Prologue: The Soul Reader Awakens!“Mom! Yu’s awakened his magic sight! This calls for sekihan rice to celebrate!”
“Oh, dear. I don’t know quite what you’re talking about, but if that’s a good thing, sekihan rice is what we’ll have.”
Yuichi nearly spat out his breakfast miso soup.
No, I’m okay. No one really does that outside of anime and manga.
His big sister, Mutsuko, had made a big production to him about how he couldn’t tell anyone about his sight — what if a secret society came after him?! Yet apparently, she saw nothing wrong with telling their parents.
He glared at her, willing her to stop talking about it.
Mutsuko grinned back at him, clearly misinterpreting the gesture. She didn’t get it at all.
Mutsuko was just entering her second year of high school, the same high school Yuichi would be attending starting today. People said she was good-looking, though Yuichi, being her brother and all, couldn’t really confirm or deny this.
Her hair was long and held in place with a variety of metal hair clips. To the casual observer, they just looked like barrettes shaped to resemble knives, but she always bragged that they were real blades made from Damascus steel.
Her build was slender and her chest was modest, but that didn’t seem to bother her. She always said that having a big chest would just get in the way, and it sounded like she really meant it.
His mom was very easygoing, so the talk of magic sight didn’t bother her.She probably didn’t even know what “magic sight” was.
Yuichi checked his father’s reaction, but he was focused on his newspaper, occasionally taking a bite of food. He didn’t seem especially interested in the conversation.
Yuichi’s little sister, Yoriko, was enjoying her breakfast as if everything were normal. Mutsuko was always saying weird things like that, so she barely seemed to notice.
Yoriko would be starting her second year of middle school today. Unlike Mutsuko, who paid little mind to her appearance, Yoriko was very concerned with looking pretty. Her long, black hair suited her very well, and she took very good care of it. She wouldn’t dream of afflicting it with bizarre ornaments like her sister did. Her face resembled Mutsuko’s, but she had a serene air about her, and as far as womanly proportions went, she already outstripped her.
The talk of magic sight continued. Yuichi looked around the table, and let out a sigh. Maybe he should have done more to get her to keep her mouth shut. He thought back to the incident of the night before.
It had been after midnight. Yuichi had rapped softly on the door to Mutsuko’s room.
Their parents and their little sister would all be sleeping soundly by that time, but he knew Mutsuko would be up late doing some weird thing or another.
The door opened right away and Mutsuko stood before him. She was dressed in pink pajamas, staring at Yuichi in confusion.
“Yu? What are you doing here at this hour?”
“Um, there’s something I wanted your help with...”
“Sure thing! You’re gonna tell me about your collection of big sister fetish games, right? Don’t worry, I don’t mind a bit!” Mutsuko puffed out her chest.
Yuichi had no idea where she’d gotten that idea from, but she sounded extremely proud of it.
“That’s not it!”
“That’s the only reason a young man ever visits his big sister’s room in the middle of the night! I’ve seen it in anime!”
“But this isn’t anime, it’s real life.”
The comeback lacked the force of his convictions. What he was about to ask her was the opposite of realistic.
“Anyway, quit standing out there and come inside so we can talk, okay?” Mutsuko beckoned him inside.
She still had her kotatsu out, though the heater underneath the low table was unnecessary here in early spring. They both walked up to it and took a seat.
Yuichi hadn’t been inside Mutsuko’s room in a long time. The sight of it being even more cluttered than it used to be left him feeling slightly drained.
He picked up a pamphlet from the table. The title was “Bulletproof Abs.” The cover featured a blown-up image of a set of abs. They certainly looked like they could deflect bullets.
Yuichi began doing some basic clean-up on the books scattered haphazardly across the tabletop.
King of Grip Strength, King of Joints, The Complete Bajiquan, Why Didn’t Masahiko Kimura Kill Rikidozan?, The Science of Releasing Your Internal Power... those titles and more got swept into a neat pile at the edge of the kotatsu. He just couldn’t stand sitting at a messy table.
But sorting out that one minor mess didn’t change the deplorable state of the rest of the room. The most obvious bits of clutter were the weapons strewn all around.
There were lots of Chinese weapons: guandao, emeici, chain whips, meteor hammers, miaodao...
For Western-style weapons, there were quarterstaffs, crossbows, main gauches...
For Indian weapons, madu and a katar...
There were Japanese-style weapons, too. Manri-gusari, jutte, shurikens, and even katanas. The fans seemed a little feminine, at least, but they were made from steel... in other words, more weapons.
Yuichi had known that she had weapons, but not that she had so many, nor that she left them lying around out in the open like this. The paranoid question of what would happen if someone stepped on one began to gnaw at him.
Still, it wasn’t like the room would be appropriately girlish, even if you ignored the weapons. The floor was a mess of winding cables and mysterious circuit boards. There was a line of what looked like lockers piled up against one wall, filled with flickering machines. And even setting those aside, there were the masks, the paper talismans, and the altar, all with purposes unknown.
Yuichi pushed it all out of his mind. If he let himself dwell on it, he’d never stop.
“Okay! What’d you want to talk about?” Mutsuko asked enthusiastically. She was often roping Yuichi into things, but he couldn’t remember the last time he had come to her for advice. Maybe that was why her eyes brimmed with anticipation.
“Um, well, see... ever since yesterday, I’ve been seeing strange things, and I’m not sure why,” Yuichi explained, fumbling for the right words.
“Oh?” Mutsuko leaned forward over the table, exploding into an interrogation.
“What is it? What? What are you seeing? Huh? Lines? Lines of death? Have you got Mystic Eyes of Death Perception? We’ve gotta get you some glasses! But what do they even make those out of? Or can you see chakras? Have you got All Seeing White Eyes? Mirror Wheel Eyes? Or can you see ghosts? Is it ghost sight?”
“Calm down! It’s nothing that serious!”
“Got it! Hold on a second.” She took in a deep breath, clearly trying to calm herself.
“Okay! What are you seeing?”
“Um, it’s really not that big of a deal... I hope you didn’t get your hopes up too much, because it’s just... um... words.”
“Words?”
“I see words above people’s heads.”
“That’s all?” Mutsuko was clearly disappointed. Even though he was the one coming to her for advice, he almost felt like he had let her down.
But she bounced back quickly, leaning forward again.
“Right! Maybe it’s not a combat-based magic sight! But it’s still amazing! So, is there anything over my head right now? Can you see my lifespan, maybe? I’ve seen that in horror movies!”
“It just says ‘Big Sister.’”
“Huh?”
The words “Big Sister” were floating over Mutsuko’s head in big black letters.
“Above Mom’s head it says ‘Mom.’ Above Yori’s head it says ‘Little Sister.’”
Mutsuko, Yuichi, and Yoriko were siblings. They and their parents comprised the five-member Sakaki family.
“What does that mean? I don’t get it.”
“I don’t get it, either! I have no idea what’s going on, so I haven’t gone outside at all since it started up yesterday. But I have school tomorrow, so I can’t just stay inside. I thought you might know something.”
Yuichi had slept in on the last day of spring break, then gone to the kitchen for a late breakfast. That was when he noticed.
His mom was in the kitchen cooking, with the word “Mom” hovering over her head in black letters.
He blinked several times, thinking maybe he was still half-dreaming. But no matter how many times he blinked or rubbed his eyes, the black letters remained.
He wolfed down his food, then returned to his room. He thought maybe he was just overtired from spring vacation, so went back to bed. But it was all the same when he woke up. All he managed to do was confirm that he could see words over his sisters’ heads, too.
“So can you see something above your own head?”
“I couldn’t see anything when I looked in the mirror. Maybe I have to look at it directly... anyway, that’s all I know. Any idea what it could be?”
“Hold on! Just wait a minute!” Mutsuko pressed one hand to her forehead, and thrust the other toward Yuichi, palm out.
“Okay, but what’s wrong with me?”
“I’m thinking! You got a problem with that?” Mutsuko held the pose, apparently deep in thought.
She was the type of person who, once off in her own little world, couldn’t see anything else around her. She might stay that way all night if he let her.
Yuichi was just about to head back to his room when Mutsuko moved again. “Soul Reader... That’s it! That’s what it’s like! Maybe you’ve got magic eyes that can read a person’s true nature?”
“Huh? So ‘Big Sister’ is your true nature?”
“Yeah! There’s no big sister more big sister-y than me!” Mutsuko puffed out her chest. She’d always seemed to take particular pride in being a big sister, even above and beyond her usual boastfulness.
“I guess that goes for ‘Mom’ and ‘Little Sister’ and ‘Dad,’ too. Maybe it’s not worth worrying about.”
Hearing Mutsuko make so much noise about it had Yuichi feeling a bit foolish for worrying. So what if he saw the words “Big Sister” over his big sister’s head?
“By the way! Do you have any idea what might have awakened the power within you?”
“Huh? No... it was just there when I woke up in the morning.”
Although he had come to her for advice, he was a little surprised by how quick she was to believe in stuff like magic sight. She always talked about stuff in anime and manga like they really existed, but he’d always figured it was at least partly a put-on.
“Were you shot by an arrow or something?”
“I think I’d remember!”
“Did you eat a fruit with a spiral pattern on it?”
“I think I’d remember that, too.”
“Did you hear a voice asking, ‘Do you desire power?’”
“If I had, that would’ve been the first thing I asked about.”
“Hmm, I guess it’s the trope where you’re not aware of it... the influence of a Demon Quake or a Hell’s Gate...”
“Sorry, but I can’t give you any more than what I’ve already told you. I’ve already racked my brain for possible causes.”
Mutsuko sank back into deep thought. “Nanomachines, maybe... or a Pandora’s Box? We can’t rule out Personas, either...” After musing to herself for several seconds, she finally looked back up at Yuichi. “You must not tell anyone about this! You might end up the object of a superhuman hunt!”
“Who would do something like that?”
“A secret society! Yes, there could be a secret society for things like this! Be careful! They might find you and gouge out your eyes!”
“Hey, don’t say stuff like that!”
Obviously, Yuichi had no intention of telling anyone else about this. Only his weirdo sister would take a story like this seriously. Anyone else would doubt his sanity.
“I’m not going to tell anyone. So you keep it to yourself too, okay?”
“You got it! I’ll protect you from the secret societies, Yu!” There was pride in her voice as she clapped a hand against her chest. The sight really did fill him with confidence.
No matter what happens, my sister will be on my side. She may have been a little eccentric, but she had never let him down so far. Though he felt a little pathetic having to rely on her like this, talking to her really had relieved a lot of his worries.
But he started to regret it the moment he heard his sister asking for sekihan rice.
Maybe he shouldn’t have come to her, after all.
He could feel the dark clouds forming as he faced his first day of high school.
