Dropout Exorcist Part 1 Chapter 3

Chapter 3: Hino Akane

"Mnn! Yeah, my own room really is the best."

Shinya woke on his bed and stretched his upper body. Sleeping in his own familiar room had been comfortable. Out of habit from the other world, he'd thrown up a powerful defensive barrier, keeping absolutely anyone from getting in. Breaking through it would be impossible for anyone short of an exceptional practitioner or youma.

"I really am back, huh."

As far as his body could tell, four years had passed within him.

"Guess I'll grab a burger at McDonald's today. Fries and a shake, plus nuggets, they are all hard to give up."

Anyway for now, he'd make the most of being back in his own world.

Ding-dong.

The built-in intercom rang out. This was supposed to be a private 1LDK rental apartment.

And today was supposed to be a Saturday when there is no school.

"Is it the MHK fee collector or something?"

Ding-dong, ding-dong, ding-dong.

The intercom rang over and over, again and again. Means its definitely not a normal visitor.

And Shinya had a pretty good idea who'd be doing something like this.

"Geez. Is she seriously a little kid? Yeah, yeah, coming."

With a rattle, he undid the chain and unlocked the door. And standing outside it, was just as he'd expected, the person who he thought it'd be.

"You're slow! I came all the way over here this early in the morning so you'd better come out right away!"

The one huffing and puffing with anger was a girl with long, sparkling reddish-gold hair, tied up into twintails with black ribbons.

She stood a hundred seventy centimeters tall, tall for a woman, though modest in her figure. A striking beauty with clear blue eyes that left an impression.

She wore a white top with black denim, carrying it in a way that showed off her good figure.

"You're way too hyped for first thing in the morning, Akane. And what do you mean 'came all the way over,' you live right next door to me."

Shinya said it to her, sounding exasperated.

Hino Akane. A girl who lived in the room next to Shinya's. For Shinya, this was a reunion after four years and naturally, seeing her looking exactly the same as ever stirred something up in him that he hadn't expected.

"Don't sweat the small stuff! More importantly, it's already nine, you know? How long were you planning to sleep in?"

"It's Saturday, isn't it? There's nothing wrong with sleeping in on a day off."

"What are you even saying! It's exactly because a day off is precious that every hour of it matters! So, you're going to spend the rest of today with me."

"What do you mean, 'so'? None of that makes any sense."

"Heh heh. Sweet, kind-hearted Akane here is offering to train you up, that's what I'm saying. You should be grateful, you know? Me, the finest talent the Hino clan has to offer, setting aside my precious time off just to spend it with you."

"Sorry, but I'll pass on the hard sell. See ya."

Shinya slammed the door shut with a bang. At the sight, Akane's face went blank for a moment then it flushed bright red with anger almost instantly.

"Heyyy! Why'd you close the door!? I'm telling you I'm gonna train you personally! And today comes with a bonus, too: field practice against an actual youma!"

"I'm seriously questioning what part of that's supposed to make me happy. Actually, there's nothing here but stuff to complain about. In the first place, isn't that youma extermination job of yours supposed to be, you know, your job? And don't yell about that kind of thing out here."

"It's fine! I put up a barrier, so nobody can hear us!"

"That's a waste of talent and ability if I ever heard one."

"What's wrong with that! You get to go fight youma with a beautiful girl like me, and get some training in on top of it! What's there to complain about!?"

"There's nothing but stuff to complain about! And don't go calling yourself a beautiful girl. That's way too cringe."

"Who're you calling cringe! Just open up already! Open it right now! Open it this instant! I'm telling you to just open it!"

Worried the door might get punched clean off its hinges at this rate, Shinya pressed a talisman onto it to reinforce it. Akane kept pounding on the door with her hands over and over again.

She probably had no real intention of breaking it but there was a chance her anger might make her misjudge her own strength, so it was just a precaution.

"I said open it! Can't you hear me!? Hey, I mean it!"

She raised her voice, but Shinya ignored every last bit of it.

"Ignoring me? You're ignoring me!? You're planning on ignoring me!? Is that okay!? You really think that's okay!?"

"Man, she's really got energy this early, doesn't she."

On the other side of the door, she kept right on shouting. Barrier or no barrier, it was starting to sound like it'd bother the neighbors.

"You're really okay with this!? Treating me like this!? Then I've got some ideas of my own, you know!? Do you get that!? If I get serious, it's gonna get real bad for you! You okay with that!? You sure you're okay with that!?"

So much energy at this early hour, Shinya thought, half exasperated. It made him wonder, why she bothered fussing over him this much in the first place. They'd known each other a long time, having lived next door to each other and being exorcists. But even so, he'd never expected a relationship this easygoing to be still going strong.

"One's the Hoshimori failure and the other's the young lady of the Hino, one of the Six Houses. Funny isn't it."

Muttering to himself, Shinya thought about the girl making a ruckus all on her own on the other side of the door — Hino Akane.

For all that her looks didn't read as particularly Japanese, she was, without doubt, a proper young lady of the Hino main house, one of the Six Houses.

She was the daughter of the current head's younger brother and her mother was half Japanese, half British. That made Akane a quarter British herself but her skill still put her among the top ranks within the Hino clan.

The Hoshimori and the Hino had a fair amount of friendly contact with each other. Among the Six Houses, it was probably fair to say that Hino had the strongest ties to the Hoshimori.

Even so, for Shinya, known as the Hoshimori failure, to be on such familiar terms with a Hino young lady, whether old acquaintance or not, was something close to a miracle.

Now that he'd returned from the other world, it may have been different. But before that, the gap in strength between them had been far too wide for her to have given him the time of day at all.

They'd had some kind of relationship since they were small, but he'd never dreamed, when he moved into this apartment a few months ago, that she'd end up living right next door.

And ever since then, Akane had kept coming at him like this over every little thing.

"Hey! Come on! Are you seriously ignoring me!? Wh-what... You're really going to just decide to ignore me? Y-you sure about that? I-I'm telling you, it's really going to get bad. Y-you okay with that!?"

Her voice started shaking, and Shinya knew right away that she was starting to tear up a little. For some reason, whenever Shinya kept ignoring her long enough, Akane tended to turn weak-kneed like this. With eyes welling up, voice cracking. He thought honestly, her mental fortitude wasn't much.

But the tricky part was what came after: her spirit power running out of control.

(In her case, it could genuinely turn into a real disaster. With her spirit power as high as it is, the damage would be that much worse if it ran wild. And she's from the Hino, a clan skilled at converting spirit power into flame. If she really lost control, the damage could get terrifying fast.)

One might wonder how a member of the Hino main house could still lack control over her own power like that but the fact that a prestigious young lady like her was living alone had something to do with it too.

(Training, apparently, is what this is supposed to be. Leaving her hanging too long just makes things more of a hassle later so I guess it's about time to humor her. It is a shame about the day off, but this is Akane's first bit of selfishness in four years. Guess I can put up with it a little.)

Maybe it felt something like having a troublesome little sister. To her, it had only been a day; to Shinya, it had been four years. He couldn't help feeling a little nostalgic over it.

"Yeah, yeah, my bad. Don't go getting all mad and sulky this early in the morning."

"I-I'm not sulking. I-it's just that it's your fault for not honestly accepting my invitation."

He opened the door and started talking to Akane again, and her face went red as she turned away, looking elsewhere.

"Anyway, I only just woke up, so let me get ready. Haven't even had breakfast yet. I'll let you know when I'm ready, so wait in your room."

"H-hmph! Saying that, you're probably planning to run off the second I'm not watching! I won't let that happen!"

"No, seriously, what are you even talking about?"

"T-that's why I'll wait right here in your room until you're ready! You should be grateful!"

"..."

With a bang, Shinya shut the door again, smiling.

"H-hey! Why'd you close it again!! Open up! Open this door right now! Ah, there's something in there you can't let me see, isn't there! Mainly, like, dirty magazines!"

"That's not it! How'd you even get there!?"

"Then let me in! Or else I'll go around telling everyone Shinya's got a huge stash of dirty magazines!"

"That's straight-up defamation! ...Fine. Alright, if you're going to say that, come in and check for yourself."

He opened the door and let Akane in. The room was a little messy, but there was nothing incriminating lying around.

Shinya didn't own a single dirty magazine. That kind of thing existed exclusively on his computer so there was nothing to find.

His computer was locked and even if the lock got broken and someone went digging through it, everything was also tucked away in hidden files which needed their own password on top of that.

Even the file names themselves looked perfectly ordinary. There was no way Akane would ever find them.

"E-excuse the intrusion~"

Looking somehow suspicious in her every move, Akane stepped into Shinya's room. She glanced around, eyes darting this way and that.

"I-it's been a while since I've been in Shinya's room."

Fidgeting with restless energy, Akane inspected Shinya's room with intense curiosity.

"U-under the bed, dirty magazines should be... nope, not there."

"Told you there weren't any."

"T-then how do you...? Wait, don't tell me you just go through girls one after another!?"

"Just how badly do you want to drag my name through the mud?"

Getting genuinely fed up, he found himself glaring at Akane without meaning to.

"Y-you don't have to make such a scary face about it. ...Also, Shinya. Doesn't something about you feel different from usual?"

"...Different?"

"How do I put it, your presence feels more settled than before, or maybe steadier? What's the right word... Kind of like the air my father or my uncle give off? And just now too: up until yesterday, getting glared at by you wouldn't have made me feel a thing but this time I felt this intense pressure."

It seemed Akane was trying to say Shinya now carried the presence of someone strong. Or maybe what she'd sensed was something closer to the air of an older, grown adult.

(Mentally, I'm pushing twenty at this point, so I guess you could call that. And she's got sharp instincts as expected. Perhaps a little killing intent slip through? Maybe that's what she picked up on.)

Akane's words might not be entirely off the mark. And precisely because of that, Akane ended up feeling more childlike to Shinya, by comparison. Which meant the way she made a fuss like this, the way she carried herself around him, came across as sweet, almost like a kid wanting attention from an adult so it never made him feel bad about it.

"What's with that face? Why are you making such a warm, sappy face at me?"

"No reason? More importantly, I still need to get ready."

"Ah, right. Then I'll just wait here."

With that, Akane flopped down onto Shinya's bed.

"Hey, come on. Why are you on the bed?"

"What's wrong with that? It's cleaner than the floor, I'd think. I'll just lie around here and wait, so hurry up and get ready, Shinya."

"What a tyrant. Sigh. Fine, just for today: I'm only putting up with this selfishness of yours once, got it?"

"Heh heh. That depends on how you behave from here on out, Shinya."

"Depends on what, exactly. Geez. Whatever... I'm going to go wash my face and brush my teeth."

Shinya turned his back on Akane and headed straight for the bathroom sink.

Akane, meanwhile, waited until Shinya was fully out of sight then pulled the pillow lying on the bed close and buried her face in it.

(Eheh. It smells like Shinya.)

Taking the utmost care not to be caught, she spent a moment of pure bliss right there on his bed.

She always ended up acting all combative toward Shinya but that was just the flip side of not being able to be honest with herself.

(...But barging in on him out of nowhere like this, is Shinya actually mad? But he's getting ready and everything so he can't be that mad, right? But what if he is really mad? Maybe I could make it up to him later, would that be okay?)

A sudden wave of anxiety washed over her. Dragging Shinya around, pestering him one way or another, that was all business as usual for her but even she had to admit this time she'd pushed it a little too hard.

(But today, or rather, ever since yesterday, my spiritual sense has been giving me some kind of bad feeling. And it's directed at Shinya, on top of it.)

Akane's spiritual sense was sharp, and the intuitions and hunches it gave her had a long history of hitting the mark. Yesterday, too, some kind of ominous premonition had struck her out of nowhere, and she hadn't slept well because of it.

She'd even considered charging over to Shinya's place in the middle of the night, but going that late would only be a bother to him, so she'd decided to grit her teeth and wait while restless and uneasy until morning. The reason she'd picked nine o'clock, too, was that she couldn't bring herself to wake him up too early in case he was still asleep.

(Last night, Shinya's room felt off somehow, I couldn't really place it but it was different from usual. I could tell he was in there but something about it felt strange.)

Because of the barrier Shinya had put up, Akane hadn't been able to sense his presence the way she usually could. His barrier didn't just keep outsiders from getting in; whatever happened inside it, it made sure absolutely nothing of it could be felt from outside at all.

So no matter how hard Akane tried to feel him out, all she could sense was Shinya's unchanging and static presence. Though, in fairness, Shinya had just been sleeping the whole time so there hadn't been anything to change in the first place.

(Still, Shinya feels pretty different today compared to when I saw him yesterday. It's more calming than usual or maybe like there's something enveloping about his presence. Wait! What am I even thinking, "enveloping"!?)

She managed, with effort, to steer her thoughts back on course before they could keep drifting to somewhere strange and uncomfortable.

(Anyway, the important thing is today. I have managed to get him to come along so I need to make sure Shinya gets some real experience out of it! He's Hoshimori, after all so he's definitely got what it takes to get stronger. And he'd better get stronger or I'm the one who'll be in trouble.)

That's right. No matter what, Akane wanted, more than anything, for Shinya to grow stronger.

She'd met him, and a lot had happened since. And she'd learned who he really was. The Hoshimori failure. Somehow, she wanted to wipe that label away completely and that was what Akane had always thought about.

And there was no way to do that except by having him gain experience and grow stronger. Even without reaching real strength, if he could build up a track record, nobody would be able to look down on him as a failure anymore. With actual achievements people could actually see, they might still gossip behind his back but direct abuse would disappear.

(If he builds up his track record and experience, Shinya's bound to gain more confidence in himself too! And he'll definitely get stronger. Yeah, that's what my instincts are telling me!)

Akane trusted her own instincts. That was exactly why, no matter what, she was determined to drag Shinya along to fight youma.

(It's youma extermination but only up to the low-rank ones. If it's that, with me backing him up, there shouldn't be any real failures and I just need to watch him closely enough that he doesn't get hurt. And with me there, we can handle anything up through mid-rank too.)

Youma have ranks. From the bottom up, there are nine: Bottom Rank, Low Rank, Minor Rank, Mid Rank, High Rank, Top Rank, Special Rank, Super Rank, and Sovereign Rank. In practice, there's one more rank above even that, but it exists as the exception to the exception, a rank in name only, so exorcists don't put much stock in it.

This time's youma was Low Rank too and while Shinya alone might have been a different story, with Akane along, there didn't seem to be any real problem. Akane's own skill was such that she could take down even a High Rank youma in a straight one-on-one fight.

(Ideally I'd want him to get stronger than me but that's probably asking too much. Still, I'd at least like him to get stronger at yjr minimum.)

If he didn't, there'd be all kinds of trouble down the line. Thinking ahead to what was to come, Akane clenched her fist tight.

(Still, though, maybe there wasn't really anything to worry about after all? I had this bad feeling about something, but...)

She couldn't say what, exactly, but her spiritual sense was still whispering that something was wrong. The uneasy fog in her chest just wouldn't clear.

(Well, whatever. If I stick with Shinya all day today, I might figure something out. And if something bad does show up, I'll just deal with it, that's all.)

Thinking all this over, Akane, waiting for Shinya on his bed, savored the scent of him, delighting in the thought of getting to spend the whole day with him.

**Translator's Note:** "MHK" is a stand-in for NHK, Japan's public broadcaster — where its door-to-door subscription fee collectors are a well-worn comedic trope in Japanese fiction for someone who won't stop ringing the doorbell. This is the joke Shinya's making here.