Five minutes later, Shindo, dressed up as me but wearing a pair of sunglasses and a hat, got out of the house. Meanwhile, I observed the spot which he had pointed to earlier. I was hidden in an alcove in the shadows, and I held an empty water bottle in my hand to use as a projectile. I wouldn't be visible from the street unless you were at a very specific angle, and that too at a certain position which was far away from that spot.
At first, nothing happened. Nothing happened ten minutes later, fifteen minutes later, or twenty minutes later. Shindo even texted me asking what on earth was going, I told him to go the arcade or something with the cash I had given him for a while and to not come back to the apartment for now.
And, then, it happened. I saw it- the rustling of bushes, and I immediately threw the water bottle in my hand after texting Shindo to come back- that we had found the perpetrator!
Bullseye! The bottle hit its mark!
A screech came from the bushes as I leapt out, and in one single motion reached them. Whoever was there, tried to run away, but I managed to grab onto their ankle.
"Ha- gotcha... huh?" I said, initially reveling in my moment of triumph before I became utterly confused.
Who... who on earth was this person? I had thought that it might've been one of those nameless thugs that had been bothering me and Raphtalia earlier, or maybe even some paparazzi out to get Filo, and even less likely would be someone out to get Melty but...
...seriously, who was this? I had been expecting to catch whoever it was like Sherlock Holmes and then be able to scream, 'Got you! I knew it was you all along!' regardless of who it was, but this was just... some random person? Weren't the small hints always dropped supposed to lead to whoever it was? I bet the Mystery Gang never had trouble with things like this. And if this was the ending to a Detective Conan manga I definitely would've called out the mangaka dumb for thinking of it.
I turned out that I had just grabbed onto the ankle of a schoolgirl- yeah, wait, I knew her from earlier! That time I thought someone had been following me and Raphtalia, I had seen her behind us, but she had been so unassuming that I didn't think that she could've possibly been the stalker. She just looked like a girl waiting for the bus. Her hair was dyed silver and she was dressed in a normal school uniform. Her features betrayed her as a foreigner- seriously, how was it possible that in a country that was almost ninety-nine percent ethnically Japanese that I had run into so many foreigners in such short time? Perhaps I needed to adopt Sakoku and write 'No Foreigners Allowed' over my apartment building's gates like some restaurants did. She had clear blue eyes, though they were much lighter than Filo's, and it could be said that they were nearly transparent.
The scene was so bizarre- and the thing was that if anyone saw me at that moment, they would definitely think that I was some kind of criminal.
"Let go of me!" she shouted. Her voice was high-pitched, she sounded like she was fourteen at most. Perhaps she was even Melty's age.
"Wait, who are you?" I asked her.
"That voice... huh..." she said, scrutinizing me, before exclaiming. "Rocketboy!" she screamed.
I actually let go of her in that moment- how did she recognize my original streamer name?
I had wanted to name myself 'The Rock' based off my name's meaning, but that was taken, and 'Rock Valley' didn't fit very well. At the time though, a champion that I was using did use a rocket launcher, so as a mixture of that and my original intent, I styled myself as 'Rocketboy.'
"Ah, I don't know what to say," she said, with her cheeks now tinged a slight color of red. "I've been waiting for this moment forever- is my hair alright? Oh no, I have leaves in my hair! And I bet I have some dirt on my skirt- what is he going to think of me now?"
"Uh..." I said, unsure of what to say, though finally letting go of her. "First of all, who are you exactly?"
"Oh, I'm so sorry," she said, getting up and dusting dirt off her skirt. "My name is Ransu... Ransu Atla, I'm a fourteen-year-old who studies at Akada Academy, and I want to say that it's nice to meet you."
I was so taken aback and unsure of how to proceed I just decided to respond in kind- as it was, that was the socially appropriate thing to do, right? When someone told you their name, you would also tell them yours?
"My name is Iwatani Naofumi, I-"
"I know who you are!" she shrieked back. "I know all about you! I'm your biggest fan!"
"Biggest fan...?" I trailed off.
"Yes!" she said. Her eyes seemed to nearly sparkle with joy.
This just raised more questions. Why on earth was she hiding in a bush like that? And how did she recognize not just me- but me by my streamer name?
No one knew that name aside from that woman, my brother, and a few choice others. Not even Raphtalia knew what my original name was- at least, unless she had looked it up. Needless to say that no one would call me that in real life unless they were trying to bait me given the dark history of what had happened to my TwitchTube channel, but this girl didn't have a single drop of malice in her voice. No, her voice was one of admiration for the name.
"Alright, bro, what's even going on-" Shindo said as he jogged up to us, finally finding us.
"I uh, caught the person who's been spying on us," I said.
Shindo looked around "So where is he?"
"This is her," I said pointing to the schoolgirl.
"Wait- who are you?" Shindo asked the girl.
"My name is Ransu Atla," she said. "I'm Rocketboy's biggest fan- and when I grow older... I'm going to become his wife!"
The shrieks of 'Pedofumi' began echoing in my ears. What on earth was going on here!? I backed away two feet from her reflexively, as if she was contagious.
"Bro, what have you been up to when I was gone?" Shindo asked, looking at me suspiciously.
"Hey- hey, I never asked for this!" I said. "I don't even know who she is! You! Girl! What do you even mean by all of that?" I probably shouldn't have started shouting given that would've attracted more attention to us, and given the weird nature of the situation that we were in, I probably did not want any publicity in that regard.
"Uh- I think you need to be a bit more detailed on what's going on here," Shindo said to the girl. "Where are your parents, exactly?" He seemed to have a handle on things far better than I did.
A/N: And so we meet Atla! I decided to change things up so that Atla isn't blind because it just doesn't work with this story, I originally thought of giving her some sort of strange ability like human echolocation which is a real thing btw but not of the extent that would like, say, make you like Daredevil. So, I have changed this aspect of her character.