Apparitions Untold

“So we did it, right? We got rid of the squatter.”

I said, having finally recovered from my arm being used as a chew toy. The pain itself still stinged, but Miharu’s energy thankfully patched me up. I left a bit of blood on the carpet. I hope Shiori didn’t mind that.

“No, I don’t think we did,” Miharu responded.

“What do you mean by that? I stabbed him like three times in the head and he dissipated. That seems like solving the problem to me. I think it’s time we collect our payment,” I responded. Shiori did only say that she saw one squatter, so I was happy to leave it at that.

“No, you idiot! I just told you that that wasn’t a normal person, that was an apparition! It’s kind of like a ghost but not as sentient as I am. They’re normally a result of other people summoning mirrors of the afterlife,”

“Wait. So you’re saying there’s more of those? That are in this house? Ugh…” I complained, this didn’t seem fair. I was hired to take care of one squatter, not a whole army of them. “I think my work here is done, regardless. The police can handle the rest. I’ve identified the problem and now the professionals can handle it.”

“What are you doing?” Miharu complained annoyingly at me. “What kind of Solve Everything Agency does less than the bare minimum and leaves? That won’t fly under my watch as the spirit of hope and justice. We promised that we would take care of this for Shiori in exchange for our payment and her exposure, and you already marketed yourself as a professional!”

“But… if there’s more of them then I think I’m ill-prepared for this…”

“You only got gnawed on once, and you didn’t even fire your shotgun. If we just remain vigilant, we should be able to find the real source of that apparition.”

“You’re saying that like I should expect being gnawed on at all…”

I just wanted my paycheck at this point. However, ignoring my words, Miharu possessed me and granted me my night vision once again, pushing me to walk up the stairs. “Onward, to save the day!”

With a heavy sigh, I began to walk up the stairs into what was almost certain doom. Curse me for having such a goody-two shoes partner.

***

One step at a time, I carefully scanned the second floor. The problem was that there were about a million rooms on the second floor so it was taking longer than I would like it to.

I seriously didn’t get why a house needed so many rooms. Did rich people all live like this or something? Constantly getting lost in their own houses? It’s not like these rooms had much in them. They were just bedrooms or storage rooms with barely anything. Regardless, I managed to dodge any terrible incidents so far. There was only one room remaining.

“Maybe there was only one apparition. Can we say that I was right and call it then?” I presented my reasonable argument to Miharu.

“There’s still one more floor. We need to check the entire thing,” Miharu responded.

“Considering what we’ve seen so far. I might just be messing with the house’s feng shui just by existing inside here as a poor person,” I responded, beginning to open the last door. “Perhaps it would be ideal for us to finish the job sooner rather than later.”

“An incomplete job is worse than wasted time. How can our client be satisfied if there is something else and she blames us?” Miharu asked in response. I clicked my teeth in annoyance, before looking into the last room. I noticed something standing in the dark. Another person, a female form, with massive horns and a spiky tail.

“Hey!” Instinctively, I pointed my gun at the form. “So there are two of you! Get out!”

“Akina, you idiot! That’s another apparition. Destroy it!”

The woman began to turn around with a snarl. I had my hand on the trigger shaking, still pointing my gun at it.

“Akina! It’s going to-!”

I saw the woman turn into a blur in front of my eyes, beginning to run towards me at a ridiculous speed. With that, I closed my eyes, channeled Miharu’s energy and pulled the trigger.

BANG!

“AH GOD DAMN IT!”

The gun dropped to the floor as I jumped backwards. The apparition stopped moving in front of me, with green residue across its chest, before dissipating completely. My ears rang out once again, screaming for Miharu to fix them with deafening silence. Luckily, the way I was holding the gun meant my shoulder didn’t get completely dislocated this time. It still wasn’t a pleasant experience, though.

“Are you still going to keep using that thing? It seems to do just as much harm to you as it does to an enemy,” Miharu said, repairing my damaged ears. I took a deep breath, thought for a moment, and responded with a confident answer.

“Yes.”

“Oh my god.”

With my ears fixed, I picked up the gun again. “I just need to, you know, practice. With more practice I’ll get used to it, and then I have one of the best tools in the world at my disposal.”

“I don’t understand why you’re so insistent on it. My power can work through a lot of other objects rather than the gun.”

“Trust the process,” I responded, grabbing hold of the gun once again. I ignored my finger being terrified of pulling the trigger again. I’ll get used to it, this was an important tool. “Either way, I think that means we’re done.”

“Ahem.”

“No, really. We beat the second intruder. That should mean we’ve cleared up the house by now.”

We were just about to launch into another argument when suddenly, I was knocked off of my feet. Not by anything in particular, but instead the entire ground. An earthquake?

“Shoot. There weren’t any earthquake warnings tonight, what gives?” I said, in confusion.

“That wasn’t an earthquake,” Miharu responded. “There’s something on the third floor causing that. We need to move, now!”

***

I went to the stairs to the third floor, and stood right outside of a closed door. I was sweating nervously. What if there was something seriously bad? What happens if I get eaten alive by another apparition? Miharu seemed dismissive about my worries, as she stopped possessing my body to shove her head through the door. She then quickly pulled her head out of the door, and turned back to me.

“Oh yeah, it’s bad. Real bad.”

“What?!” Those weren’t the words I wanted to hear. In a refusal to believe her words, I opened the door myself to peek through. Then, I realized Miharu wasn’t lying. It was bad, real bad. In my brief peek, I saw too many apparitions wandering around. There were at least like twenty of them.

“O-Okay, now THAT is an issue for the police. Not for me,” I said out loud. “I’m… I’m not ready to deal with a million of those guys at once.”

“Really?” Miharu asked. “We’re still not one hundred percent, though. We’re not gonna get that sponsorship if we give up now. It’s time for us to go into hero mode!”

“Look. I dunno what kind of confidence you have in dealing with a twenty versus one but I don’t have it. We deal with two squatters, and we call the police on the rest. That’s a successful day, right?”

“No? If she wanted that then she would’ve just called the police from the start. We’re at the final stretch, we just need to cross the finish line!”

I weighed the options. Considering every other possible plan. I realized, if I didn’t get this then there would be a high chance I would simply starve to death and die without the money or exposure that this would give me. There was no other option, it seemed.

“Fine. But we need a plan,” I relented.

“Well, I feel like if we just use the knife then we’ll get overwhelmed by the sheer number of them.” Miharu crossed her arms. “So that leaves us with…”

“This baby!” I pulled out my shotgun. “I knew it was a good idea.”

“There’s a problem with that too. Mainly the fact that you can’t shoot it without either dropping the gun or dislocating your shoulder and deafening yourself. Do you know how hard it is to both repair your ears, repair your shoulders, improve your eyesight, and fire off bullets at the same time?”

“Well…” I stopped for a moment to think. “We already talk telepathically, right? I don’t need my ears. If you’re boosting my eyes, then that should be enough.”

“Really?” Miharu asked. “I suppose that could work.”

“And from then on, I’ll show them what Kyoho can do!” I said, proudly pointing my gun at the door. I took a gulp, hoping I would be able to properly pull the trigger this time. They said it would get easier the more you did it, right?

“You’re naming it now? After a grape?”

“No, it’s not a grape. It’s supposed to mean big gun- ah, whatever. Let’s just go.”

Miharu once again entered my body, and I felt energy begin to flow through Kyoho and my legs. Taking a deep breath, and getting ready, I charged through the door.

My entrance did not go unnoticed, as basically every apparition in the room noticed me. With a spin of my shotgun, I aimed it at one that was running directly at me and blasted it in the head with another loud BANG!

I said goodbye to my hearing at that moment, but I was ready for it. I managed to keep a hold of the gun and remain on my feet, though my shoulders certainly didn’t like that. Miharu immediately began fixing my body so I could prepare for the next shot, as the remaining apparitions all began to swarm at me.

I kept them at bay with kicks and slamming them with the butt of Kyoho, before finishing them off with another blast. Every single time I fired the gun, my shoulders yelled at me to stop, but I knew I had to keep on moving. I had managed to take down about four apparitions, before I saw something out of the corner of my eye.

A glowing green rip in space, electrical sparks crackling out of it into the air. And right in between its folds, another apparition coming out of it.

“That must be it! That’s gotta be what’s causing the apparitions to appear!” Miharu said in my head. Instinctively, I knew I had to go over there as well. With a boost in my leg, I ran past a few more apparitions trying to tear me apart and landed in front of the rift. I aimed my shotgun at it, and fired.

It did nothing. I also completely missed the apparition coming out of it, so I messed up my shoulders again for no reason.

“What are you doing?” Miharu asked. I channeled her energy into my feet to stomp the head of the creature coming out of the portal, as well as heal my shoulders once again. I was still deaf, so I had to occasionally look back to be aware of any attackers.

“I thought if I shot it, it would go away!” I responded. “Isn’t that how it’s supposed to work?”

“No? It’s a rift in space, not a person. What did you think would happen?”

I scratched my head awkwardly, before aiming at a nearby apparition and firing. Trying to keep my distance against these crazy spirits that were running at me. “What do you suggest we do, genius?”

“I don’t know! I’ve never seen anything like this before!”

Great. That just left it up to me to ponder while also fighting off an angry mob. Think. Think. Think. How the hell am I supposed to deal with spacetime being ripped open? This wasn’t taught in any high school that I know.

But then, as I blasted another apparition in the face, I came up with an idea.

“Miharu. You can manipulate objects but they only last for so long, right? What about, like, a spiritual thing? Since you’re also a spirit, can you make it more permanent?”

“Uhh… I dunno. I’ve never tried it before!”

“Well… we’re trying it now, then!”

With a sudden spin around, I raised my hand towards the rift in space. Remembering the way I put energy into my knife, and into Kyoho… I attempted to expand that energy outwards into the rift in space. Focusing my mind, I imagined zipping it up tightly, and sealing it together.

As I did that, one of the apparitions caught up to me and bit me in the shoulder. Sharp teeth grinded through my skin. I screamed in pain, but my shoulder had already been through a lot today. What was one more?

Moving the energy upwards, I opened my eyes to see the rift in space almost completely sealed up. With one final focus, fighting through my shoulder being eaten, I closed the entire portal for good.

The teeth disappeared from my shoulder, and I fell to the ground. I looked back, and saw all of the other apparitions fading away as well. Pain echoed throughout every part of my body, only to be silenced by Miharu’s healing energy, as I fell onto my back.

Ringing eventually left my ears, as my hearing eventually returned to normal. I let out a sigh of relief, looking up at the ceiling. I had done it. The Yamiyami Solve Everything Agency’s first case had been completed.