Chapter 419: "Awakened"
Translator: imperfectluck Editor: Kurisu
Yukari agreed to tell Chiaki and Mika about her trial and awakening to a Spiritual Ability as long as Seiji agreed to her request not to mention anything about spiders or what her specific ability was.
And if he wanted to, he could talk about her situation to others as well—as long as he only told them a rough outline without mentioning her name or identity.
After making this agreement and promising Yukari that he would adhere by it, he called Chiaki and Mika to have them come over again to explain what happened last night.
"A trial… and you awakened to a Spiritual Ability… how amazing." Chiaki looked directly at Yukari. "What ability is it specifically?"
"Nothing that's a big deal. Please allow me to keep it a secret."
"Something that's not too good to talk about… am I right? Could it be just like your secret identity as an ero artist, and your ability is slightly perverted?"
Yukari's expression didn't change in front of Chiaki's inferences.
Meanwhile, Seiji's expression flickered subtly.
Shooting white strands of spiderweb… if one tried to forcibly make certain analogies, it could indeed be interpreted as somewhat perverted.
At this time, Chiaki suddenly glanced over at Seiji's expression.
"Heh heh, judging from his expression, it's highly likely that I was on the mark." Chiaki chuckled, and adjusted some imaginary eyeglasses in order to pretend to be a famous detective.
Seiji hurriedly put on a poker face, but it was too late already.
"Chiaki, Asamiya-san wishes to keep it private, so stop guessing randomly." Mika stopped her friend.
"Hmm… alright." Chiaki actually agreed and stopped joking around. "By the way, though, awakening to a Spiritual Power in a single night? It's something that I'm quite envious of. I'd really like for that to happen to me as well." She sighed.
"I don't think that it's something to be envious of at all. If it wasn't for Seigo helping me out, I might have never woken up," Yukari stated.
"Oh… My apologies, I was too casual in my choice of words." Chiaki clutched her arms. "Still, even if it isn't easy, I'd like to have such a chance."
"Why's that?" Yukari looked towards her.
"Because I'd like to be together with my good friends, and not be the only odd one left out," Chiaki said sincerely as she looked towards Seiji and Mika.
"Chiaki…" Mika was somewhat moved by her statement.
Yukari came to a realization upon witnessing this scene.
"Uehara-san is also a Spiritual Ability user?"
"That's right," Chiaki answered for Mika. "Out of all of us currently here, I'm the only ordinary human."
The purple-haired girl remained silent.
"However, wanting to be the same as my good friends is only half the reason… the other half is because I want to act cool!" The last few words suddenly changed drastically in tone, as something flashed in the silver-haired girl's eyes. "Awakening to special powers is the dream of any child! I can even accept transforming into a magical girl!!"
Seiji, Mika, and Yukari were all rendered speechless.
Magical girl Chiaki?
The three of them simultaneously tried imagining it… and found that it actually seemed quite suitable for her?
"If Chiaki becomes a magical girl, I think that she'll become the second most popular character after the main character. Or, she might even become more popular than the main character." Mika couldn't help but say this out loud.
"I think so as well. I can even imagine clear drawings of such scenes in my mind." Yukari nodded in agreement.
"I know, right! I'm quite dazzling, I realize." Chiaki made a sparkling hand gesture.
"However, due to your overwhelming popularity stealing the show from the main character, you were killed off in the later part of the story," Seiji added.
"No!"
"Right before the big ending, all you'll receive is a flashback to the scene of your death, that'll be all," Yukari followed up.
"That's terrible!"
"After the main story's end, you'll become the main character of a new series spin-off. The author's goal will be to profit as much as he can, squeezing every last penny from you," Seiji exclaimed.
"That's so horrible! I definitely won't do it!!"
"The author didn't expect the spin-off to become so popular, so he was forcibly requested by his publisher to write as much as he possibly could. In the end, he was no longer able to follow all the loose ends of his own storyline…" Yukari continued with this work of fiction.
"That's enough!" Chiaki energetically commented. "What's with the two of you following each other's sentences like that? Stop imitating the twin witches!!"
"Cough… I was just making up a story for fun." Seiji paused for a moment before changing to a serious expression. "It's unknown why Yukari met with her trial, nor do I know how to prevent such a thing from occurring… Although I can try finding out more about it, I feel that this might be very difficult to prevent from occurring. Let's just treat this as something that might happen to any ordinary person. I hope that you will all mentally prepare yourselves. If you really meet with such an incident, maintain your calm and cautiously deal with it. If you need help, you can try calling out to me. Perhaps I'll be able to answer your summons, and perhaps I won't be able to. Or perhaps I'll even make the situation more chaotic. At any rate, don't panic if you're caught up in an incident, and calmly consider what you should do."
Chiaki and Mika indicated their understanding of his sincere warning.
After Yukari and the others left, Seiji called Natsuya to inquire into what happened last night.
The student council president told him that not only did the night of one hundred demons repeat itself, there were even more demons that materialized compared to last night. However, since all the Spiritual Ability user factions were prepared, they exorcised most of the demons in time, and less harm was done to ordinary humans than last night.
This was undoubtedly a serious situation. However, compared to the other matter that happened last night, it wasn't much at all.
What happened was that ordinary people started awakening to Spiritual Abilities within a single night!
"This is an incredibly astonishing phenomenon… it's the equivalent of how you improved your Spiritual Power and Mana so much with only one night of Visualization. It's something only seen in legends!" Natsuya told him seriously.
The "Awakened."
This morning, the mystical society had decided on this term for the ordinary humans that awakened to new Spiritual Abilities.
It wasn't entirely impossible for an ordinary person to become a Spiritual Ability user within a single night or a similarly short period of time.
For example, Mika Uehara. She had only been an ordinary girl, but managed to become a Spirit Controller due to having received the Spiritual Creature named Mashiro.
However, that was an example of someone awakening due to an external object or force. For someone to awaken all on their own and be able to naturally use a Spiritual Ability was considered highly unusual.
The last record of this occurring in the mystical society's history books happened more than one thousand years ago.
That's right, one thousand years ago!
Such an archaic phenomenon seen only in past legends actually appeared in the modern day, and not only with one or two examples… the entire mystical society, or Spiritual Ability user society, was tremendously shaken by this!
"From what I've heard so far, there's already eight formerly ordinary humans that have discovered to be 'Awakened'. Not only that, the actual number is definitely far higher than this."
This was something truly shocking.
What was going on? What caused it? Why these specific people? …All the Spiritual Ability user factions had many questions about these Awakened.
"Including my Yoruhana Family, all the factions are putting their main focus on the Awakened, and moved investigating and stopping the night of one hundred demons to being only second in priority," Natsuya explained to him.
Seiji furrowed his eyebrows slightly.
"What will happen to those Awakened?" he inquired in a low voice.
"They'll be conducted research upon… the mystical society will probably use various methods to investigate what happened to their bodies." Natsuya paused for a moment, as she intentionally lowered her voice. "Seiji, out of the people you know… do you know any that have become Awakened?"
"I don't." Seiji understood her intentions, and decisively answered with this.
"That's good, then."
After that was a period of silence.
"Night of one hundred demons… Awakened… I'm beginning to feel that the Midnight Spell was a spell that far surpassed our imaginations." Natsuya sighed. "Although it's not one hundred percent confirmed that everything was caused by it, I'm beginning to faintly perceive that it's all related… and that everyone's underestimated it, because nobody knows what it was for."
"Yeah…" Seiji looked outside his window. "I have such a feeling as well."