Frieren: — Chapter 93 - Haibara-san! How Did You Turn Into a Woman?!
The underground waterway was deep and oppressively narrow. The damp rot was unmistakable.
Cold seeped through the air, the temperature noticeably lower than the surface above. All around, water dripped in a steady, hollow rhythm.
Himmel raised his hand. A faint blue ring of magic slowly spiraled into existence at his fingertip.
In Himmel's world, all living beings possessed Mana. His own levels weren't particularly high compared to his comrades, but with each activation of [Astraeum Crus], he could feel his foundational knowledge and physical constitution slowly, steadily improving.
Slowly was the operative word. But his Mana had risen from E to D.
...Please don't be too harsh on the elderly. He really was working hard.
Somewhat clumsily, he used magic to illuminate the cursed traces hanging in the air. Then the Hero began to follow them, walking at an even pace, weaving left and right through the intersecting concrete corridors.
Tap. Tap.
His footsteps echoed through the winding passages. The contrast of light against shadow made everything deeply unsettling, but Himmel had more or less grown accustomed to it. Dungeons were always dark inside.
And besides...
He halted abruptly, casting his light forward.
Sobs and wails hit him like a wall.
........
[Himmel was long accustomed to death.]
The Hero's journey was mostly a joyful dungeon romp, filled with antics alongside that familiar group of his. But occasionally it dragged them into wars. Not just conflicts between humans, there were the wars of aggression the Demon Clan waged against humanity.
Villages burned to the ground.
The elderly and children alike, slaughtered without mercy.
From unbearable grief, to rage, to forced habituation, and finally to a cold, efficient decisiveness when dealing with the Demon Clan.
Himmel had always known he couldn't save everyone. He had made peace with that. He prepared himself for a heart riddled with scars and lived his entire life as a Hero.
But...
(This world is far more twisted than my own.)
In his imagination, the worst he'd seen was bodies torn apart and scattered.
What stood before him now was closer to a museum. An exhibition hall.
Furniture. Clothing. Musical instruments. Tableware. All of it composed of modified humans.
[Idle Transfiguration], used to knead human souls like clay, reshaping them into whatever form pleased him. Beyond any purpose of training his Cursed Technique, these pieces were purely Mahito's twisted amusement.
As if designed to provoke, the deepest part of the hall was an entire wall of human faces. Dozens of them, embedded in the surface, writhing and twisting. Their cries of anguish and pleas for help pierced the deathly silence.
[K...ill... me......]
They were begging for release.
If he had no way to save them, Himmel would have killed them without hesitation. A mercy. A clean end to suffering.
But he did have a way to save them.
"........"
In silence, the light of purification magic bloomed through the sewer.
He knew what this was. If he kept going like this, Mahito would be leading him around by the nose.
He needed to think of something.
[Crack... crack...]
Himmel caught the odd sound from above.
And then...
It seeped downward.
He snapped his gaze up. Every instinct fired at once.
The next second.
BOOM!,,!,,
The earth layer slammed inward. Deep, jagged cracks raced across the ceiling in an instant.
Rock collapsed in whole slabs. The dim corridor was swallowed by the roar.
Beneath the 23 wards of Tokyo, new subway lines and sewer systems have to be carefully plotted in advance to share the underground space. Beneath Shibuya Station alone, subway lines, water reservoirs, and commercial facilities all coexist in vertically stacked layers.
Right now, two of those layers tore through each other completely.
Blinding white headlights punched through the darkness.
A train's front end smashed through the sewer ceiling and came straight down at Himmel.
"...What I hate most," he muttered, "are people who resort to wrecking things when they can't win."
The next instant, the entire sewer was buried under collapsing rock.
........................
........
The scene shifts to Itadori and the others.
After making his phone call, Okkotsu returned to the table. The group picked up their cards and played on.
Three rounds passed. The loser, every single time, was Inumaki.
Bad luck? Not exactly. Inumaki just couldn't shout "Uno."
"Bonito flakes bonito flakes bonito flakes!"
Countered by his own limitations, Inumaki frantically drew card after card, visibly determined to claw back the next round, even if it was unclear how he planned to do that. But right as the chaos peaked,
Click.
The door opened.
Everyone tensed. Then they saw who it was, and paused.
Itadori Yuji went still.
"Grandpa!"
It was Itadori's grandfather. A small, white-haired old man with a naturally stern face.
"Hm? Who are all these..."
Seeing the crowd gathered around his grandson, he was merely surprised at first. Then his gaze landed on the curse tool resting beside Maki's leg, wrapped in its special cloth.
His expression shifted.
"You people!."
......................
..........
"Didn't expect to get kicked out."
Evening.
Several high school students and almost-high-schoolers shuffled out of a 7-Eleven, grabbed their respective dinners, and squatted down on the curb to eat.
"Puff, puff."
Itadori blew on his Nissin instant noodles, slurped a mouthful, and let out a satisfied sigh.
"I really didn't think Grandpa would react that strongly."
"It's fine, it's fine. Normal people can't exactly wrap their heads around cursed spirits. We're used to this~"
"Salmon."
"So... what do we do? We can't go home, right?"
"How about we just sleep outside? The cursed spirit should be after Itadori specifically, right?"
They reached a quick consensus, finished their meals, and found a decent open space.
A school.
Itadori's middle school, specifically. Three years here meant he knew every corner of it. Club activities were long over for the evening, so he led Inumaki and the others straight up to the rooftop.
Then they lay down.
"Is this actually going to work?"
Itadori folded his hands over his chest, eyes closed. His voice was skeptical.
"Shut up. Someone sing Itadori a lullaby."
"Salmon."
"Inumaki, absolutely not! What if you sing him to sleep and he doesn't wake up for two days?!"
They bickered noisily back and forth, but before anyone landed on an actual plan,
"Zzz........—"
"Hey. This guy's already out."
Everyone looked at each other.
"Honestly, I was joking."
"Right? There's no way a cursed spirit just shows up like this."
Maki and Panda grumbled.
Neither of them held much hope. They'd already mentally prepared for the long haul.
But things have a way of happening when you least expect them.
Okkotsu didn't think a cursed spirit would show either. He chuckled dryly and wandered over to the rooftop railing to take in the view.
But as he looked,
"Huh?"
"No way."
"Wait, what is that?"
The metal railing ran along the rooftop's edge, with the staggered rooftops of the other school buildings layered below. And right beneath this building, on what looked like the top floor of the sports block,
A creature the height of a person. Its body bloated and distorted, like a round, swollen, wrinkled cotton doll. Ugly-cute, in a soft, deflated sort of way that made it all the more unsettling.
It tilted its "head" and looked at Okkotsu.
A cursed spirit.
"It's a cursed spirit!"
Maki spotted it before Okkotsu could even get the words out.
CLANG!
She hooked one hand into a gap in the iron railing, drove off with a sharp burst of force, and was up and over.
"Maki-san!?"
"Grade 2 target! Inumaki and I are going first! Okkotsu, you and Panda stay and cover Itadori!"
She kicked off the railing and launched herself toward the sports building. Inumaki followed without breaking stride. The two of them crossed the gap of several dozen meters like it was nothing and landed clean on the far rooftop.
Okkotsu watched them go. He let out a quiet, worried breath.
"You're way too fast, Maki-san..."
After all this time together, he knew exactly how she operated. Swift. Decisive. No hesitation.
Someone less familiar might write her off as a hothead. Okkotsu, on the other hand, had always been an unconditional supporter of his comrades.
He shook his head, smiling despite himself.
"Panda-kun, then the two of us, "
He turned to discuss their position.
No answer.
[.]
"!——!"
Something was wrong. Okkotsu spun around.
Panda was already on the ground. He had no idea when it had happened.
And on the rooftop, there was someone else.
A woman.
She'd appeared without a sound. She was crouching slightly, one hand resting on the sleeping Itadori's forehead, fingertips gently brushing his hair. The atmosphere around her was deeply, quietly wrong.
"Well, Okkotsu-kun."
She looked up at him.
Jet-black hair, cut to the shoulder. A beautiful face. And across her forehead, a conspicuous line of stitched scar tissue.
"I'm Itadori-kun's mother. Itadori Kaori, "
"Haibara-san?"
Huh?
They both froze at exactly the same moment.
Okkotsu had no idea why he'd just called her that. The name had come out on its own, and it made no sense to him.
The woman who had introduced herself as Itadori Kaori, astonishment crossed her face. Then, just as quickly, it melted into something that looked like delight.
"Well then... that saves me quite a bit of trouble."
"Okkotsu-kun."
Haibara Yu, or rather, Kenjaku, extended a hand. The smile that bloomed on that face was warm and open and utterly wrong.
"Let's go home."
➤ Next: Yuji! How Can You Talk to Your Mother Like That!