An Honest Living

It’s been one week since I’ve completed my first job. Things have been going pretty great since then, really. The shoutout on Shiori’s livestream and social media ended up driving a ton of people to my business.

By “a ton”, I actually mean like, three people per week. But hey, that’s what we call progress. It’s enough to buy groceries, and that’s all I could ask for. Not really, actually, I would like more money to surpass the level of “just scraping by”, but these things require time and effort. Even if I really wish it didn’t require either.

“Miss Lady, Miss Lady!” Yoshio snapped me out of my trance. I was in the middle of babysitting him right now, alongside Miharu. “I really don’t get how division works. Why does nine and three make three.”

I looked at his paper, and it seemed simple enough. “Well, division is essentially putting things into groups. So say you have nine things and you want to make all of them have the same number in three groups, you put one into each group, then another, then another, and then you have them all be the same.”

“Ohh… thank you!” he said before returning back to his paper.

Miharu floated up next to me. “How many jobs do we have this week?”

“I’m counting two,” I said. “The first one is pretty basic, finding a lost pet. The other one is doing some pest control.”

“I’m hoping the more we help people out, the more of my memory comes back to me. I know in my calling I’m the spirit of hope and justice, but I just can’t figure out why.”

“Well, has your memory come back to you yet?”

“No. Not at all.”

“It seems like we still need to keep up our work then, to maybe jog your memory a bit. And also so I can keep getting paid. That’s an important factor too.”

I heard the front door open, and got up. It seemed like Mrs. Lio had returned home from her work. That meant it was my time to go.

“Good evening Akina,” Mrs. Lio greeted me. “How’s Yoshio doing?”

Yoshio ran up and hugged his mom, who returned it.

“He seems to be doing fine,” Yoshio said. “He’s a good kid, likes to study a lot. I’m mostly just worried about him not going out to talk to other people.”

“Well, considering this city, I’m not sure if I can send him out on his own just yet. You know how dangerous it is for an untrained boy like him,” Mrs. Lio responded. “I appreciate you taking care of him.”

“It’s no problem. The free rent helps too,” I responded.

“Plus, he’s the cutest thing ever!” Miharu added with a smile. “I wanna bundle him up sometimes.”

“I see you two have finally gotten your business to work too?” Mrs. Lio said.

“Yeah. I’ve actually got two customers I need to deal with right now,” I said. “So, I should probably hurry.”

“Stay safe, then!” Mrs. Lio waved, and so did Yoshio, as we ran out of the house. We had some work to get done.

***

“AHHHHHH-”

When the client asked me to “find a pet”, I was expecting a kitty or something. Maybe a slightly supernatural kitty even. If the kitty breathed fire, then I wouldn’t complain or anything. That was to be expected.

What I didn’t expect was an entire dragon to pick me up with its claws and begin to swoop me into the skies, dragging me through the air.

“AHHHHHHH-”

I kept on screaming as I was being flung around in the air. Miharu was already in my body, as I tried punching the dragon’s claws. It didn’t seem too bothered, even with my strikes being enhanced by Miharu’s energy.

“Honestly, maybe you should’ve thought twice before shooting it with your shotgun. Not only was it completely unbothered but fixing your dislocated shoulder when you’re trying to run is not easy.”

“Why didn’t YOU fix my shoulders faster?”

“Why do you keep on insisting on using the shotgun despite the obvious drawbacks?”

Miharu didn’t seem to understand my perspective. Though I will admit that it was probably my fault that I instantly opened fire on the thing as soon as I saw it. Even I can make mistakes at times.

We kept on flying until eventually we landed on a building. As for me, well, it landed on its claws, so I took a face full of concrete. “OW.”

With my face still in the ground, I felt the crushing weight on top of me begin to shrink, before eventually disappearing. I looked up and saw that the dragon that had been carrying me shrunk down to the size of my hand. A little bit confused, I got up and heard a voice.

“Oh! You brought Micah back for me!”

The voice was of one of my clients. A mizuzah. They were essentially water people, watery hair, liked hanging in water, specialized in water magic, all of that stuff. I wasn’t expecting her pet to be this big though.

Miharu left my body and presented herself to the client. “Yes, we have. We’re so happy to help you!”

“You didn’t tell me your pet would be so… big…” I said. “But we did it. We did it. Can I have my money now?”

“Of course! Thank you very much!”

“Be sure to also recommend my services as much as you can.” I added after.

“And remember, if you ever feel lost, scared, or helpless, then just know the Yamiyami Solve Everything Agency has your back!” Miharu cheerfully added.

With twenty thousand yen in my pocket, I was satisfied with this entire ordeal. There was just one more job that I had to take care of. A pest extermination job. I’m not sure why I was hired instead of a real company, but it’s not like I was complaining.

Luckily, from the looks of it, I wasn’t actually too far off from the location. Miharu entered my body and I channeled her energy through my legs. From there, I began to run.

In the week that had passed, I had been trying to get better at controlling my speed. If I went too fast, that would probably make a sonic boom and I would painfully slam into the wall, but being able to dash as fast as a car certainly helped. Hopefully, I’d be able to run at top speed soon and not have to worry about the wall-crashing problem. It’d save money on car fees, for one, and it would be much faster than it too.

After some minutes of dashing, I reached my next location. My legs burned a little bit, as I wasn’t used to that much sustained dashing yet. Taking a deep breath, I looked up and saw where I had to do some work next. A massive warehouse.

“This is the place, right?” I asked Miharu.

“Yeah. It was a kid’s charity, right? What better job for the spirit of hope and justice than helping out some kids!” Miharu responded.

“Lets clear out those pests, then,” I said, taking out Kyoha, reading to do the dirty work myself.

“Woah woah woah. What do you think you’re doing?” Miharu said. “Use your knife.”

“What? Why? Kyoha is the single most effective tool in my arsenal,” I argued back.

“Well, for one, I’m sick of fixing your shoulder every time you dislocate it with the shotgun, but two, this is a kid’s charity warehouse. Shooting that gun will probably cause some poor child’s toy to get ruined! We wouldn’t want that, would we?”

I sighed. That was probably a reasonable concern, even if my baby girl wanted some real action today. I unfortunately had to shelve her and pull out my yet-to-be-named kitchen knife that was my backup option.

With that, we walked into the warehouse.

***

There were a lot of boxes in the warehouse, towering up far above my head. It kind of made this place a maze to walk through. In each box, there was a different set of toys, probably kindly donated from a sponsor.

I had Miharu’s enhanced vision allowing me to see in high resolution, essentially allowing me to track any scurrying pests that might be running around. But, I wasn’t necessarily finding anything right now.

“Do you know what kind of bugs we’re looking for?” I asked Miharu.

“They specified spiders, so… probably spiders,” Miharu responded.

“Yes. I know we’re fighting spiders, but what kind of spiders?”

“I don’t know. I’m not a spider expert. I’m a ghost.”

“You know about all the other weird stuff in this city, I should expect you to know spider types too!”

“No??? What made you think that?”

As we were arguing, something caught my eye. Raising my knife, I turned to a corner, and saw a spider staring at me on top of a box.

This spider was big, like, massive. Way bigger than any reasonable spider should be. And it was glowing as well, that was extra weird. It seemed to be staring at me, not moving.

I wasn’t one to normally get freaked out by spiders, but that was because they were small. This one was big, and hairy, and had long legs, and had too many eyes, and ew…. The two of us stared at each other for a really long time.

“So… are you gonna deal with it or…” Miharu said.

Still a bit icked out, I slowly walked towards the spider. My knife glowed with Miharu’s energy, before I quickly stabbed it in the abdomen. Or was it thorax? I don’t actually remember, it’s been a while since biology class. Regardless, I stabbed it.

The spider keeled over and died quickly, and I let out a sigh of relief. However, just as I did, I noticed that out of its stab hole, its butt burst open. And suddenly a hundred… thousand… million… billion little spiders came crawling out of its behind!

“A…AH! WHAT THE HELL?!”

The next thing I knew, I fell back onto the floor and every single one of them were crawling on me. Biting at my skin, being overall gross and disgusting. I thought I would just drop dead, right there and then. This was it, everything was over. Goodbye cruel world.

“Akina…! The… the pulse!”

With Miharu’s reminder, I realized I did have a way to deal with such a situation. A trick I used against Azana a while back, green energy pushed outwards from my body and struck every tiny spider at once! With that burst of energy, every spider on and around me was reduced to nothing.

I took a deep breath. I really thought that was it, and everything was over. Luckily, I managed to find a way through it.

“How pathetic.”

The familiar voice of a girl sounded out in my ears, a voice that immediately made the hairs on my back stand up straight. I got up and pointed my knife in the direction of the voice. And there, I saw a shrine maiden sitting on top of a box, licking her nails.

“Azana!” I shouted, my knife at the ready.

“Oh, you remembered my name. How nice,” Azana responded, leaping down from the box and approaching me.

“If you want to have me or Miharu, you’re not getting it! Remember who kicked your ass twice!”

“Right. The first time was an embarrassment, but you did not beat me the second time,” Azana rolled her eyes. “Be serious now. I’m not here for you anyways.”

“What? Then why are you here?” My guard was still not being lowered. This woman had already proven she was crazy before, and she could still be crazy now.

“A job. That spider that you killed had some spiritual essence, which I was hoping to take and sell,” Azana answered. “Just like I wanted to do to your little ghost friend, but unfortunately that’s too much of a hassle now. Especially since you talked to the police.”

“So they’re ghost spiders? You should’ve known about ghost spiders,” I mentally complained to Miharu.

“I’m sorry I don’t keep track of every type of spider. Maybe there are more important things to worry about,” Miharu responded.

“Regardless,” Azana put her sharp, long nail up to my cheek. “I’ve had to unfortunately put my hunt for her on a pause. Though, I do hope to get her someday. In the meantime, I have seen that little… agency you’ve set up. It’s a cute little endeavor, though you’re obviously flailing.”

“Well, we’re solving anything. Providing more to society than your soulhunting butt ever could!” I responded back.

“Uh-huh. Right. Really, the services you’re providing are minimal. I still think that ghost would be better off being chopped up and the essence she leaves behind sold, but it’s whatever. I suppose I’ll just watch you flail for a little bit then, and maybe I could get in your way sometimes.” Azana let out a small chuckle. “I still haven’t forgiven you, after all.”

Was that the entire point of this conversation? To mock me? Well, I’ll show her. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw another spider sitting on a shelf. A target I had to eliminate on the other side of the room. This would be my moment. I let out a small smile.

“Really now? I’ve gotten so much better since I last fought you. Miharu and I have been training our craft, I’m not sure if you could take us now.”

“That’s not very impressive for a girl who was screaming at a spider earlier.” She tried to interrupt me, but I ignored her.

“And I think if you try to cross us again.”

I reached for Kyoha, spinning it around in my hand and pointing it at the spider I saw in the distance.

“Wait, Akina. What are you doing?”

“Then you’ll regret it.”

“AKINA-!”

With a loud BANG, I opened fire on the spider. Completely obliterating it without even needing to look at it. My ears were rattled, and my shoulder was shook, but Miharu would have that fixed in no time. Sending the message was what was important.

The ringing eventually stopped, as my ears and shoulder began to repair themselves. I was expecting a look of fear on Azana once I was done, especially considering the sheer power of the shotgun.

Oddly enough though, she was just looking at where I fired. That wasn’t necessarily the emotion I was hoping to get from her, so I looked where she was looking.

The spider had completely disintegrated, to the point where no weird babies came out. That was good. However, just behind it, I noticed the head of a very large stuffed bear had been completely blown off. It had a big label on it, covered with green residue from the bullet.

TO HIMARI.