While Fujiwara Chika was still sizing up the posters on the wall, Asakura had already stood on tiptoe to take down a dusty, tattered hat from the bookshelf.
Fujiwara Chika couldn't help but look curiously at that pointed hat in his hand, which looked quite old.
"Very curious?"
A voice suddenly rang coldly in the young girl's ear, giving her a start.
Fujiwara Chika hurriedly looked back, only to find that on the idol poster she had just been sizing up—which felt completely out of place with the atmosphere of the entire room—the girl wearing stage clothes was staring at her with a somewhat inexplicably scrutinizing gaze.
"You can talk?"
Fujiwara Chika asked in surprise.
She carefully looked at the edges of the poster and confirmed that it was just a piece of paper rather than a pad or something embedded in the wall; furthermore, it could be seen that the person who originally pasted the poster was quite casual, as it wasn't pasted very well.
"I'm not the only one who can talk, you know." The girl on the poster said meaningfully.
"What do you mean?"
Fujiwara Chika failed to understand the other party's words for a moment, showing a somewhat dazed expression.
But it didn't matter, because she soon understood what the other party meant.
"Ah?!"
Asakura's movements were slightly rough as he buckled that hat onto the girl's head, causing her to let out an instinctive cry of surprise.
Fujiwara Chika struggled to straighten the obviously ill-fitting hat on her head and whispered: "I hope next time the Exorcist-san can give me a heads-up before putting a hat on me."
"Next time for sure." Asakura said casually while looking at the hat.
Fujiwara Chika puffed out her cheeks, staring at Asakura with a cute look of dissatisfaction, attempting to bring pressure to Asakura this way.
However, in the next moment, the young girl's own expression stiffened.
"What a fellow with no eye for quality, I am no ordinary hat." Because the hat on her head had spoken.
"Eh? E-E-E-Eh?! The hat spoke!"
Compared to the girl on the poster opening her mouth just now, the hat speaking clearly brought much more shock to the young girl.
"Things have come to this, so don't make a fuss over such small matters." Asakura said to her gently.
"The hat speaking or whatever, even as a supernatural phenomenon, it's very strange, okay..." Fujiwara Chika grabbed the brim of the hat with both hands, not knowing whether she should continue wearing it or take it off, "I thought so-called supernatural phenomena were just urban legends like vengeful spirits, monsters, and the back-room space of that wind pavilion."
"The things you mentioned are actually closer to the definition of 'Abnormalities.' The supernatural covers a much larger range..." Asakura explained with a squinting smile: "Who knows, maybe one day we can go catch Martians together."
"Oh oh!"
Fujiwara Chika looked quite interested.
"Bravery and recklessness are only a wall apart. While curiosity is high, the head is full of audacious ideas. Although you will follow rules to a certain extent, you are also happy to look for loopholes in the rules that allow you to run toward freedom. Compared to a quiet world, you prefer a lively one. Truly a little troublemaker... but essentially a kind-hearted, good child who proactively helps others. Well, there's no lion more standard than you. What else can I say?"
The hat mumbled on the girl's head for a long while, finally shouting clearly: "Gryffindor! No doubt!"
Fujiwara Chika blinked her eyes and asked curiously: "What is Gryffindor?"
"It's a classification based on personality traits..." Asakura replied: "It's mainly related to courage."
"Although I don't quite understand, I should have been praised, right?" The young girl recalled the hat's evaluation.
"That's right..." Asakura nodded: "Aside from being a troublemaker, making a scene, being easily hot-headed, and often making things worse out of good intentions... yeah, it's a praise."
"That doesn't sound like praise at all?!"
The young girl was stunned.
Actually, Asakura was also a bit surprised.
Because in his perception, Fujiwara Chika didn't always have the "silly-sweet" appearance she showed on the surface; in fact, she was quite calculating.
As a child of the Fujiwara family, a perennial tree in the political world, being able to move like a fish in water in social circles proved this point.
If "Nobles" and "Pure-bloods" were equated, things that Asakura actually saw as roughly the same, Asakura had even thought the other party would likely be sorted into Slytherin.
But the result wasn't so. It seems the criteria the Sorting Hat currently uses for sorting really don't have much to do with bloodlines anymore. Furthermore, being sorted into Gryffindor also proved that even if Fujiwara Chika indeed had some small schemes, overall, she still leaned more toward being "silly-sweet."
"However, being able to be sorted by the Sorting Hat means you indeed possess the talent to become a witch..." Asakura said.
Of course, it was just talent. More specifically, the prerequisite for allowing the Sorting Hat to perform a sorting is the presence of magic power in the body.
In fact, Asakura had guessed this point early on. After all, if she were a Muggle completely without magic power, it would be unlikely for her to have spiritual intuition.
And without spiritual intuition, she naturally wouldn't be able to see that "non-existent shrine..." let alone enter it to worship and make a wish.
But also because of this, after being baptized by the power of the fox-shaped phantom of the Eight Million Gods in the non-existent shrine, she still showed no signs of awakening a magic spell. It's feared that even if Fujiwara Chika has the qualities to become a witch, that talent might not be exceptionally excellent.
"Really?" Regardless of talent, upon hearing she had the possibility of becoming a witch, Fujiwara Chika's eyes immediately lit up.
It was no wonder she was so excited; after all, the impression Asakura had left her with his casual actions back then was truly too deep.
"You're happy too early." Asakura shook his head, giving her a bucket of cold water as a precaution: "Becoming a witch requires accumulating magic power over a long period until you successfully activate your own magic spell and completely control it. In other words, if you can't control the magic spell, not only might troublesome things happen, but you also won't be able to become a witch. If you're even unluckier, it's not impossible to fall and become a carrier for an 'Abnormality'."
"But isn't Exorcist-san... Asakura, right here?" Unexpectedly, Fujiwara Chika wasn't scared off by his words. Instead, she looked at Asakura with bright eyes: "With you around, you definitely won't let anything happen to me, right?"
"Moral kidnapping doesn't work on me." Asakura raised his chin: "I'm from Azkaban."
Although she didn't know what Azkaban was, it didn't stop Fujiwara Chika from revealing her signature energetic, silly smile: "It's not moral kidnapping! Please say I have 1100% trust in Asakura!"