Whoever guesses where all the names come from gets an e-cookie.
The Katsuragi siblings stand outside a gate. The gate's plaque reads "Fujioka Public School."
Keima is playing on a spare PFP. His silence is heavier than usual.
"It's all because of Kami-sama and his big mouth!" Elsie whines. "Youko-san was so upset, she didn't even come to the game yesterday! Not only that, their team lost!"
Keima, looking uncomfortable, tries to concentrate on his game. "...To think she was insecure enough to get hurt by what I said... And now her team's lost the match when everyone was relying on their ace... That runaway spirit must be having a grand time."
"Eto... it's Elysia-san, isn't it?"
The voice makes them turn. Its owner is a small, meek-looking devil wearing a knitted beret.
Elsie recognizes her immediately. "Maggie-chan!"
X
Margaret El Du Holiette, Second Degree Devil. Elsie remembered Maggie in her Cultural Studies of the Human World and Gear Training classes. Besides picking up on how to use the hagoromo faster than the other devils, there was nothing particularly remarkable about the mild-mannered Maggie.
As the trio make their way through the school, Elsie goes on the subject she had been meaning to go on since the s-mail. Devils can be just as gossipy as humans, after all.
"Ano ne, Maggie-chan," Elsie begins, sheepishly poking her index fingers together, "you know, there've been rumors going on about your team. N-not bad rumors, though!" she clarifies quickly. "Have you heard?"
"Yes... I've heard."
"Th-then are they true?!" Elsie asks, all concern turning into admiring surprise. "Did you really drive out twelve runaway spirits?!"
Maggie replies meekly. "Mmm... kind of... it's the result of bad luck that Merui-chan doesn't get recognized." Elsie remembers one other thing about Maggie: she never said anything with malice. "Since this is a large city with more commercial areas than residential ones, most of the hosts we've found turned out not to live here. They'd already been tagged by other teams. Merui-chan and I merely help out."
"Merely help out? But the rumors were saying it was you who drove the spirits out, not the teams that actually captured them!" Elsie presses on.
Maggie's eyes glisten in awe. "Merui-chan does most of the work. She's quite amazing! Ah," she says suddenly, smiling, "but Elsie-san's team has captured many more runaway spirits! You even won the Skull Honor Award!"
Elsie scratches her head with embarrassed pride. "Eheheh! Well, actually, Kami-nii-sama does all the work," she says, indicating the tall boy beside her. "He's quite amazing too!"
DORO DORO DORO DORO DORO!
"Eh?!" Elsie touches her Sensor in puzzlement. "Another spirit?!" She had already disabled the alarm for Youko, so this alarm should be sensing a different kaketama.
The trio stands in a corridor on the second floor. On one side of the corridor are the classrooms; the other side is a large window overlooking the school courtyard.
Elsie looks out the window.
The girl who set off the alarm is, like Youko, short-haired. She is laughing with a group of other girls whose daring dress indicated they were of the bad girl hoodlum persuasion.
"That's another kaketama host in our jurisdiction," Maggie explains. "Sagami Rei."
Elsie steps back in shock. "Y-you have two runaway spirits to keep track of?!" She and Keima had never encountered two at once.
It is important to note that the trio had already reached their intended destination when Elsie's Spirit Sensor went off.
A classroom door opens behind Keima.
"Maggie, I want you to make-" a voice begins, stopping abruptly as its owner beholds the bespectacled boy in the way.
To everyone else in the world, the following second could probably not be remarked upon as having any great significance. To the two humans currently standing before each other, however, that one second is an entirely different matter. Neither devil, nor indeed, any other human, could have fathomed the instantaneous comprehension that passed like lightning between the Capturing God, and the girl called Merui-chan.
For the sake of our readers, here is the gist.
Keima saw the eyes first, or more accurately, the shine of the glasses that obscured said eyes. There was unkempt hair, a school sweater one size too big, the most recent issue of Shoujo Beat with handwritten tabs, and finally, in the classroom itself, piles of manga and magazines.
Oh. And the devil's choker.
The girl called Merui had made a similar deduction about Keima.
She slams the door shut.
"We haven't found any new runaway spirits in our territory," the voice beyond the door states. "If you've lost your target, please go and find her yourself. Please put some backbone into doing your own work for a change instead of playing video games. You buddies always ask for help without thinking things through for yourselves first."
Keima tries to contain his anger with each successively haughty sentence. The ingrate! Here he was, feeling guilty enough about aggravating Yukinoshita Youko's kaketama that he would offer his strength-
But no! Calm down! She is only one of the real! Do not let the real affect you! They are not important. What's important is to be able to get back to the games without the heavy cloud of fault hanging over his head.
"Merui-chan! They're not here to ask for help!" Maggie calls out. "They just want to know how Youko is doing!"
The door slides open in a fury.
"SO IT WAS YOUR FAULT, WAS IT?!" Keima suddenly finds himself locked in a double-noogie hold. Her face, a vision of angry, terrifying retribution, looms over him. "YOU WERE THE BASTARD WHO MADE THE KAKETAMA IN YOUKO'S HEART STRONGER! What did you do? What did you say? You didn't molest her, did you? You creepy, socially-awkward fanboy!"
Keima struggles our of her hold. "AS IF I'D DO SUCH A THING! Don't touch me you creepy, socially-awkward fangirl!"
X
A broken PFP lies on the classroom table. The two Runaway Spirit teams sit on either side.
Merui is deep in thought. "I see. Unfortunately, 'you should all just disappear' is probably the most INSENSITIVE thing you could have POSSIBLY told her."
Keima is also serious. "I understand. That is why I wish to offer you my aid."
He had been careless, he admitted. He already knew Yukinoshita Youko was a host. He already knew he should've used a different stadium exit. He shouldn't have gotten involved but, as with everything else, he somehow ended up doing precisely that.
It was the price to pay for carelessness - you wind up owing someone something, whether that someone was Youko or this Merui character or something as general as a kaketama host, it didn't matter who.
God didn't like feeling indebted.
"I will help you capture Yukinoshita Youko!" Keima declares. "That way, you won't have so many targets on your plate." He adds as an afterthought, "Ah, I work by myself, so it would be great if you didn't get in the way of the capture."
Merui considers him for a moment. She shuts her eyes and crosses her arms. "If these are your terms...
Then I refuse!
Working alone at this point isn't going to get anything done in time. If you really want to help, then follow me." She stands. Her voice is low and serious. "There's something we need to show you."
The school bell suddenly rings its pleasant tune, indicating the end of lunch.
"Er... actually," she says, a little embarrassed, "do you think you can come back after school?"
X
Fujioka Public School, Outer Courtyard.
"You sure you can't come shopping with us today, Sagami?" The asker is wearing thick makeup and flashy piercings. Being surrounded by two other girls in similar get-ups gives the group the overall impression of a three-headed, predatory bird.
Sagami Rei slaps her hands together in apology. "Gomen! There's someone I gotta see today."
"Okaay then," the bird says airily. "But you gotta come with us tomorrow, Sagami, or we'll think you're not really up for it!"
"I'll come, I'll come!" she assures the bird, a hint of nervousness in her tone.
She waves goodbye.
Little does Sagami Rei realize that, as soon as she left the gates, four invisible people had begun following her.
Sagami Rei stops at a tall building called Whiteflower Apartments. Beside the front doors is an intercom box. She sighs, then presses the button beside the name "Yukinoshita."
In surprise, Keima whispers, "She and Youko are friends?"
"That's right," Merui replies quietly. "Maggie, from this point on, please make the hagoromo soundproof. We follow her up..."
They cram into the elevator with Sagami.
"Shouldn't we have taken the stairs?" Keima says irritably. He hated this kind of proximity. Also, it would be trouble if more people came in.
"Doesn't matter," Merui snaps, looking uncomfortable. "We're here, anyway."
The elevator opens to the third floor. Sagami knocks on room 310 and, just as it opens-
DORO DORO DORO DORO DORO!
Elsie lets out another terribly confused, "Eh?" She had already disabled the sensor for Youko-san and Rei-san, so who else could possibly-?
"Rei-chan! I'm so glad you came," says the middle-aged woman who has opened the door. Her short curly hair is tucked behind her ears, upon which hang a simple set of gold earrings. Keima catches a glimpse of the clean apartment.
"Hello, Yukinoshita-san! How's Youko?"
"She's locked herself up in her room," the mother replies worriedly. "I tried to talk her into going to the game yesterday, but she wouldn't listen, even though everyone was looking forward to seeing her play. She hasn't even come out to eat..."
Their voices fade as the door shuts.
Even God is feeling disbelief. "Th-the mom has a runaway spirit too?!"
"Yes," Merui answers, pulling off the invisible hagoromo. "Yukinoshita Harumi. Our third target."
X
The two Spirit Squad teams sit together outside Whiteflower Apartments.
Their faces express varying degrees of "troubled."
Keima has placed his PFP in his pocket and has crossed his arms. He had never dealt with three runaway spirits at once. It was like having three ticking time bombs, except with three different countdowns that could speed up and down like an unmanned roller coaster; to top it off, you weren't allowed to see the timer.
Elsie gloomily sweeps the floor, a habit of hers when she is feeling anxious. "This turned out to be more complicated than we thought," she remarks sadly. Keima wonders if the devils were trained for this sort of thing. Having Elsie as his partner though, it probably wouldn't have mattered if they were.
"Now you understand." Merui pushes off the wall she had been leaning on. "This will have to be a three-way runaway spirit capture operation."
"I suppose their fears and desires are connected to each other, which is why you're calling it a three-way capture," Keima says, still in thought.
"That's right."
God stands up and dusts his pants. "Seems simple enough."
The statement receives shocked and disbelieving looks from everyone.
"Simple?" Merui repeats incredulously.
"When you look at the situation," Keima begins slowly, as though speaking to a small child or a very dim person, "you'd naturally think each girl has her own separate problem." He pulls out his PFP and resumes his game. "Actually, all you have to do is identify the common denominator. Once you solve the common denominator, everything will right itself. Deal with the core problem surrounding all three girls, and you drive out the spirits."
Merui lets this speech sink in. Her next words are measured. "You really shouldn't be saying things like that so easily. You don't even know their profiles."
"Yukinoshita Youko." Keima, his eyes not leaving the PFP, recites the name clearly and quickly; you could hear him saying it in bold. "Ace of the soccer team, but hates the attention. Became overly upset when told to 'disappear,' probably because she's seriously considered it. She's the Pressured Leader Type who feels everything is her responsibility. Sagami Rei. Hangs out with a bunch of hoodlums, but is concerned enough by Youko to pay her a visit. Probably a childhood playmate who can't keep up with her model student of a friend, whom she both hates and admires, so she goes the other direction. Finally, Yukinoshita Harumi, the mother. To put it simply, Control Freak." Keima did not miss a single beat in either speech or game.
After a stunned silence, Merui turns angrily to Maggie. "D-did you give them the profiles?!"
"N-no!" Maggie pipes.
"The clues were all there," Keima intones matter-of-factly. "Sagami Rei has the spiky hair and piercings; she wants to rebel, the opposite of Youko, who tried to take responsibility for her team's horrible and foolish actions."
Keima's emphatic last sentence makes everyone remember the broken PFP.
"As for the mother, you saw how immaculate that apartment was, and how she couldn't handle her daughter's isolation. Obviously, there's no communication going on. Besides," Keima pushes up his glasses and declares loudly, "tight curls and that kind of jewelry on a woman who lives in a cheap place like this?! Sure signs of class consciousness!"
Everyone begins to wonder if the boy is crazy; he carries on.
"She's probably pushing Youko to be 'the best' so she could 'have the life I never had,' or some overdone plot like that. The issue now is narrowing down possibilities for the core problem. So!" His eyes leave the PFP to meet Merui's for the first time. "What was your plan?"
Merui is still reeling from shock at his fast analysis. All three of them are. Though much of his argument had seemed to jump to conclusions rather quickly, they had all been fairly accurate based on Maggie and Merui's notes from observing the girls. Was he really able to logically deduce all that after seeing each girl only once? Perhaps he was just lucky?
Just who the hell is this guy?
Oh, wait, he had asked a question.
Merui tries to keep up. "P-plan?"
"You had an original plan, didn't you?" Keima says impatiently, "Before I made the kaketama in Youko's heart stronger and rendering that plan too risky to execute." It was the same reason Merui needed his strength right now. Keima had guessed she had not yet formulated a new strategy after Youko's unexpected depression.
Merui is still feeling out of her depth. "W-well, I was going to play the part of the Lone-wolf Bad Girl and become friends with Rei."
If Merui is out of her depth, the two devils observing Merui and Keima are now drowning.
"Then Youko would try to stop her," Merui continues vaguely, "then I would introduce a life-threatening situation to make both girls grow up emotionally. That in turn would teach the mother that Youko is her own person and must live her own life."
"NAIVE!" Keima shouts, making everyone jump. From this point on, the devils, wearing confused expressions, will look back and forth at the two otakus.
"If I were you," Keima asserts, "I would have gone the Black Prince route, have both girls fall in love with me, then go off with a different girl, thus strengthening their friendship by providing a common enemy (myself) and making their other problems seem just as trivial as said enemy!" He finishes this speech very rapidly.
"What kind of route is that?!" The devils look at Merui, who has reverted from dazed and awe-struck to angry. "That's not going to solve any of their problems!"
"Yes, it will!" They look at Keima, who is now impassioned. "It's a common plot! In games!"
"I can't play a Black Prince! I can't make them fall for me!"
"Why not?"
"'Cause I'm a girl!"
Keima stops at this statement, then promptly returns to his PFP. "Well then. It's impossible for you after all."
The three girls hit the ground in comic fashion.
"Still, to call yourself a 'girl' is a bit of a stretch," God goes on off-handedly. "Most real girls have some physical parameters to them, no matter how mediocre. You don't seem to fit any." He looks at Merui abruptly. "On that note, are you even human?"
"K-kami-sama, that's mean!" Elsie says, offended, but glad to finally reach an intellectual ground she can walk on, or at least, trip less often than she usually does.
Merui looks away in disinterest. "Typical. A boy who shuts himself into games would have such a limited understanding of people in the real world...
...is what I'd like to say, but... I'm impressed." Merui straightens up. "Yosh, fanboy-kun!"
She points at him.
It has such theatric force that Keima steps back, a horrible, sick premonitory feeling uncurling in his stomach. ...F-fanboy-kun? he thinks weakly.
Merui's eyes flash behind her glasses. Keima actually sees them for the first time. "Because you must take responsibility for throwing off my plans, I shall accept your help! However, I will be in charge, and you're going to have to do exactly as I say!"
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