"I think it was around here… maybe."
Mochi walked alone through the city streets. She had left home early with the intention of returning to the place where it had all begun: the shrine where the cat anomaly had once been sealed.
Two days had already passed since what happened at the inn.
Before leaving, she had contacted Haruka to ask what had happened to the shrine after that night—whether the agency had returned to reseal it or something similar. However, the answer completely caught her off guard.
Apparently, that night, after Mochi had been possessed, Haruka had tried to return to the place after escorting her home… but she had been unable to find it. She had even searched again during the following days and never managed to locate the shrine a second time. According to Haruka, it was possible that some kind of barrier or hidden space prevented access to anyone who did not meet certain conditions.
Because of that, Mochi decided to search on her own.
And, of course, she hadn't told Haruka. She was completely certain Haruka would forbid it immediately, claiming it was far too dangerous.
After all, Mochi was the one who had found that place the first time.
However, she still hadn't succeeded. After walking for hours, she began to realize the sun was already starting to set.
she thought with resignation.
Mochi started making her way back, but suddenly stopped dead in her tracks.
"Huh…?"
The alley in front of her felt strangely familiar.
She had been there before.
Without thinking twice, she stepped inside. As she moved forward, the memories of that night became clearer and clearer. Unconsciously retracing every step she had taken that day, she kept walking.
Right. Then left.
The farther she went, the stranger the place began to feel. The air itself seemed different. Heavy. Distant. It was similar to what she had experienced when Haruka brought her to the anomaly festival: as if she were entering a space separated from the real world.
Mochi quickly stopped thinking about it.
There was something far more important demanding her full attention.
She slipped her hands into the pockets of her coat and pulled out her ether knuckle weapons. The reddish metal glowed faintly beneath the light of the setting sun as she put them on.
She was ready to fight.
Then, behind her, three anomalies appeared.
"This has got to be a joke…"
Mochi couldn't help complaining out loud when she saw them.
They were tall, extremely thin humanoid figures with pale, sickly white skin. Each one held a black umbrella that completely concealed its face.
All three were identical to the anomaly that had chased her that night.
"I'll show you I'm not prey you can hunt anymore!"
Mochi raised her fists, taking up a clumsy but firm stance, lowering her body slightly. She closed her eyes for a brief moment and released a small pulse of ether to gauge the strength of her enemies.
In response to her challenge, one of the anomalies snapped its umbrella shut with a loud CLACK and thrust directly toward her.
Mochi didn't dodge immediately.
She waited.
She waited until the very last instant.
Then she moved.
The tip of the umbrella pierced through the air exactly where her head had been a second earlier.
After avoiding the attack, Mochi found herself face-to-face with the anomaly.
A confident smile appeared on her face.
"Take this!"
She launched an uppercut with all her strength, striking the anomaly squarely in the chin.
A dry crack echoed through the alley.
The creature's skull exploded into pieces, and its body fell heavily to the ground, slowly beginning to fade into dark particles.
Mochi noticed something strange during the impact, but she had no time to dwell on it. Two still remained.
The remaining anomalies reacted instantly. They closed the distance quickly while attacking from different directions: one from the left and the other from above.
Mochi ducked to avoid the sideways strike, but she couldn't evade the descending attack.
She didn't panic.
She crossed both arms above her head and concentrated ether into them, reinforcing her muscles and bones just as Haruka had taught her.
"Ugh…!"
The impact hurt. She felt her arm go numb, and a massive bruise would probably appear later, but the blow failed to seriously injure her.
"Got you!"
Without wasting the opportunity, she grabbed the enemy's umbrella and yanked it toward herself with force, pulling the anomaly closer.
Mochi threw a straight punch directly into the center of its chest.
The impact made the creature's body crack before sending it flying backward, rolling several times across the alley floor.
Then she heard the whistle of air being sliced apart.
Instinctively, she moved aside.
The other anomaly's umbrella passed just barely by her cheek an instant later.
Mochi stepped back and returned to her stance while staring fixedly at the remaining creature.
"Kero… I have an idea. Help me with this."
Without waiting for a response, she propelled herself toward the alley wall.
The instant her feet touched the surface, she felt ether flow through her body. Thanks to Kero's support, she managed to take several steps along the wall as if gravity had ceased to exist.
The anomaly failed to react in time.
Mochi launched herself off the wall and delivered a powerful dropkick straight toward the creature's face.
Well… if that thing could even be called a face.
The impact made the anomaly stagger before collapsing to its knees.
Mochi landed on both hands and feet like a cat, then immediately sprang forward again without losing speed.
"Yaaah!"
With a loud shout, she unleashed a direct strike into the anomaly's temple.
The creature's body twisted violently before collapsing.
"That makes two… only one left," Mochi said, pointing at the last anomaly. "Get ready to end up just like your friends!"
But before she could attack again, the creature changed its behavior.
Just like the anomaly had done on that first night, its face split open vertically, separating into two halves and revealing an enormous mouth filled with razor-sharp teeth.
Then it let out an ear-piercing scream.
"Agh…!"
Mochi instantly covered her ears.
The shriek was so loud it felt like it was piercing straight through her skull.
Grinding her teeth, she endured the noise and charged toward the anomaly, intending to end the fight in a single blow.
She was just about to punch it in the head when she abruptly stopped.
Seeing that mouth full of sharp teeth up close, she realized sticking her fist in there would be a terrible idea.
So she changed targets at the last second.
BAM!
BAM!
BAM!
She unleashed a barrage of punches onto the anomaly's chest.
On the fifth impact, the scream finally stopped.
Mochi's fist sank into the creature's torso, deforming it before partially punching through it.
Just like the others, the anomaly collapsed to the ground and slowly began to fade away.
Mochi let out a long sigh.
She wasn't physically tired.
It was mental exhaustion.
It was the first time she had fought completely alone… and facing three anomalies at the same time definitely hadn't helped.
Mochi knelt in front of the anomaly's body to search for its core.
She still remembered the first time she had to extract an anomaly core.
Zeke had practically forced her to do it under the excuse that she "needed to get used to it," though Mochi was convinced the real reason was much simpler: he found it disgusting to do himself.
And honestly… she couldn't blame him that much.
That anomaly had looked like an obese man with a pig's head. Just remembering how she had to sink her hand into that slimy body still sent chills down her spine even now.
But this time, the moment she started inspecting the corpse, she noticed something strange.
The body wasn't made of flesh or bones.
It was black sand.
Mochi frowned.
That wasn't normal.
Except for very specific cases, anomalies shaped like living beings usually possessed bodies similar to real creatures. Flesh. Bones. Deformed organs. But not this one.
And that wasn't even the strangest part.
"W-What?! It doesn't have a core?!"
The surprise made her raise her voice without realizing it.
She searched the body again from top to bottom, separating the black sand with her hands, but found nothing.
She quickly ran toward the other corpses.
Empty.
All three.
None of them had cores.
"This can't be possible…" she muttered in confusion. "No matter their form or rank, anomalies always have a core… without exception."
Then she felt it.
A violent chill ran through her entire body.
The air became colder.
Much colder.
Mochi slowly lifted her head as her instincts screamed danger.
Something powerful was approaching.
And in that instant, she understood the truth.
"I can't fight something like that… I need to hide, now!"
She desperately looked around for somewhere to conceal herself. The only nearby spot was a large dumpster.
She ran toward it and lifted the lid.
"Ugh…!"
The putrid stench assaulted her senses so violently that she instantly felt nauseous. She slammed the lid shut and staggered backward.
With no other option, she ran to a bend in the alley and hid behind the wall, trying to steady her breathing.
One minute later…
A small figure slowly descended from the sky.
Covered by a yellow raincoat.
From the distance, Mochi watched in absolute silence, praying she wouldn't be discovered.
The mysterious figure remained motionless for several seconds, observing the alley.
Searching.
Then its gaze stopped on the dumpster.
Slowly, it raised one hand and pointed toward it.
The next instant—
BOOOOM
The dumpster violently crumpled inward with a deafening metallic crash, compressing like an invisible force had crushed it from every direction at once.
Mochi felt the blood drain from her face.
She went completely pale.
She didn't even want to finish the thought.
Shortly afterward, the figure slowly rose back into the air and disappeared among the buildings.
"Whew…"
Mochi wiped the cold sweat from her forehead, still trembling slightly from the tension.
"I guess when I get back, I'll have to tell Haruka about this… she's definitely going to scold me," she muttered tiredly. "But we've already come too far to leave empty-handed. Let's keep going, Kero."
She took a deep breath and continued forward.
At last, she reached her destination.
A small garden hidden between the city's towering buildings.
It was a quiet, isolated place, almost unreal. In the center stood a small shrine covered in moss and weathered by time, as though it had been forgotten by the world itself.
With tension running through her body, Mochi slowly approached the altar.
Carefully, she opened the small wooden door and took what rested inside.
The cat statuette.
The moment she held it in her hands, she felt the dark aura emanating from it. It was a heavy, unpleasant presence, as though the hatred, rage, and resentment of that anomaly were still trapped inside.
Mochi stared at it silently for several seconds.
"Let's go home… I already prepared the perfect place for you."
When she returned to her apartment, she placed the statuette inside a small wooden shrine she had bought specifically for it.
Then she pressed her hands together in front of the improvised altar and offered a small prayer.
"I hope that someday you can let go of all that anger and resentment consuming you…"
After that, Mochi took out her phone and prepared to contact Haruka to tell her what had happened.
Though, of course…
Completely leaving out the part about the statuette.
After all, she was absolutely certain Haruka would try to confiscate it immediately.
* * *
It was already late at night when Haruka entered Ofelia's office carrying a thick stack of documents under her arm.
The room's dim lighting contrasted with the glow of the city lights filtering through the window. The air smelled of freshly brewed coffee and old paper.
"Haruka, it seems one of your rookies has you working overtime," Ofelia commented teasingly from behind her desk as she looked up from several reports.
Haruka set the documents down on the table with a small sigh.
"This is the report regarding Mochi's encounter with anomalies this afternoon."
"I thought you warned her not to go near that area again. You'll have to train your little kitten better so she learns to follow orders," a male voice said from one corner of the office. "Though if you're incapable of doing it, I could handle training her myself. I promise I'd be very gentle and affectionate with her."
The one who spoke was Lucian, the office's third occupant.
An elf who appeared to be around thirty years old, with long blond hair carefully combed back and a refined appearance that contrasted sharply with the provocative smile on his face.
He was one of the two first-rank agents at that branch.
Haruka slowly turned her head toward him.
The icy glare she gave him would have been enough to freeze an ordinary person solid.
"Come on, come on, don't get angry," Lucian said, raising both hands with an amused smile. "You know I'm only joking with you."
Haruka looked away without responding.
Ofelia, completely ignoring the exchange as though it were a routine scene between the two of them, began reading the report.
"Three anomalies without cores… and a fourth one far more powerful," she murmured while going through the pages. "The situation is becoming more and more complicated."
Her expression turned serious.
"Encounters with these anomalies have increased across different parts of the country, and in every case, they appear near places with high ether concentrations. There's no doubt someone is pulling the strings from the shadows."
"The appearance of a high-rank anomaly is something new," Haruka added. "According to Mochi's estimates, that creature was around Rank B. Until now, we hadn't had any incidents of that level connected to this case."
Lucian, who had remained silent for several seconds, crossed his arms before speaking again.
"Then there's no longer any doubt," he said in a tone far more serious than before. "Sooner or later, the enemy will show their hand."
His golden eyes narrowed slightly.
"And when that happens… we need to be prepared so we won't be caught off guard."
The atmosphere in the office grew heavy.
Even Ofelia stopped turning pages for a moment.
Because everyone in that room understood the same thing.
This was only the beginning.