This is a twisted story.

A story of a twisted "story."

A few years ago, in a certain city

"Li~ke I~ sa~id, we really like anime, you know? So we"re all the same otaku buddies right? If you"re our friends you"d give a bit of change for our poor selves, right?"

In the darkness of a back alley with little pa.s.serby off from the Akihabara main street. In a position behind a vending machine, several men surrounded a timid looking young man.

"No, um……"

"Ha? It"s no "um." No, "um." Look someone in the eye when you talk with them."

While giving a light slap to the face, the hoodlum like man threatened the timid boy.

"I"m- I"m sorry……"

"In the eyes!"

The hoodlum continued to hit him in the face in succession, gradually adding more force. The young man was already facing towards him with tears welling up in his eyes, but the hoodlum earnestly continued to tease him without a care. The other men with the man who had been slapping him surrounded the boy while grinning.

The boy, cornered, cried out, "if you want money, I"ll give it, so let me go!" He was about to pull out his wallet for the remaining cash he had. But then in the next moment, that atmosphere was broken when a cold liquid was poured on the hoodlums" heads.

"!? Freezing! What the h.e.l.l!?"

When the man who had slapped the boy looked around the area while wiping off the liquid poured on him, there stood a slit-eyed man.

"Ciao."

"……Who the h.e.l.l! What the h.e.l.l did you do!"

And then the slit-eyed man answered while taking an oil-lighter from his left pocket.

"Well now, if you are our friends you should be happy."

"Aah!?"

"After all, you got a flame attribute to your armor. The flame attribute is an aspiration for boys, though I hope you let it go that it"s not the black blaze……It"s enchanted fire."

He remarked rather fast, but the slit-eyed man lit the flame from the oil lighter and threw it towards the hoodlums.

One of the hoodlums realized then. That the liquid that covered his face was from the can held in the slit-eyed man"s other hand- it was fuel for the oil lighter.

"! You son of a-……"

And then the darkness of the back alley was illuminated in bright flames. With the hoodlums" screams as BGM. Dazzling, dazzling.

The Yumacchi before I met him was given the name "The Otaku Hunting Killer" at the time, and he was a bit of a famous person partially. That he would sneak up on guys hunting down otaku from the shadows, take out his oil lighter he has on hand and then ignite them. And that while his opponents tumble onto the ground to try and put out the fire he would grab the involved children and make a run for it.

At any rate, Yumacchi has burned countless of those delinquents extorting money from others like that, so no matter if it was just a light burn it seemed the local delinquents had their pride torn up by him. Although I"m surprised they even had pride for groups that looked for weaker otakus than them and try to get money from them.

And so like that, Yumacchi was apparently treated as someone with a bounty by the delinquents of that city.

It seems it was pretty serious in many ways.

Well, because of that in itself, Yumacchi and I were able to meet though.

A few years ago, in a certain place in a city

In the back of another alley fairly close from there some cosplaying girls were approached by other hoodlums.

"So you see, dressing up like that means you"re inviting us, right?"

At the words from the man with a frivolous face, the cosplayer girls shook their heads, frightened.

"No, it"s not like that……"

"This is a cosplay from a manga……"

And then the frivolous hoodlum with a vulgar smile spread out his hands.

"Right, right! We like that manga, you see? So you"re just asking for us! Right? So, how about we take our time and talk about the anime!"

"This manga is still not an anime……"

"Ahh? Either one is the same! So come on already! We"ll even film you. How about it?"

Turning his head to the other hoodlums in the area, they surrounded the girls at the signal. At the entrance of the alleyway a minivan was parked.

If they were brought there, where would they be taken?

The moment the girls turned pale imagining their futures in the next few minutes- it happened. A dense smoke rose from the bottom of the parked minivan, covering the area in white smoke.

"Wh-what the!?"

"Hey! Is it the engine!? A fire!? What"s going on?!"

Unconsciously averting their focus from the girls, the men rushed over to the van. The drivers left in the vehicle also seemed to be fl.u.s.tered and were panicking with the smoke cutting off their field of vision.

And then, something was thrown right into their faces.

"!? Cold……No, hot……Gaaaaah?"

What was stuck on their face?

Without any time to deduce that, a sharp burning sensation and pain a.s.sault the men"s skins. The cosplaying girls stood awestruck at the hoodlums suddenly screaming and writhing on the ground, but the voice of a woman they did not know reached their ears.

"Are you alright? Can you run? Look, we can get away now!"

And like that the girls were taken by the hand and ran off until they arrived to a street with plenty of pa.s.serby around. The woman in black who had pulled them away from the scene lightly embraced them with an innocent smile to comfort them after looking at the girls closely and whispered.

"You can"t do that. Being tricked by them saying they want pictures and readily be taken somewhere. There"s a lot of bad guys who pretend to be cameramen or interviewers for a magazine to try and kidnap girls."

"But don"t get bitter from this and come to hate cosplaying, okay? It"s a promise, alright?"

I heard the Karisawa-san from before I met her was a pretty dangerous person. At that time there were cases of girls who cosplayed getting kidnapped, and it seems Karisawa-san started going about it like the vigilante corps by herself and even used some kind of smoke candle she got from somewhere to beat a good number of villains with diluted hydrochloric acid and soldering iron.

It can"t be helped even if you could say that I honestly burn otaku hunters for my own satisfaction of playing the hero. Although I contemplate if I"m too hot-blooded for doing it on my own now…….But in Karisawa-san"s case, I heard she was truly feared like some kind of agent of revenge for the girls who were kidnapped. It seems there are guys who still have pieces of solder in their eyes even now after all…… The circ.u.mstances were circ.u.mstances, and it seems they didn"t run to the police or anything though.

In return, she seemed to be treated as someone with a bounty on her head from the friends of those kidnappers.

Well, because of that I was able to meet Karisawa-san though.

"One day, an important item figurine was taken hostage, and I was called to the base of the otaku hunters. When I saw the group surrounding the area, I thought, "Ahh, it"s the end." The group called themselves the Blue Squares. But there I ran into Karisawa-san who had been lured there by the same group."

"Really, it was quite the shock. That the kidnapping group devastating the city and the otaku hunting group was the same group! A girl from the same circle was taken hostage, and I was surrounded from all directions, and I thought, Ahh, it"s the end……I acted like some tragic heroine. But then I met Yumacchi there, and when we looked each other in the eyes with just one glance I knew. Yeah, that this kid is the same as me!"

"Really, even though we just met and haven"t spoken anything to one another we knew just by looking. That there is a human the same as us before our very eyes. I"m really glad we didn"t despise each other for our similar qualities."

"So, we nodded to each other and decided to fight back-to-back!"

"The enemies were about fifty thousand! Well, the hero would be admired, but I don"t want to experience the feelings of the hero defying death first hand. It reminded me. That Kamijou-san is amazing."

"When we started getting tired too and thought it was over! A hero, a true hero appeared! Just like the protagonist of a manga! And so cool too! At the perfect timing!"

"A wagon car bashed through the wall of the hideout and sent the enemy boss flying! And then from the inside the hero wearing a blue bandana……Kadota-san and his side kick the red-haired driver appeared!"

"Dotachin cuts through and punches the a.s.sa.s.sins attacking one after the other bearing chainsaws and machine guns, and he would occasionally exchange an intense look with his partner Togusa-cchi-"

"Okay, Karisawa-san stop there! The hideout was hundred floors underground, and they proceeded down while beating down the guards on the first floor! The last to appear, the big four of the enemy camp, are all women, but they fall for Kadota-san"s glamor and turn their back on their team, and I was jealous-"

"In the underground of the organization was a giant robot-" "A plan to restart humanity-" "You can see the stars-" "A parallel universe-"

Listening to the two"s conversation that was further distancing away from reality, the girl doing the interview thoughtlessly interrupted the conversation.

"Wait, no, no! First I"ll touch on something basic, but isn"t fifty thousand way over the top?"

"Well, from our side of things it looked like that much of such great exploits was possible."

"Dotachin at that time was just like a manga hero who appeared when we were in quite the serious pinch after all!"

"I-I see….."

While nodding like that, Kazane Kinomiya c.o.c.ked her head in confusion, thinking something was off.

She should have been here to interview about the up-coming ice sculptor with a link to the theme: "the new generation of young people – Walking the boundary line between art and business." And yet before she knew it she ended up listening to a story similar to what she usually interviews for under "the darkness lurking in the shadows of the city" at length, far from the topic of art.

The interview with the ice sculptor – Walker Yumasaki – was held thanks to  meeting up with the man named Kadota, a slight acquaintance to Kazane.

– "If you need it right away, I think you can ask him?"

That was what she was told and once she headed towards the pointed out parking s.p.a.ce there was the slit-eyed man standing by exactly according to her sources and had managed to go through with the interview smoothly until half-way. But Kazane took interest in the girl named Erika Karisawa who had been listening in on their conversation beside Yumasaki.

Hearing that she was an old friend and lives by selling her own hand-crafts, Kazane thought to also ask about the poor craftsman as well and continued the interview with that question. However, when she casually inquired as to how the two met, the conversation strayed from the path in succession.

– Well, I may be able to use this as a reference for another article some other time…….

While Kazane thought that, she casually asked them one question to try and bring the conversation back to normalcy.

"So, um……I may ask something a bit rude, but are you two dating?"

At Kazane"s words expressed with complete curiosity, Yumasaki and Karisawa made a completely shocked expression and looked at each other before they waved their hands with a smile.

"No, not at all! Nope, nope. We"re not like that, interviewer-san!"

"Yeah, from hearing our story we should know that"s not possible, right?"

Kazane tilted her head in confusion at the two"s indifferent answers. And then the two of them answered back in the same manner while pointed at the other.

"Yumacchi is not a 2D character but raw meat (resident of reality)."

"Isn"t Karisawa-san not a 2D character but a 3D character?"

Kazane tried to process their words as some sort of joke in her brain, but her intuition as a writer for these past few years interfered telling her that they were answering in complete honesty. As she fell further into the melting pot of confusion, Karisawa and Yumasaki pressed on with their conversation while nodding in agreement.

"Yeah, although men would also keep their raw doujin private. But it"s difficult to handle that rawness, so I think it"s fine to enjoy it among friends quietly."

"What are you saying, Karisawa-san……. Each time you see Shizuo-san and Izaya-san start to fight your mind corrects itself to visualize it BL style……"

"That is the screams from my heart, okay? I-it can"t be, just when did Yumacchi become an esper……!?"

"Are you serious!? For mind reading, it is a power that would not do harm nor good on how you use it……Then does that mean the organization will begin to move searching for this power of mine soon……?"

"I wonder about that. Maybe the corps will make a move, or maybe the congress, the round table, the family, or the inst.i.tution will make a move……?"

– ?    ?    ?

Kadota, who was listening to the conversation from the inside of the parked van next to them, showed his face from the pa.s.senger"s seat and told Kazane, seeing her confused by the flow of words she did not understand flowing over her.

"…..It"s useless for anyone else, so I would leave it at that. You can just ignore what they"re talking about right now. There wasn"t any Big Four subordinates of women or any women at all in that group for the matter."

"Eh, but……"

"If it"s about Yumasaki"s job, even I"ve heard a bit on it. I"ll talk to you about it so just forgive them."

"Ah, thank you……Thank you very much."

Kadota gave a bitter smile at Kazane as she expressed her thanks and gave him a quick bow before he continued.

"Besides……They said some things putting me up on some pedestal like I did something, but in truth it was a bit different."

"Eh?"

At those words Kazane tilted her head again.

While looking over at the two on the side who entered their own world and started a hot debate, Kadota told Kazane the truth of the matter.

"……Indeed I heard some ridiculous rumors about some otaku hunters pretending to be the team at the time….the Blue Squares, and I tried to stop them but……"

"In the end, the ones who beat up more than half of those delinquents wasn"t me but those two."

A few years ago, at a certain place in the city

"S-stop! Sto-! I"m so-! Swo- rraaaaah!"

"Sw-tohp! Th-hay wid, thay wii- rrrrraaaaah!"

The ones screaming in incomprehensible words were the hoodlums who did the "otaku hunting" and "cosplayer kidnapping."

They currently had their clothes and hair burned by Yumasaki"s "handmade flamethrower," and while they were fumbling on the ground to put out the fire they were put through the h.e.l.l of a torture having diluted acid and thawed smolders from Karisawa.

The man who was supposed to come and save them openly frowned and while sympathizing with the "fake" Blue Squares from the bottom of his heart whispered.

"Hey, you guys……how about you let up on them already……?"

Present, a certain place in Ikebukuro, a parking lot

"Well…… These guys make a tight distinction between reality and manga and anime but……"

Kadota let out a small sigh, yet a grin still formed on his face.

"When it becomes the boundary between reality and their delusions it gets rather strange for a bit there."

He said with a smile not out of scorn but of amazement and in some aspects envy.

This is a twisted story.

A story of a twisted story.