After finding an empty booth in a corner of Wagnaria, Asakura sat down with Fujiwara Chika and the girl she had brought along. He couldn't help but steal another glance at the young girl. Aside from the different eye color, she looked so similar.... As for how someone who hadn't even watched Bocchi the Rock! in their previous life would know about Metamorphosis, it could only be described as a small hobby common to boys.
"So, as of now, your ability is spirit vision, right?"
"Y-yes." Seeing Asakura get down to business, the girl straightened her back and answered hastily.
"Before the spirit vision manifested, did you go to any shrines, temples, or explore any places known for ghost stories?"
"No, no, I don't have that kind of interest."
"It seems it's not the same type of spirit vision!" Beside them, Fujiwara Chika puffed out her chest proudly for some reason. Asakura gave her a helpless look before continuing to ask Miko: "Then, have you picked up anything that looks like a treasure or something unusual?"
"I haven't done that either." The girl shook her head vigorously.
"Then it's an independently awakened spirit vision ability... Generally, supernatural powers generated this way, as long as they are trained—no matter how funny... ah, wait, I mean, generally one should be able to turn them on and off at will." Asakura glanced at the girl and frowned: "Have you never practiced?" He could sense a trace of magical power on her, but her state didn't look like a magic spell was running wild.
"I tried to make it close or disappear in my mind, but it had no effect..." the girl said weakly.
"I see." Asakura scratched his head, looking a bit troubled.
"Um, is it very hard to treat?" Miko asked worriedly.
"If we're talking about treating it, it might not be that hard..." Asakura replied uncertainly, "but there's a small problem"....
"What is it?" Hearing him say this, the girl couldn't help but feel a bit excited. Could she really say goodbye to this troublesome constitution?
"If it wasn't formed by a curse or other external forces, but is an independently awakened 'spirit vision,' it is mostly tied to your own 'eyesight,'" Asakura explained. For example, Fujiwara Chika's spirit vision came from a fox monster form enshrined in a temple. So, as long as she kept beating up that fox monster form, her symptoms would gradually disappear. But for someone like Miko, whose spirit vision was obtained independently, it was part of her actual vision. Under these circumstances, using the spell [Candle] might very well burn away the girl's eyesight as well.
'Doctor, I can always see strange things.' 'Just poke your eyes out.' A treatment plan like that would hardly get a patient's approval.
"In short, starting treatment right now might cause irreversible damage to your body." Asakura skipped the part about poking her eyes out and jumped to the conclusion: "So we need to wait for a while." Things burned by [Candle] are almost impossible to restore; even trying a recursive action like "using [Candle] to burn away the reality of something being burned by [Candle]!" would fail because the mysteries of [Candle] would clash, causing the mana consumption to double geometrically.
Asakura wasn't stalling because he lacked other options; it was because his Vision of Truth was still recovering. Once it recovered to a certain point, he could use it to analyze the girl's spirit vision and select a more stable treatment method. Since there was a more stable way, why choose a dangerous and aggressive one?
"I see..." Miko looked a bit disappointed, but she quickly cheered up. Even if the problem wasn't solved immediately, at least there was hope. Wasn't this far better than the despair of living in constant fear before today?
Then, she looked at Asakura nervously: "Um, although I know it's a bit thick-skinned to ask... can I borrow these glasses first? Ah, of course, I'll pay rent!".
"No need for rent. Just come and support my shop whenever you're free..." Asakura said nonchalantly.
"A shop?" Miko thought of the fortune-telling stall belonging to Granny Ichida she had seen before. Could this boy have opened a shop like that? Was he telling her the next meeting place?
"Yeah, it's over by Usagiyama shop Street, named Rabbit House."
"Ehh! You mean the legendary Rabbit House?!".
"You've heard of it?".
"Of course! The limited-edition Rabbit Dango they have every day has recently become a trend on Twitter!" the girl said, leaning toward Asakura with sparkling eyes. It was clear she really loved sweets.
"Sit back down first." Asakura, not used to people being so close to his face, made her sit properly. Then he reached out: "Give me the glasses, I'll add an extra layer of protection for you."
"Oh, okay." The girl, feeling a bit embarrassed after calming down, nodded slightly, but she still hesitated when taking off the glasses. What if there were wandering monsters in this shop too—.
"Don't worry..." Asakura's voice pulled her back to reality, "those things will absolutely not exist here. No, I should say..." His tone sounded less like confidence and more like a simple statement of fact: "By my side, those things will absolutely not exist."
Since he said so, the girl no longer insisted and took off the Demon Eye Killer. In the next instant, she slammed her head onto the table in terror, cold sweat pouring down.
"What's wrong?" Fujiwara Chika was stunned by her action.
"N-nothing..." Miko replied guiltily. At the same time, her heart was screaming desperately. What did he mean by "those things will absolutely not exist by my side"?! It's because you are the most terrifying one of all!.
The moment she took off the glasses, the girl saw Asakura's true form through her spirit vision. It was a humanoid shadow that was absolutely not human—as if shielded by some "unspeakable" veil, such that even her eyes could not capture His true appearance.
Entwined around that shadow was a giant serpent with two burning horns on its forehead, its body coiling like chains.
Behind Him hung a massive clock face silently, seemingly forged from red gold but missing its hands, signifying that time had lost all meaning in His presence. Above His head floated a dazzling sphere of light—at first glance, it looked like an ordinary light source, but after staring for a moment, one would suddenly realize it was the radiance of the "Sun" itself, taken by Him as a crown.
It wasn't a distorted monster; if one had to say, it was more like a life form that had attained some kind of divinity, moving from humanity toward an unknown, more exalted realm—an existence that could no longer be considered "human".