Date A Mysterious Being

Chapter 13 - Takamiya Mana

"...I see. She does look like a spitting image of you, but younger and female."

"R-really..?" Shidou scratched his cheek.

Then, his phone began to vibrate im his pocket. He took out his phone and answered the call.

"Kotori? Something up?"

"Big brother!" A childish, cheerful voice was outputted by the speaker. It was his little sister Kotori. It was her usual voice, and it seemed like she wasn't in commander mode. "The fridge is all empty!" She shouted into her phone, strangely cute when angered. "O-oh, really? Sorry, I'll take care of it right away."

"You better!" She demanded, even making a demand sound cute. Then, she hung up on him without another word.

"..." Shidou sighed and turned towards Lucas.

"Can I ask you for a favor? You don't have anything to do right?"

"Huh? Yeah, what is it?"

"Kotori told me the ingredients ran out for the week, and I forgot to go shopping due to all the tests I had to go through." Shidou told him.

"Yeah, sure. I'll stop by if possible aswell. Kurumi is currently not at home so it's kind of boring at the moment."

"What is she up to?"

"Dunno." Lucas answered in an instant. "She told me there's some 'business' she had to take care of. I didn't want to force out the information so I just brushed it off."

They stood up from the bench, and walked to the nearest Supermarket. On the way they chatted about how lofe has been living with a teenage girl as a growing boy. It was revealed that Lucas also had problems just like Shidou in the beginning, which made Shidou feel a little more at ease.

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In the briefing room in one corner of the Tenguu Garrison for the Self-Defense Forces, the AST members were lined up, including the non-enlisted fighters. Ryouko had brought them together there for a briefing on the previous day's mission and a strategy meeting on the new Spirit signal measured in the neighboring area.

Among them, in the standard uniform, Origami silently stared at her hands on the table, as if to hold back her bad mood.
Two days earlier, Hermit had gotten away from them due to the interference from Princess. On top of that, more than half of their team members had been immobilized from the fight against Nightmare and the Magician. The three of them came out of the blue and they weren't prepared at all. The team members who had been frozen with their Territories were all okay, but the AST had been forced to return to base without any real results at all, much less victory over a Spirit. It was only natural she'd be in a bad mood. Plus, she didn't know why Shido had gone out into the city with the alarm going off, when he was supposed to have been at her house. And for some reason, the rabbit puppet she'd found the other day had disappeared at the same time. She had kind of liked that thing. But what was more mysterious was... why in the world would he be with a Spirit and the renowned hero, the Magician? (To the AST's eyes, he wasn't a hero anymore, but an anti-hero.)

The door to the room opened, and the face of their AST squad leader, Ryouko, popped in. Everyone in the briefing room stood up and bowed.

"Oh, no need for that. Sit, sit," Ryouko instructed, annoyed, and stood in front of them all. "Now, you're all here? Okay, I'd like to get started then. But first, I have good and extremely bad news for you."

"...?" Everyone looked at her, puzzled, and Ryouko sighed.

"Despite the large number of Spirit appearances in Tenguu, we haven't made real progress, okay? So we've been allocated extra personnel. Not just for the Spirits, but also against the almighty Magician."