has now awakened. If you know what is good for you, you will listen to our demands.

Wow, that had to have been the most absolutely generic, copy-pasted ransom letter I had ever seen. Also, Tokushima? Really?! That was all the way on the other side of the island!

But they had Aichi… Without him, I couldn't transform or use most of my magic.

I needed to figure out a way to get to Tokushima quickly. But I couldn't tell anyone because the letter explicitly referred to Aichi as a Hollow. Telling anyone would risk exposing me as a sorcerer, a witch, whatever word the haters were using this week.

Actually…

There was one person I could tell. The only one who knew my secret.

I just hope Aichi didn't have the spellbook with him...