Chapter 12: Try to Survive, Miss Yotsuya Miko
Her real name was Akiba Miho — the woman who ran the stretch of Akihabara that had become the heart of otaku culture, the landlady of Mayqueen+NyanNyan. In another life Renji Miyauchi had known her from Steins;Gate, and that association had made this neighborhood one of the first places on his map when he decided to study in Tokyo.
Okabe Rintarō's time-machine mess was still an unnerving idea in Renji's mind. In the Alpha world line the device birthed dystopia; in Beta it dragged nations toward war. If every branch of possibility existed somewhere, then the mere idea of a time-messenger was dangerous enough to keep buried. Renji's private plan had been simple and ruthless: as soon as he could, sneak into the Future Gadget Lab and quietly crush that machine before it ever matured. He didn't want power — he wanted to erase the risk. For now, though, the machine was a semester off and best left unmentioned in the diary. Too many hands, too many regrets, and the world could burn.
Sipping fruit juice in a maid café while Kouka grimaced at her bitter black coffee and little Renka accepted a high-end snack from Phyllis NyanNyan with delighted seriousness, Renji let his thoughts run. The diary had confirmed readers existed; other people would pick up threads he didn't have to tug. But Tokyo itself harbored more immediate mysteries: gods and curses, headless riders, phantom thieves, girls who saw what shouldn't be seen. He could investigate those cautiously.
Tonight's probe would be small and specific. Yotsuya Miko — Mieruko-chan — a girl whose eyes did not have the luxury of ignorance. If she existed in this mesh of worlds, Renji wanted to flag her, to warn and to offer a practical nudge.
At his desk that evening he wrote carefully, in a voice he hoped felt calm rather than alarmist.
[This morning someone on Twitter asked me to stop writing. If you want me to take you seriously, use your main account. Anonymous accounts are for ghosts and trolls.]
He dropped a jokey aside about Guitar Hero and then addressed the main point.
[Miss Yotsuya Miko — did you see a ghost today?
I know it sounds blunt. If your Yin-Yang Eyes have opened, you already understand. If they haven't, cherish the quiet while it lasts.
These things don't always attack ordinary people, but the moment a spirit realizes you can see it, it refuses to leave you alone. Eating with a face at your shoulder, bathing with something peering from the water, waking with a baby ghost in your sheets — they test you. In your story the rules are simple: spiritual power matches spiritual sight. Bronze sees bronze, gold sees gold… unless you're special. And you, an ordinary girl, somehow woke the top tier of sight. Keep pretending you don't see. Keep your balance.
I haven't awakened those eyes. My Pure Yang Body keeps most of this from touching me. But you — try Ripple Breathing. It won't fix everything, but it can blunt the small nuisances. For the rest, don't provoke. If you need to vent, tweet or post — I'll at least give it a like. Survive, Miss Yotsuya Miko.]
The diary accepted the entry and, as a reward, delivered a Spirit Camera plus blueprints.
Renji smiled wryly. Of course — a device out of Fatal Frame. He tinkered with the camera's shape to amuse himself, snapped several photos of his room, and found only ordinary images. Not surprising: his Pure Yang Body tended to repel the little things that lurked at the edges. If the camera registered nothing for him, that didn't make it worthless — it simply meant its true utility lay with those who could actually see spirits.
The blueprints were the real prize. If the parts and the "spiritual stone" analogue existed here, he could craft a working model and test it. First step: source materials quietly. Second step: prototype. Third step: decide whether to publish the recipe in the diary. He had no wish to drag heroic heroines into an untested trap.
Far from Renji's small room, Kaguya Shinomiya read the same entry with a very different pulse. Even a daughter of a conglomerate felt small when the paper said spirits might be everywhere. Were there eyes watching her wardrobe now? The idea made the corners of the room feel too close. She touched her face to steady herself. Maybe she should ask Ai Hayasaka to sleep in her room tonight. Anything would be better than being alone with the thought.
Kaguya's reply — the question she scribbled into the diary — was practical and immediate: Do vengeful spirits really exist in this world?
The diary's stubborn silence answered with no permission on many details, but the seed had been planted. For some readers, knowledge came in fragments; for others, it triggered a careful plan. Renji folded the Spirit Camera blueprints into his notebook and made a checklist: find materials, prototype off-grid, keep the prototype away from broad distribution until it proved safe. He would not publish the plans until he could look someone like Miko in the eye and say, this will help.
Outside, Akihabara hummed and Phyllis laughed through another performance. Inside his room, with the blueprints lying quiet and Renka's small drawings pinned to the wall, Renji felt the old itch — to fix things without breaking the world. If ghosts truly prowled this patchwork Tokyo, then a little preparation, a calm voice in the dark, and the right tool might give people the space to keep living.
He switched off the lamp and left the diary closed on the desk. Tomorrow he would start checking local shops for rare minerals and spare parts. For tonight: a plan, a promise, and the quiet hope that Miss Yotsuya Miko would survive one more day.