Consciousness, like a bubble, slowly floated up from the dark, cold seabed.
The first thing Yuutenji Nyamu felt was an omnipresent soreness, as if every bone had been taken apart and then clumsily pieced back together.
Her heavy eyelids felt sticky, and she laboriously pried open a slit.
What met her eyes was a ceiling with a somewhat familiar texture—it wasn't the old, textured ceiling of her home in Kumamoto, nor was it the pale, sun-drenched, rust-smelling ceiling of the repair shed.
The air was filled with a faint, comforting scent, a mix of some fabric softener with a hint of sweet pastry, and a subtle, almost imperceptible… warm aroma, like sun-dried bedding, belonging to someone.
Beneath her was a soft sensation, and her gaze, struggling to focus, swept past the warm-toned curtains, finally landing on a rabbit doll with a tilted head on the bedside table.
"This… is Anon's room?"
"Nyamu! You're awake!"
A vibrant pink figure instantly burst into her field of vision, radiating unconcealed surprise.
Chihaya Anon's face magnified in her view, her long pink hair falling smoothly over her shoulders, the dog ears that Nyamu once thought suited her perfectly were now gone.
But for some reason, looking at Anon's bright, concerned eyes, and her slightly forward-leaning posture, as if ready to pounce and nuzzle, a thought reflexively popped into Nyamu's mind:
'She looks like a… excited pink-haired big dog.'
"Anon…?"
Nyamu's voice was hoarse and dry, her throat feeling like it had been scoured with sandpaper.
"It's me! How do you feel? Still dizzy? Thirsty? Do you want some water?"
Anon rattled off questions like a machine gun, her hand already nimbly pouring a cup of warm water, carefully bringing it to Nyamu's lips, while her other hand gently supported the back of her neck, helping her lift her head slightly.
The warm water moistened her parched throat, bringing a moment of clarity.
Nyamu's thoughts began to churn laboriously.
'It seems the mission was successfully completed, and the mastermind behind the beast transformation incident was also defeated…'
She instinctively tried to call up the system taskbar in the corner of her vision to confirm her status.
However, the place where information should have been clearly displayed was now a chaotic mess.
Blinding garbled code, like convulsing venomous snakes, flashed, twisted, and covered the screen wildly, emitting silent noise, making it impossible to discern any valid information.
'What… what's going on?'
A strong sense of unease weighed on her heart.
She tried to recall yesterday—no, today?—'s experience:
The terrifying chaos that erupted in the center of Ikebukuro, people turning into beasts… her solitary venture into that hell… encountering the US military somewhere? And then… a strange person in an orange jumpsuit? An intense battle… and finally… a desperate, all-out strike directed at the opponent!
Her memory was like a film roughly cut, the scene abruptly stopping at the moment of her desperate attack.
'What happened next? Did I win? How did I get back?'
A huge sense of disconnect and absurdity washed over her.
Did all of this truly happen to Yuutenji Nyamu—an underage girl—in person?
That figure moving through the explosions and flames, that strange power controlling blue data streams, that courage to face death… these images carried a strong sense of reality, yet were as distant as a fantastical dream.
'My memory stopped at the desperate strike I launched at that strange man in the orange jumpsuit… but it seems I didn't completely defeat him…'
'What happened after that?'
'Also, the teammates I fought alongside in my memory…'
'Who were they?'
A sharp, dull pain, as if a chunk of her brain had been forcibly gouged out, struck her.
She desperately tried to remember, to grasp those vague figures who fought beside her, but in the depths of her memory, there was only a cold, unresponsive blank space.
This feeling of powerlessness was so real, like a person who has lost an arm; no matter how frantically the brain issues the command to "clench your fist," the nerve endings transmit only a dead silence of nothingness.
"Ugh…" Nyamu painfully furrowed her brows, instinctively raising a hand to press her temples.
"Nyamu? Does your head hurt a lot? Don't scare me!"
Anon immediately caught her discomfort, the joy in her voice replaced by worry.
She unhesitatingly sat on the bed, one hand gently covering Nyamu's hand, which was pressing her forehead, her warm palm conveying a calming strength. Her other hand, like comforting a startled small animal, very gently patted her shoulder.
"Don't be scared, don't be scared, it's all over. The doctor said you're probably just overly shocked and physically exhausted, you'll be fine after a good rest."
Anon slowed her speech, her voice as soft as a feather.
"Those bad guys have been arrested by the police! Ikebukuro is a mess, I heard it's called… Japari Park? What a strange name, a terrorist attack by an extremist organization, they used a very powerful hallucinogenic gas, which made everyone see those… uh, strange things."
She chose her words carefully, avoiding the sensitive term "beast transformation."
"Now many people are helping, police, firefighters, and an organization whose name sounds very… well… positive, called the Happiness and Relief Committee, they sent many volunteers in white clothes to help.
"And big conglomerates like Teiai Group and Togawa Family are all contributing money and effort, saying they want to help everyone return to normal life as soon as possible."
As Anon spoke, she carefully observed Nyamu's reaction, and seeing that her eyes, though still a bit dazed, seemed to be listening, she continued:
"Speaking of which, our whole family slept so deeply today! Mom and Dad said it felt like they had a very long, deep dream, but they can't remember what they dreamed about at all."
"As for me…" Anon stuck out her tongue, making a helpless and slightly aggrieved expression, "I woke up to find my room in a complete mess! Clothes, books, cosmetics thrown everywhere, it was like a typhoon had hit! It took me most of the day to clean up! Mom even said I must have been sleepwalking, honestly!"
She leaned forward slightly, closer to Nyamu's face, lowering her voice even further, with a hint of sharing a secret's cunning and a barely perceptible trace of relief:
"But luckily, those volunteers in white clothes didn't come knocking on our door. Although the news praises them to the skies, I always feel… a little creepy about them?"
"Even though their name is 'Happiness and Relief,' their uniform smiles somehow make people feel a bit… uneasy, don't you think?"
"So that's how the authorities are explaining it… hallucinogenic gas…"
Nyamu understood in her heart; this clumsy lie was merely a fig leaf to cover the supernatural truth.
However, it was indeed a blessing in disguise that Anon's family had not been contacted by that suspicious committee.
'But how exactly did I get back to the Chihaya family?'
'My head hurts so much… my memory completely blanks out after the airport…'
She tried again to mentally call out to that peculiar electronic voice system, attempting to access teammate information or mission logs. However, only silence answered her.
Below the garbled area in the bottom left corner of her vision, one small, cold, gray character stood alone: "Completed." The teammate slot was empty, as if it had never existed.
"Speaking of which, Aiko…" Nyamu tried to make her voice sound normal, with a touch of appropriate confusion.
"I remember I was outside before… This…"
"Eh?" Anon's eyes immediately widened, her eyelashes fluttering, looking very surprised, but this surprise was fleeting, quickly replaced by an "I get it, I get it" understanding.
Her mind raced, and she immediately remembered her agreement with the blond young man.
"Nyamu, don't you remember?" Her tone took on a perfectly appropriate, playful chiding for her friend's "forgetfulness."
"You! You must have been working too hard! Did you go to Ikebukuro to look for a part-time job? And then you just had bad luck, ran into those bad guys' attack, and got caught up in it, didn't you?"
As Anon spoke, she naturally reached out a finger and gently tapped Nyamu's forehead, her action affectionate and with a hint of "I can't do anything with you."
To add persuasiveness, she wrinkled her small nose slightly, and her tone took on a cute hint of complaint:
"Luckily, you met a kind person! They brought you, and your super—cute electric scooter, back home, otherwise it would have been so dangerous!"
She deliberately elongated the word "super," trying to dilute the seriousness of the topic with a lighthearted tone, her pink hair swaying gently with her head-shaking movements.
"Nyamu, you really are something~" Anon put her hands on her hips, deliberately putting on a stern face, but the concern in her eyes couldn't be hidden.
"You didn't even tell me about going to work; Mom thought it was strange when you left early and came back late yesterday, and even asked me if you weren't used to living here~"
The girl leaned in closer, her warm breath brushing Nyamu's ear, her voice softer, with a hint of playful chiding, like a spoiled child.
"Don't do this next time; if you have difficulties, you have to tell me, aren't we best friends?"
"Well… but I wasn't really going out to work today…"
Nyamu smiled bitterly in her heart.
"Wait!"
A cold fact instantly scattered all other thoughts.
Her mind raced, almost with a self-abusive urgency, she once again "summoned" the silent system interface.
This time, she stared intently at the "Wealth" information bar below her personal information.
[Wealth: -356,400 yen (Original debt has been transferred, only today's interest needs to be repaid)]
[Note: Interest on interest still exists, daily interest rate 3.5%.]
'There's even interest… interest on interest?!'
The cold numbers hit her chest like a heavy hammer, making her breathless instantly.
365,400 yen, the shadow of debt did not dissipate with the end of the incident; instead, due to the terrifying compound interest clauses preset by those lending apps—especially those outrageously predatory programs under Teiai Group—it swelled like a snowball.
In less than a day, the interest had accumulated to so much.
A daily interest rate of 3.5% meant that tomorrow, as soon as she opened her eyes, her debt would increase by nearly 12,500 yen out of thin air.
And she, an underage girl who hadn't even started high school, at the standard hourly wage for convenience store work in Tokyo (assuming around 1300 yen), even if she worked for a full 8 hours without eating or drinking, would barely be able to repay just that day's interest.
'Damn interest…'
'No, what's truly detestable is this broken Stand, still playing dumb now, not helping me figure out a solution!'
'It dragged me into this hell, and then just disappeared!'
Connecting it to her endless working life ahead, the warm room before her, Anon's concerned face, all seemed to be covered by a gloomy filter.
'360,000… Should I try robbing Peter to pay Paul first? Find other platforms to borrow at low interest (if any) to pay back part of this vampire Teiai?'
Just then, a warm, soft hand covered her tightly clenched, slightly trembling fist.
Nyamu looked up, meeting Anon's clear eyes, filled with worry and understanding.
The girl seemed to have understood something from her instantly pale face and stiff body.
"Nyamu…" Anon's voice was very soft, yet it pierced through the gloom like a ray of light.
She didn't press for what exactly was causing Nyamu such pain, but simply looked at her with those eyes that seemed to embrace everything, her tone more gentle and firm than ever before.
"I know everyone encounters those kinds of difficulties… where it feels like the sky is falling. You get scared, you want to hide, you want to grit your teeth and get through it alone, feeling like it's no use to talk about it, or not wanting to bother others."
She moved closer, both hands enveloping Nyamu's cold hands, conveying a continuous warmth.
"But sometimes, there's really no need to be so strong."
"You see, Mom and Dad and I have all decided to help you, so from the day you came to our house, we face everything together, right?"
Anon's gaze was incredibly serious, her gray pupils reflecting Nyamu's somewhat disheveled reflection.
"So, we are teammates fighting difficulties together! No matter what that difficulty is, or how big it is!" She squeezed Nyamu's hand firmly, as if conveying some kind of strength.
"Share some of your worries with me, and share some with Mom and Dad; it's much better for all of us to bear it together than for you to keep it all inside, right?"
Looking into Nyamu's eyes, Anon's eyes darted around, and suddenly a light bulb went off, her face instantly blooming with excitement, all previous heaviness swept away.
"Ah! That's right! Put the part-time job aside for now! It's still not peaceful outside, and as a little girl (though a tiny bit older than me), you need to protect yourself even more!"
"Let's do something fun and profitable! I've come up with a super—great idea for that video account you showed me before!"
She jumped off the bed, twirled around the room, striking what she thought was a dazzling idol pose, a bit clumsy but full of energy.
"Let's work together to make it a super amazing, invincible beauty and fashion blogger account!"
"You'll continue to appear as Nyamuchi! And I'll be behind the scenes helping you plan, edit, and set the mood! I really, really understand the current trends!"
"And then, hmph hmph…" She mysteriously lowered her voice, her eyes shining like stars.
"When the time is right, I'll make a dazzling debut as the mysterious second person!"
"I've even thought of a name, it's… Anon Tokyo! How about it? Isn't it super cool!"
Looking at this pink-haired girl before her, who was radiating light and warmth, even planning their future, all to cheer her up, a strong warm current suddenly broke through the dam in Nyamu's heart.
The shadow of debt still existed, the confusion about the road ahead had not dissipated, but at this moment, this unreserved, slightly silly warmth and support made her truly feel that she was not alone.
There was a kind of Gravity pulling her forward.
"Aiko…" Nyamu's voice was somewhat choked.
She said nothing more, just stretched out her arms and gently pulled the vibrant pink figure by the bed into her embrace.
Her movements were a bit stiff, yet incredibly strong.
She buried her face in Anon's soft, faintly fragrant hair, and in a muffled, incredibly sincere voice, said: "…Thank you."
Anon was stunned for a moment, then a big, brilliantly radiant smile bloomed on her face, and she hugged Nyamu back tightly, like a happy puppy that had finally comforted its teammate, gently patting her back.
"Good girl~ Now let's work together to make the names of 'Nyamuchi x Anon Tokyo' resound across the entire internet!"
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