Half a day later.
Kana Shizumi sat on a bus headed for the countryside, idly scrolling through his phone.
After he proposed his idea to Kenjaku, Jail Mom readily went along with it and gave him Jogo's recent whereabouts without much hesitation.
—But why his whereabouts?
Because those four BYDs didn't even carry phones...
Didn't they usually call themselves the new humans? They should at least adapt to modern life a little. Otherwise, if some "Cursed Spirits' Great Victory" timeline really came around, would they have to lead everyone back to the Stone Age to play with mud?
As he sighed over it, the bus reached its stop, and Kana Shizumi got off.
Watching the bus wobble away, he stood where he was and looked at the rolling wheat fields in the distance, then the faint traces of a village farther off. His eyes narrowed slightly.
"..."
Why did this feel like the opening of some third-rate horror game?
Was his phone connection supposed to cut out next, followed by ghosts appearing at night and a game of hide-and-seek?
As all sorts of random thoughts ran through his mind, Kana Shizumi heard a familiar sound behind him.
"Yo!"
"...!!!"
Kana Shizumi's eyes widened slightly. He sidestepped and stamped out with one foot, putting on a startled expression.
The hell?!
A mouth floated right behind him.
Maintaining an extended form like something out of Parasyte, Mahito stood ten meters away. He drew the mouth back while waving with a grin.
They had met again.
But there was no real emotional shift to speak of, let alone happiness.
As he had said before, cursed spirits, as early-stage villains, were inherently rather limited in strength.
After they were wiped out in the Shinjuku arc and Okkotsu returned, it was basically declared that cursed