Yoshio's Solve Everything Agency

Knock, knock, knock.

The door to my apartment office was being knocked on. I’ve had a pretty solid couple of weeks, especially thanks to the pay from the police. I paid off my debt to the charity, and I was even able to have extra leftovers in my savings. That never happens!

That didn’t mean I could stop having clients. More money is always better. That’s why I opened the door to my apartment, even though I was just about to wrap up for today. However, the customer was someone who I wasn’t expecting.

“Mrs. Lio?”

“Evening, Akina, Miharu,” my current landlord greeted us both. “How are you two doing today?”

“Good evening, Mrs. Lio!” Miharu greeted cheerfully.

“Is this about the living situation? I know I’m making money but you don’t need to start actually charging me rent, hahaha-” I immediately expected the worst. “I can do double duty on Yoshio if you need and…”

“Relax,” Mrs. Lio said. “How about I take a seat, as a customer after all.”

““A customer?”” The both of us said in confusion.

Mrs. Lio smiled and let herself in. “Let’s talk about the terms of my job, first off. I’m sure you girls are always looking for an opportunity to help.”

***

Today was going to be an important day for me, it seemed. Mrs. Lio had given the two of us a very special job in exchange for a fat paycheck. With this, I could probably buy something that wasn’t needed for imminent survival, a luxury I hadn’t had in months.

So that was why it was important we succeeded, and also why I was up earlier than usual today.

According to Mrs. Lio, the school board of Yamiyami was normally pretty lenient in regards to Yoshio’s education, but today was an exception. There was a festival today at school, and every student was required to attend in order to get credit for their grades. They also needed to participate in hosting their own service at the festival in some way. This was a task a bit out of Yoshio’s usual ballpark, which is why I was called in as the cavalry. I was also there to protect him in case anything went wrong, dangerous city and all.

It was a pretty convincing amount of money, and I already wanted Yoshio to succeed, so I accepted the deal. That led to me walking Yoshio to school today.

“So, Yoshio,” Miharu floated behind us. “Do you know what you wanted to do for the fair?”

“I wanted to help people! Just like you both.”

“Really, you want to be like us?” I said, striking a little pose. “I suppose I could rub off some of my cool energy onto you.”

“Oooh! Can you do that, Miss Lady?”

“Well, I think you’re gonna need to start calling me by a different name other than that for it to start working.”

The three of us continued to walk down the street. In the distance, we could see the lights of the festival in the distance. Children cheering, people bustling and the ground rumbling beneath us. Wait, the ground?!

Out of the street under us, what looked like a volcano erupted out of the ground. Magma welled up into the sky as an entire mountain shot out.

“Miharu!”

“On it!”

Miharu leapt into my body, and I grabbed Yoshio, avoiding the lava that exploded out of the ground in front of us. This place really was dangerous. I saw two boys come out of the mountain funnel, riding the lava down the street. One seemed to be made out of fire, and the other made out of magma. I’d assume they were siblings.

“WOOO-!” One of them shouted into the air. “I told you that would be fun! It’ll be an amazing service y’know,” the fire-boy spoke.

“I suppose you’re right, though we could probably make it a bit safer…”

“Ahhh, we’ll work out the details when we get there. We’re gonna be on top!”

Hearing these two annoyed me for some reason, though it might also be because Yoshio was trembling behind me. He seemed to be looking at me, expecting me to do something. I couldn’t say no.

With that, I began to draw Kyoha—

“WOAH WOAH WOAH—! Are you seriously about to draw your gun on two kids?” Miharu immediately interrupted my instinctive action. Woops, she was right. I had been dealing with too many monsters lately, that this had kind of been normal use for me.

“Right, thanks. I almost forgot,” I responded. I had to take a deep breath to readjust myself. This wasn’t a normal job, but I needed to make Yoshio feel safe.

“Hey!” I shouted, crossing my arms at the two kids. “You two ought to watch what you’re doing. I’ve got a kid here who you could have seriously hurt!”

“Eh?”

“Who’s this weird homeless looking lady shouting at us…”

“I am NOT homeless!” I corrected them. “But you need to be careful with your magic, some kids don’t have the luxury of you to be careless!”

The fire-boy walked up to me, like some kind of big shot. It wasn’t very intimidating because I was twice as tall as him, but it annoyed me more if anything. “Really? How is it my fault that he can’t handle extremes?”

“Because maybe you should be more considerate of others. Back in my home, if you did that you would get a spanking!”

I hoped that threat would get him to back off. I didn’t want to actually try putting my hand on these kids. Not only were they literally made of fire and lava, but I also didn’t want them to be running to their parents to complain.

“Pft. Whatever,” the fireboy responded. “Let’s go.”

He scoffed at me and walked back to his lava brother, before they disappeared back into the volcano, leaving me staring angrily as the mountain folded back into the street.

“...he wasn’t very nice,” Yoshio said. Miharu left my body in order to comfort him with her intangible pats. I gave Yoshio a real pat to compensate for that too.

“It’s okay, some people are just like that. You get used to it,” I told him.

“But… If they’re going to be mean, then I don’t want to help them. They can go help themselves with their problems,” Yoshio pouted. That wasn’t exactly what I wanted him to take away from this interaction. I more wanted a ‘wow, Akina, you’re so cool’. This put me in quite the conundrum, as I needed to figure out how to guide him through this tough situation.

“Look. You should help people, it’s just uh… Some people are difficult to work with. That’s all. You should just… help when you can… when it’s possible,” I mumbled. I didn’t know if I was making a particularly convincing guide for him, though.

“As the spirit of hope and justice,” Miharu butted in. “I believe in helping everyone! However, some people do bad actions, they just need to be helped later. That’s all. And sometimes, you need to realize that you’re not the best person to help. It’s always a balancing act.”

Yoshio looked down at his feet, taking Miharu’s words into account. I felt like she did a much better job than I could’ve done, so thank goodness.

“But aren’t you two the Solve Everything Agency? What does that mean if you can’t solve everything?”

“We solve as much as we can,” Miharu responded. “And that’s the least we can do.”

That answer seemed to satisfy him. Glad I had someone to do that kind of talking about morality for me, I grabbed Yoshio’s hand and we headed to the festival.

***

This festival was chaotic. Like, crazily so. I had Yoshio standing behind me at all points and Miharu flowing through me, ready to act. We simply were just trying to take a look around, but I was worried about him getting blasted by a stray waterhose or something.

There were so many people, and not a single one of them was human. Magic was being tossed around like it was a toy, with winds carrying various kids around for a fun activity. This was dangerous, and I had no idea why the school made this mandatory for a human like Yoshio.

We needed to find a good place to help him set up. If he was going to form a mini-Solve Everything Agency, then he’d need a proper place to set up his services. My eyes were put to good use, looking out for threats and places to squat.

“Hey. Where’s Yoshio?” Miharu asked me, all of the sudden. I glanced back behind me and noticed that he was missing.

Shoot.

I immediately began darting around for him. There was no way I had lost him already. Looking through all of the kids, of various shapes, sizes, and features on their head… it shouldn’t be that hard, right? He was the only normal kid here.

“Yoshio? Yoshio?” I called out, running through the festival until…

I saw him climbing up a tree. He seemed to be trying to reach a stuffed animal for a girl around a year younger than him. She seemed to be a girl with notably long ears, perhaps an elf? I wasn’t too familiar yet though.

“Yoshio! You’re going to get hurt-! Get… oh.”

I was about to scold him, but as I ran over, the kid made it to the very top. He grabbed the stuffed animal before beginning to climb down, quickly but carefully. That didn’t stop me from clenching my teeth every time he took a step. I was ready to dash in to save him if necessary.

But that didn’t happen, the boy safely scaled down the tree and handed the stuffed toy back to the elf girl. “Here you go, miss!”

“...Oh… uh…” The elf girl seemed to be a bit lost on what to say. “Thank… you?”

The girl seemed to walk away awkwardly, leaving just Yoshio and I by the tree.

“My mom lets me climb the tree in the backyard. It’s a really big tree,” he said.

“Wow, uh. Good job, Yoshio. I suppose that was your first client at your temporary Solve Everything Agency,” I scratched the back of my head.

“Really?” His eyes sparkled at my compliment. “I’m working to be just like you! Just you wait.”

“Don’t… run off like that again,” I sighed. “I need to keep an eye on you for your mom. And if something happened I could be in big trouble.”

“But still, helping someone like that felt great! I wanna do it more!”

“Then… let's go set up our business, then. We still need to find an office space for us, and all. Can’t have a good business without a good office!”

As I was speaking, Miharu had left my body and glanced at the tree that Yoshio was climbing. She then spoke, “What about here?”

The two of us turned to her, a little bit confused on what she meant.

“I mean. This is where you solved your first problem, Yoshio. There’s space, and it holds a special meaning to you. I think this would be a great office!” Miharu explained herself further.

I stopped to think for a moment, before nodding along. “Yeah. Yeah, that could work. How about we set up shop here, then? It’s got good memories attached to it.”

Yoshio seemed to also nod in agreement, and his eyes were full of determination. “Yes! We’ll have… the Yoshio Solve Everything Agency here!”

It was a bit of infringement on my brand, but I’d allow it. The kid seemed super excited to set things up, and I could call this a sister company.

The only thing left to do was start.