"For someone claiming to know everything, you really ought to work on how much you know about me."
Koutarou casts Kyokkou!
IT'S SUPER EFFECTIVE!
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"For someone claiming to know everything, you really ought to work on how much you know about me."
Koutarou casts Kyokkou!
IT'S SUPER EFFECTIVE!
That'd work better, if not for the snow. He's still physically there, so where snow hits him, it first disappears from sight, then melts against his skin and drips down as water. As a result, he's leaving a transparent silhouette where ever he happens to be. Not noticeable from a hundred meters away... but pretty obvious from, say, ten.
The man in the black jacket notices Koutarou's sudden disappearance and is visibly alarmed by it. He steps away from the wrecked car
"So wait a minute... did I get this right? You screwed them over, and now you're trying to dodge explaining or taking any responsibility for yourself? That's ****ed up."
The girl looks like she doesn't know whether she should cry or laugh. "No, Ishinomori Koutarou. I know you all too well. And like usual, you never fail to dig yourself deeper. But it looks my time here is up. So if you'll excuse me, I'll finish the mission I came here for."
She stands up and leaps towards the wrecked car. Behind her, Koutarou can already see reflective vests of the approaching rescue personnel peek through the snowfall.
Sigh. If only.
See, Koutarou's ludicrously overinflated kidou doesn't work only with hadou and bakudou. It also works with utilitarian spells. It's not a particularly difficult deal to warp the field a little more so that the kidou works as intended. Oh, and let's not forget a little airwalking.
As for the man, he choses to put up a single explanation for that. "I owe you no explanations for my actions. I would let the paramedics do their job instead of berating me if I were you."
He decides to keep an eye on the girl, just in case. There's something that just plain doesn't add up, though. Where is the soul of the girl with the snapped neck?
The magenta-haired girl lands near the man in the biker jacket, insofar as "landing" is descriptive of someone who has no real physical presence here. She pulls out something that looks like an early 2000s digital camera and points it at the man. Koutarou might guess its a memory altering device masked as a mundane object.
The man takes a wary step back, giving her a suspicuous look. "Wait, what are you..."
"Would you please smile for the camera?", the girl chirps perkily, while pressing the trigger. There's a flash of blue light and... she's gone! He's gone as well. In fact, if Koutarou looks around... the truck he stopped has moved forward by several meters, crushing the car he followed here flat. The car he wrecked has moved too, making it look like it collided with the car ahead. The state of the passengers is the same, the rescue personnel are still on their way, but otherwise it looks like someone expertly set the stage to erase any evidence of Koutarou's involvement.
How, or when, remains an open question, because as far as Koutarou's own experience can tell, no more time passed than usual between the flash of light and these observations. And the "camera" wasn' t pointed at him anyway.
He can see no spirits around, either of those who died in the crash or the magenta-haired girl.
Weird. That wasn't supposed to affect him.
Well, at least he knows what really happened.
Koutarou decides to airwalk above the clouds. He's not buying the whole "no interference" crap.
Unlike when he's done things like this as a spirit, he can very tangibly feel the air thinning as he climbs up. It's not a danger though, as the clouds are hanging low, only a kilometer above the ground.
Going through them is not a pleasant experience. The entire world fades into opaque greyness and the winds keep blowing snow and ice in his eyes. But finally, he ascends above the cover. The brightness of the sun is quite harsh after the gloominess of the world below. He can see the sun slowly climbing up the south-eastern horizon.
The grey-white mass of clouds extends below him as far as the eye can see, hiding the surface from view. Koutarou would have to climb much higher to see the edge of the clouds.
He could, but then again there isn't much point in doing so - for all he knows this thing is going on for several miles. It's enough for him to pick a direction - such as, say, west - and head that way to check how far the clouds go.
If Koutarou's kept any track of where he is, he'll realize that going West is taking him back towards the coast. If he keeps the same pace as when he followed the car, he'll be at the coast line in one or two hours. The sun keeps rising behind him, though whatever warmth its rays could offer is offset by the howling wind. The mass of clouds slowly thins and begins separating into smaller clouds as Koutarou advances.
Through the cracks, he can see black lines of roads criss-crossing the white of snow-covered fields, the dark green of coniferous forests as the snow starts melting and falling down from the trees, and the occasional red or yellow of houses scattered here and there. He'll pass over a number of small towns if he keeps going in the same direction, clusters of rectangular apartment flats and factory areas providing contrast to the largely unbuilt countryside. As he gets further from the pile-up, the traffic normalizes, with cars big and small driving on the roads as if this was just another day.
If Koutarou's paid attention, he might realize he should see the mountain he saw the silhouette of earlier North of himself. But there isn't even a hint of such geographical feature anywhere. The highest hills on this path rise barely two hundred meters above sea level.
Welp, more things to add to the "makes no sense" column.
No point in going further north, so he may as well head south for warmer climates.
It indeed starts getting warmer, though it has more to do with it getting closer and closer to noon. Since he's travelling South now, the sun is getting above and ahead of him, shining right on his face when he's not staring down at the ground.
After some time, he passes the Southern edge of the cloud front and starts seeing fields and buildings that were untouched by the snow. The fields are a mix of yellow and green, with the fresh blades of grass pushing their way to light from under the dead ones. All deciduous trees that Koutarou can see, either lining the roads or amidst the pines and firs, are leafless or just growing new buds. He passes over a few lakes, some which have small ice floes floating in them.
If he keeps moving at the same speed, in around one hour he will reach a big city, beyond which lies the sea again. Regardless, his stomach is starting to grumble, his human body reminding him that he hasn't eaten or drunk anything since that one drink last evening.
Right, there was that.
Koutarou checks the pockets of his trunks for money, not that he expects to find any.
If there was anything at all in his pockets, he would've noticed it in his long hours of wandering around. Oh well. Maybe he can take solace in the fact that no Shinigami has been confirmed to suffer spiritual damage due to a Gigai starving to death. Though it's made less comforting if you know why it's never been confirmed.
Well damn. Just about anything he can think of to earn money involves his powers; he'd risk spiritually awakening about half the city.
Thankfully, Koutarou has never been averse to good, honest work. So he looks around for any place that might be selling fresh fruit.
Then he walks up to the vendor and says, "Excuse me. Is there anything you need done around here that you would be willing to give me a couple of these for? I am quite hungry and unable to pay for them."
Repeat until it works.
Finding such a place is harder than it sounds, because it's not market day, so there are next to no vendors on the open streets. Koutarou can see a market square in the city, several in fact, but they're mostly empty, with just cars parked around the edges and people passing by or through. But there's no shortage of corner stores or cafeterias around them, so once he gets on the ground level and ditches his invisibility spell, it's not too hard to find a place with a fruit & vegetable section.
Other people give Koutarou some odd looks as he passes by. Most of them are clad in long-sleeved jackets, with some wearing woolen scarves for added warmth. Only a few brave souls have dared to leave their homes in just T-shirts and slacks, and even they are sort of confused at Koutarou wandering in bare-chested and with no shoes.
The salesperson, a young girl in uniform, is quite perplexed by Koutarou's inquiry. "Ummm... I'm really not a person to... that's not really how things work around here. Are you a foreigner?" Once again, Koutarou can get the meaning just fine, but he's not sure what language is actually being spoken to him. As if some translator bug in his ear was doing the heavy lifting for him.
"Oh, I can pay for him", a voice comes from behind Koutarou. It's the person behind him in the line. He walks to the register, looking at Koutarou while he digs out his credit card. "It's just a few pieces of fruit, right? Or do you need something else?" Like, say, a shirt. Or shoes. Or long pants.
Dude looks sort of familiar. Short brown hair. Pale skin. Mirror shades. Grey jeans. Black biker jacket. There's a white emblem of a snake biting its own tail on the back.
"I would not object to warmer clothes. Either way I'd be in your debt." Koutarou admits frankly.
He's pretty sure this guy was in a pile-up a few hundreds of kilometers from here, and he flew this way so there was no way that he beat him here.
"I'm Koutarou, by the way. You?"
"I don't keep debts", the man says. "You know what. I'll pay for these and wait here." He gestures at the fruits. "You go get yourself some clothes." He points towards the clothes section. "We can do introductions then."
"Mighty generous of you." Koutarou replies as he heads to the clothes section.
He picks something low-key and practical. Unsurprisingly, it's all pretty much "military chic".
Also bloody expensive. If he can remember the relative worth of Euro, 'cause that's what all the prices are in.
The man in the black jacket is waiting at the cash register line, a plastic bag of groceries in one hand and Koutarou's fruits on another, chit-chatting with the salesperson.
Yeah, Koutarou isn't exactly up-to-date on Mortal World currency.
"Thanks again for your help." He says, approaching the man.
"Meh. It's not a big deal", the man says, handing the bundle of fruits to Koutarou so he has a hand free to pay his clothes. The cashier scans the barcodes on the clothes and then hands them back to Koutarou. "Here you go. Do you want a bag?"
"Only for the fruit, if you'd be so kind."
After they're past the counter, Koutarou unceremoniously eats an orange or two.
"So, why am I in Europe?"
"Why would I know why you're anywhere?", the man says deadpanly. "Are you trying to pull some sort of a prank here?"
"So you don't know who or what I'm supposed to be and the fact I keep running into you folks marked with the Ouroboros is strictly a coincidence?"
The man quirks an eyebrow. "What, you mean the image on my jacket? Dude, it's one of the most pervasive symbols in the world. I ripped off the design from the cover of an RPG book. Why would you assume it's anything but a coincidence?"
"Because I am literally seeing it everywhere?" Koutarou replies simply. "It's not even the exact same design each time. It's a variation each time. I'd understand that otherwise as a fad or something.
Also, it seems everyone who has it is being very nice to me for no apparent reason."
The man gives Koutarou a flat stare. "Uh-huh." He walks towards the exit with his groceries. "Humour me. What day is it?"
"I haven't checked."
The man covers his face with his free hand. "Really now. And somehow, it didn't occur to you that it might be important." He points at a nearby magazine stand. "Hey, how about you check it now. Better late than never." He turns to move out of the door. "The joke's on you, by the way."
If Koutarou does as he's told... he'll find the date on the cover is 1st of April. Of five years ago.
Of course it is.
"In the general spectrum of things it did not, no."
Why five years ago, though?
That's a good question. Sound of the door closing tells Koutarou that his benefactor has left the building. Through the window he can see him walk across the street.
The cashies stares at Koutarou. She's not quite sure what to think of this guy lingering around.