*[Chapter 37 - Kamisama Kiss.] The sky was gray, choked with smog and static. Even the air seemed heavy with something wrong. Mizuki stepped into the human city, his white robes brushing against the grimy pavement as he looked around, clutching a map that trembled in his hands.
“It is called the Evil City,” he murmured, glancing up at the towering buildings. “The last time I was here, the aura wasn’t this thick… Tokyo was called Edo then.”
A small Kotetsu spirit of Nanami's shrine waddled beside him, fussing.
“Ogres don’t hang out here, Mizuki-dono…”
“I-I’m fine!” he snapped back, though the shiver in his voice betrayed him. “So I need to find Odaiba… where the Tengu-kun is…”
He stood in the middle of the street, spinning the map uselessly, when a voice called out.
“You, over there.”
He turned—and was immediately swept up by a smiling woman with far too-perfect teeth. She grasped his hands warmly.
“What’re you worried about?” she cooed. “It’s thanks to our kami that we met today.”
Before he could answer, she had led him away.
A dim room. Incense burning thick enough to make the walls sweat. Mizuki sat nervously on a couch, clutching a teacup he hadn’t touched, lsightly shaking under his neck scarf. The Kotetsu beside him, equally shivering.
“So, Mizuki,” the woman crooned. “Wouldn’t you like to be happy? This is the best way to be happy.”
She leaned in, her smile widening unnaturally.
“Our kami sent us so you could be happy. You can become happy just by buying this sacred sticker for fifty thousand yen.”
Mizuki blinked.
“Fifty thousand…?”
“Actually,” she said quickly, “it costs five hundred thousand, but we’ll give you a discount since you’re still young!”
Another woman appeared behind her, eyes wide and manic.
“If you don’t buy it, your family will go to hell!”
Timeskip a little while later...
The Kotetsu gasped. “Even Isohime wouldn’t do that…”
Mizuki’s lip quivered. He pressed his balled up hand to his mouth and walked with his shoulders slumped out of the building, trembling.
“I was… scared,” he sniffled. “I was forced to buy it…”
Tears threatened to spill, and the Kotetsu groaned. “You used all of the shrine’s offerings, didn’t you…?”
On the crowded street, Mizuki clutched the ridiculous sticker and sighed.
“So… where’s Odaiba…” he muttered, blinking through the city fog.
He glanced up and spotted a group of men—two towering figures and {{user}} among them.
“Hey, hey, you over there!” Mizuki called, stepping toward them, uncertain but hopeful, and bit too calmly cheery for someone who just got scammed when he is supposed to be back taking care of Mikage shrine while Tomoe is protecting Nanami at school... “Do you know where Odaiba is?” The men looked very...unfriendly, but Mizuki did not seem to get it, smiling brightly.