An Incredibly Unhelpful Table

Chitose looked at the Grimoire.

Then at Miyo.

Then, everyone around the table.

“I have questions.”

Miyo smiled and nodded.

“Go ahead.”

Chitose raised one finger.

“How does a demon become a human?”

A second finger.

“How did Kaguya get the Grimoire?”

A third.

“And why can Kazuha move inside the Domain of Order?”

The room became quiet.

Kazuha, sitting beneath the table, looked up.

“Woof.”

Chitose looked down.

“You have questions too?”

“Woof.”

“I'll ask them later.”

Kazuha lowered his head.

Reona giggled.

“I'm expecting you to ask more than three questions.”

Chitose looked at her.

“More than?”

Reona smiled.

“Kaguya predicts the next Harbinger will ask a lot of questions.”

Chitose paused.

“She did?”

Reona nodded.

“She knew you would, so I'll be waiting for questions in the future.”

---

Reona placed her hands on the table.

“I'll answer the first one.”

Chitose looked at her.

“You know about demons?”

“A little.”

Reona looked toward Jei.

“Jei knows more than I.”

Jei crossed his arms.

“He's being modest.”

“I am not.”

“You are.”

Reona puffed her cheeks.

“Anyway.”

She turned back to Chitose.

“A Left-Behind isn't a demon that simply became human.”

Chitose listened.

“When a human dies, something remains.”

“Something?”

“Their memories.”

Reona's voice became quieter.

“Not just memories of what they did.”

She rested her chin on her palm.

“Their personality. Their feelings. Their habits. The things they loved.”

Chitose looked toward Kazuha.

Reona continued.

“All of that becomes compressed.”

“Compressed?”

“Like everything that made that person who they were being pressed into something very small.”

Jei continued for her.

“It isn't ordinary energy.”

His expression became serious.

“It's humanity.”

Chitose frowned.

“Humanity?”

Jei nodded.

“A demon can consume negative energy created by humans.”

“That's what I learned from the grimoire.”

“Yes.”

“Then what happens when a demon eats a Left-Behind?”

Jei looked at her.

“It can take their shape.”

Chitose's eyes widened.

“Shape-shift?”

“Not just the face.”

Jei pointed toward himself.

“Memories. Voice. Mannerisms. Sometimes even fragments of personality.”

Chitose stared at him.

“So a demon can become someone who died?”

“Yes.”

“That's horrible.”

Jei didn't disagree.

“It is not just demons, angels can eat left-behinds too.”

Reona looked down.

“And that's why they're called Left-Behinds.”

Chitose looked at her.

“Because something of that person was left behind?”

Reona nodded.

“But they're not that person anymore.”

The room became quiet again.

Jei spoke.

“The person is dead.”

“The Left-Behind is what's left.”

---

Chitose slowly looked at the Grimoire.

“Then what are angels eating?”

Jei answered immediately.

“Positive energy, angels absorb it from humans instead of eating it.”

“And demons?”

“Negative energy.”

“Why?”

“That's what they are.”

Jei shrugged.

“Angels absorb positive energy according to their Type.”

“Demons consume negative energy according to their Class.”

Chitose tilted her head.

“So if an angel eats something negative?”

Jei stared at her.

“That would be a very bad meal.”

Miyo laughed.

"Actually, they simply explode."

Chitose nodded seriously.

“Understood.”

Umi continued eating.

“She's taking that seriously.”

“She should.”

Jei looked at Chitose.

“Angels and demons aren't human. Their bodies were made to consume those things.”

Chitose thought for a moment.

“So Left-Behinds aren't energy.”

“No.”

“They're people.”

Jei nodded.

“What's left of people.”

---

Chitose looked toward Reona.

"Oh, I almost forgot."

Chitose opens the grimoire, takes the thimble, and holds it in her palm. But this time the man was quiet; he seemed to be listening to them, then placed it on the table.

“Then the man I fought...”

“The one who became human?”

Miyo nodded.

“He was a demon before.”

“And the Vanity entity?”

Jei answered.

“That was something he created.”

Chitose remembered the pillar of flesh.

The mouth, its translucent body, and purple energy.

“So he separated his own negative energy?”

“...Something like that.”

Jei leaned back.

“He accumulated enough Pride to create another entity.”

Chitose frowned.

“So he became human by separating it?”

“That's what we think.”

“We?”

Jei glanced around the table.

“None of us completely understands how it happened.”

Chitose sighed.

“Of course.”

Umi raised his hand.

“I have a question.”

Everyone looked at him.

Umi pointed at Chitose.

“Can we eat lunch now?”

Nao sighed.

“Umi.”

“What?”

“We're discussing the laws of existence.”

“I know.”

He pointed toward his plate.

“My food is also part of existence. I'm out of snacks”

Miyo laughed.

Chitose smiled.

“Okay.”

She turned toward Reona.

“Second question.”

Reona's smile disappeared.

“The Grimoire.”

She looked at the black book.

“How did Kaguya get it?”

Nobody answered.

Chitose looked around.

“...What?”

Juriasu slowly opened his eyes.

“That's actually a good question; we don't know.”

Chitose stared at him.

“But you knew Kaguya.”

Reona nodded.

“I did.”

“You were close to her.”

“Yes.”

“You never asked?”

“I did.”

“And?”

Reona looked at the Grimoire.

“She never told me, and that doesn't matter to me.”

Nao spoke quietly.

“We know the history before Kaguya.”

Chitose looked at her.

Nao continued.

“Ma'at had the Grimoire.”

“Then Rima Senior.”

“Then Amy.”

Chitose remembered.

“Amy died of old age.”

Juriasu nodded.

“And the Grimoire disappeared.”

Chitose blinked.

“Disappeared?”

“Yes.”

“Someone stole it?”

“We don't know.”

“Someone found it?”

“We don't know.”

“Did Amy give it to someone?”

“We don't know.”

Chitose stared at everyone.

“You're all incredibly unhelpful.”

Umi raised his hand.

“We are aware.”

Reona laughed.

Juriasu continued.

“That is the strange part.”

“Amy died, the Grimoire was gone, and then years later...”

He looked toward Reona.

“Kaguya had it.”

Chitose looked at Reona.

“Where did she find it?”

Reona shook her head.

“I don't know.”

“Did she tell you anything?”

“She said she found it.”

“Where?”

Reona paused.

“She wouldn't tell me.”

Chitose frowned.

“Even you?”

Reona smiled sadly.

“Even me, even in another universe.”

She looked at the Grimoire.

“Kaguya kept secrets when it comes to grimoire.”

Nao nodded.

“A lot of them.”

Juriasu looked toward the empty chair.

“Sometimes I think she knew more than she told any of us.”

Chitose looked at the chair.

Kaguya's seat and the room became quiet.

Then Reona spoke.

“But I know one thing.”

Chitose looked at her.

“Kaguya didn't treat the Grimoire like something she owned.”

“How did she treat it?”

Reona smiled.

“Like something that was waiting.”

Chitose frowned.

“Waiting for what?”

Reona shook her head.

“I don't know.”

---

Chitose looked down at Kazuha.

He was sitting beside her now.

She placed a hand on his head.

“Last question.”

Everyone looked at her.

“Why can Kazuha move inside the Domain of Order?”

Kazuha's ears moved.

Juriasu became serious.

Nao looked toward him.

Reona was silent.

Miyo slowly stopped smiling.

Chitose noticed.

“What?”

Miyo shook her head.

“Reona should answer this.”

Reona looked at Kazuha.

Then at Chitose.

“If Kazuha wasn't around the Azure dragon constellation, then that means he was an Unwritten-One.”

"Unwritten-One?"

Nao respond

“Someone who shouldn't exist?”

Reona nodded.

“Or someone who should have died already.”

Chitose's hand stopped moving.

Reona continued.

“The world has a written future for everyone that should exist depending on their remaining time.”

“People are supposed to follow it.”

“But sometimes...”

She looked at Kazuha.

“Someone doesn't.”

Chitose frowned.

“So?”

“So the Domain of Order doesn't know where to put them.”

Chitose's eyes widened slightly.

Reona smiled.

“That's why Kazuha can move.”

“He isn't outside the world.”

“He's just outside what the world expected.”

Umi adds something.

"Left-Behind and Unwritten-One are new. Kaguya didn't encounter these anomalies; that's why the Eye of Order might not identify them."

Chitose looked down at Kazuha.

“Then...”

She hesitated.

“Was Kazuha always an Unwritten-One?”

Nobody answered.

Chitose looked up.

“Was he?”

Juriasu slowly shook his head.

“We don't know.”

Chitose's expression changed.

“Then how do we know he is one?”

Nao answered.

“We don't have an ability that can tell who's unwritten or not because the world is already trying to correct them.”

Chitose froze.

“What do you mean?”

Nao looked at her.

“In other words, the world is trying to eliminate them through unfortunate events like accidents.”

Silence.

Chitose's hand tightened around Kazuha's fur.

“...So then, when he was, should not exist?”

Nao didn't answer immediately.

Juriasu looked toward the table.

Reona lowered her eyes.

Finally, Reona spoke.

“At birth.”

Chitose stopped breathing.

Kazuha looked up at her.

“Woof.”

Chitose stared at him, then she slowly smiled.

“You're really troublesome, Kazu-kun.”

She hugged him.

Kazuha struggled.

“Woof!”

“Come here.”

“Woof!”

Everyone watched them.

For a moment, nobody spoke.

Then Chitose looked at the Grimoire.

There are too many things that didn't make sense.

The book had disappeared, Kazuha should have died; Yet both were here.

She had spent months trying to understand her new life.

Maybe she had been looking at the wrong thing.

---

Her phone suddenly rang.

Chitose looked at the screen.

“Papa?”

She answered.

“Hello?”

Her father's voice came from the other side.

“Chitose.”

His voice was unusually serious.

“Where are you?”

Chitose looked around the mansion.

“I'm...”

She paused.

“I'm with some friends.”

A silence.

Then her father spoke.

“I need you to come to the station.”

“Why?”

Another pause.

“I found something about Kazuha's case.”

Chitose's expression changed.

“What did you find?”

Her father took a breath.

“Something that doesn't make sense.”

The call ended.

Chitose slowly lowered her phone.

Everyone looked at her.

Miyo's smile disappeared.

Juriasu closed his eyes.

Nao stared at Chitose.

Reona whispered:

“One-chan...”

Chitose looked at Kazuha.

Then at the Grimoire.

Then toward the door.

“Looks like everyone was searching for answers.”