Chapter 62: Jii Jii

Mio

Mio opened the door.

Ivory had her palm raised, violet light pooling in her hand.

[Void Cannon]

The elf was on the coffee table, toothpick daggers drawn, yellow eyes locked on Ivory.

“What now.”

“She touched my hair,” Ivory said. Her voice was steady, but sweat beaded at her temple. “Without asking.”

The elf’s eyes flicked to Mio. Back to Ivory. She didn’t lower her daggers.

“She was going to cut it,” Ivory continued. “I felt the blade.”

Mio looked at the elf. The elf looked back.

One of her toothpick daggers had a single purple strand caught on its edge.

“You tried to cut her hair.”

Yellow eyes. Blank.

“With your knife.”

The elf sheathed one dagger. Then the other. She sat back down, crossed her legs, and closed her eyes.

“Ivory.”

“She started it.”

“Put the cannon away.”

“But—”

“Ivory.”

The violet light faded. Ivory lowered her hand, still glaring at the elf.

“Wha’s going on…”

Nana sat up from the floor, rubbing her eyes. Drool crusted on her cheek. Her white hair was a tangled mess.

She looked at Ivory, then the elf, then Mio holding two overloaded trays of food.

“Did I miss something?”

“No.”

“Why does Ivory look like she wants to kill someone?”

“She doesn’t.”

Mio set the trays on the kitchen counter. Onigiri, rice bowls, fried chicken, miso soup, bottled tea, melon bread, shrimp chips, chocolate, instant ramen, and one suspicious egg salad sandwich.

Nana’s eyes went wide.

“Is that all for us?”

“Yes.”

“All of it?”

Mio shoved an onigiri into her sister’s mouth.

Nana chewed. Her complaints died somewhere around the salmon filling.

Ivory tore open the shrimp chips and started eating like her life depended on it. The elf remained on the coffee table, eyes closed.

“She ate that last nugget with both hands,” Nana said, mouth full. “Like a hamster.”

“Nana.”

“A murder hamster.”

Ivory made a small, strangled noise. She was holding a strip of paper between two fingers. Then another. Then a third.

“My notes,” she whispered. “My field notes.”

The coffee table was covered in them. Neat strips, precise cuts, laid out in rows. The elf’s handiwork from last night. Ivory’s handwriting, already illegible, now sliced into ribbons.

The elf hadn’t moved, sitting on the evidence.

Ivory opened her mouth. Closed it. Picked up another strip, turned it over, and made a sound like a teakettle losing pressure.

Mio grabbed a rice bowl and sat down.

[Vitalize]

[HP: 1,407 → 1,839]

A pinch behind her ribs, then warmth running through her arms. She took a bite of rice. Another bite.

She kept casting between bites. HP climbed, filled, capped. The excess trickled somewhere deeper.

“Onee-san.”

“What.”

“You’re flinching.”

“I’m eating.”

Nana stared at her. Mio stared back. Took another bite.

“Oh. I got a lootbox, too.”

“What?!” Nana jumped around. She suddenly wasn’t tired anymore. “Open it!”

“Later. Eat—”

“Open it!”

Mio sighed. She pulled up her status.

[Engine: Reward Available]

Nana was practically vibrating. Ivory had stopped eating, violet eyes fixed on Mio’s face. The elf’s eyes cracked open.

“Fine.”

[Claim]

Light pooled between her palms. Gold, then white. It solidified into a strand of gold wire.

[Epic Reward: Chimera Vestige Thread]

Passive bond item. Equip to enable resonance between host and claimed Chimera.

“What is it?” Nana leaned in. “It’s pretty.”

Mio turned it over.

She looked at the elf.

“You want to talk?”

Yellow eyes, blank as ever.

“Guess not.”

[Inventory: Chimera Vestige Thread ×1]

“For later,” Mio said.

Nana looked at the elf. The elf looked at nothing.

“We can’t keep calling her ’the elf,’” Nana said. “Can got a name.”

“Can is different. Was different.”

“Can sat on your shoulder and didn’t talk either.” Nana tilted her head. Studied the elf the way she studied things she intended to name. “Jii.”

“Jii?”

“Jii-jii. Because all she does is stare.” Nana made the face. Eyes wide, unblinking, mouth flat. “Jiiiii.”

The elf’s eyes opened. One sliver of yellow.

“See?” Nana pointed. “She’s doing it right now. Jii.”

Mio looked at the elf. The elf looked at Mio.

“Jii-jii,” Mio said.

The elf closed her eyes.

Nana yawned first. Then Ivory. The room was dark except for the kitchen light Mio had left on.

“Bed,” Mio said.

“’M not tired.”

Nana was asleep before she finished the sentence. Ivory lasted thirty seconds longer, curled on the floor next to her, chips still in hand.

The elf hadn’t moved from the coffee table. Eyes closed. Daggers on her knees.

Mio sat on the couch.

[Vitalize]

Warmth behind her ribs, then the number ticking up. She did it again. HP was full. Had been full since dinner.

The excess had nowhere to go but the Reservoir. She kept casting anyway.

The clock on the wall read 1:47.

[Vitalize]

The stench of blood came uninvited, the nightmare, returning.

She’d looked at the convoy girl and thought small before she thought child.

Stepped over her to check the beastkin instead because the body was cold and cold things don’t bloom and Nana would’ve screamed but Mio had kept walking—

And then killed two raiders barehanded and taken another bite of rice while Kaito told her every major city in America was gone, self-inflicted, and she hadn’t even put the tray down—

[Vitalize]

The elf was sitting right there because Mio had turned her into a six-inch trophy and the system had said Ding when it registered. Nana was sleeping on the floor of a government building.

[Vitalize]

[Vitalize]

The elf opened one eye. Watched Mio’s hand glow, dim, glow, dim.

She closed her eye.

The clock read 3:22. Mio’s hands were shaking.

She flexed her fingers. Did it again.

Nana mumbled in her sleep. Rolled over, probably dreaming about dino-nuggets.

5:58. The window was turning gray.

[Reservoir: 41,293]

Every cast was a pinch that proved she was still here. The number went up and the world got smaller and nothing could touch her inside the loop.

That’s worse than the hunger.

The balcony door stuck when she pulled it. Cold air hit her face. February in Tokyo, the sky still bruised purple at the edges.

The moonpetal was on the railing. One clay pot, cracked and repotted. The soil was damp, the leaves green, and one of the buds had started to open.

Mio touched it with her fingertip. The obsidian one. Gently.

She’d made a lot of promises. To Nana. To people who couldn’t hear them anymore.

But she remembered this one. Standing on the old balcony, the night before the Meguro incursion, dirt under her fingernails.

I want to see it bloom.

The bud was white at the edges. Pink toward the center.

She pulled her hand away.

7:45. She changed into the only clean clothes she had. Bureau-issued. Gray.

Nana was still asleep.

Ivory was slumped in the corner now, clutching a fistful of paper strips. Her eyes were red.

“Will you be okay?”

“Hai.”

“Were your notes that important anyway?”

“NO!”

The elf was still sitting.

“Come, Jii-jii. Let’s go hunting.”

The elf’s eyes opened. Both of them, this time.

She hopped onto Mio’s shoulder.

“I’ll be back. Please stay fed.” Ivory nodded once, then went back to sulking.

I guess everyone has their own problems.

She walked out the door.

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