After this episode, Makoto spent quite some time trying to explain what is unexplainable.

I mean, I'm an outer god and even I'm appalled.

Apparently, his mother is a master spellcrafter who's as talented as insane.

Well, maybe he said she's a bit quirky, but come on, we all saw the real degree just now.

Fortunately, this talisman really somehow helped to guide my efforts towards reforming my cover.

Just in time before the barrier she set up stopped working.

However, I have to keep it sticking to my chest for it to do its literal magic.

At least it didn't explode as well at contact.

All in all, I'm as sorry for myself as for Makoto's childhood.

I can barely fathom what he went through.

"Iori! How are you today? Better?" (C)

"Ah, yes. I managed to come to terms with my dark side." (I)

Should I be more careful about saying such stuff in school?

But I think it's ambiguous enough not to raise suspicion.

"Awesome! I'm so happy for you!" (C)

And now, anyone who listened should've completely lost track.

At least I would say that Chiaki's mood is completely off.

After that, we spend a somewhat normal school day.

Which ends with the last ring.

Yet so does normalcy.

I want to leave, but right out there the members of the occultism club wait for me.

It's the glasses boy, who I'm quite glad to see that he's well, and the girl who apparently wants to become a witch, and who I might've given a light shove in that direction.

Yet she didn't misuse it yet, so it's fine.

"Yes?" (I)

What is it now?

"We, gulp, we need your help with Yoko." (N)

Yoko?

That's the girl whose soul I fiddled with.

This concerns me.

"Is she alright? Any issues?" (I)

"She, she's acting strangely. Sora's with her, but we're all worried. Could you please accompany us to her?" (J)

They seem to be honest and I feel especially guilty about this girl.

Whatever she has might be related to what I did to her soul and is like this my responsibility.

So I think I'll go.

"Iori, what is?" (C)

"Uh, remember yesterday? I have to go for some aftercare." (I)

"Oh, then I should come with you. I mean, I was involved." (C)

Whatever I say, she would go anyway.

"Can I come as well?" (M)

Makoto?

He was the whole day so quiet, probably because of embarrassment, but now this?

"Are you sure?" (I)

"I barely know anything that happened. I feel left out and worry. So please, would you meet me halfway and at least not exclude me?" (M)

If he asks like this.

"Do you know anything about soul surgery?" (I)

"Ehm, I'm no expert on that field." (M)

"Sigh. Would've been too convenient. I need to look for someone and make sure she's okay." (I)

"Then there's no problem with me accompanying you, right?" (M)

Guess not.

On the way to the clubroom, I start to interact with glasses boy.

Okay, that's not nice.

Only bullies depersonalize others like this.

His name is Jonichiro if I remember it right.

"And how are you?" (I)

He was one of the worse cases and didn't get anything from me.

So I should confirm that he's not suffering from any lingering ailments.

"Had a nightmare but nothing serious." (J)

"Oh, I'm sorry." (I)

"Don't be. I wanted a glimpse behind the veil and got even more than this. Can't really complain. What I learned in those years, uh or rather half an hour, was more than I could have ever fathomed." (J)

"Ehm, sorry for the time dilation?" (I)

"It was a bit much, but now I think I can begin to process this somehow. It's just that "thestarstwisteternalinunforeseenalignments"." (J)

For a moment his eyes became completely vacant.

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

Should this concern me?

"Oh, sorry. Happens." (J)

This shouldn't happen!!!

But for now, I should concentrate on the girl with the soul trauma before concentrating my non-existent expertise on other psychological problems.

It's still the same room and everything sounds calm from the outside.

But I didn't expect what happens when I open the door.

"Good morning! What a beautiful day! Cake?" (Y)

The one who welcomes me is a beaming girl in a pink dress.

Wasn't she a goth?

But the most worrisome is that her purple aura went one shade towards pink.

"She's already the whole day like this. She baked the cake by herself!" (S)

Okay, that's worrisome.

Sora looks as if he had his hands full as her babysitter.

"You... Ehm Yoko. Are you alright?" (I)

"Why wouldn't I? I feel absolutely wonderful! All my worries are now so insignificant and the world looks brighter! I don't even know why I wanted to throw this dress away. It's gorgeous!" (Y)

"Ehm, yes. Excuse me." (I)

I take a step out of the room.

"What is with her?" (M)

"I kinda accidentally broke her soul in tentacle hell and in a rough-and-ready way stitched everything back together." (I)

"What?" (M)

"It was an accident, really! And I'm doing everything so I can fix this. Now please, I need to concentrate." (I)

I move a bit further away from the door and do the one thing I can come up with to solve my troubles.

ZIKA! HELP!

I try to only call her in my mind so I won't reveal her name to anyone.

Those lunatics might try summoning her later.

"Ancient dread! What is it now?" (Z)

As always an extremely annoyed demon appears out of nowhere.

"I need your expertise! The, the girl whose soul I messed with. Her aura looks different and she's behaving strangely. I, I thought that what I did was only a slight alteration?" (I)

"You're aware that your list of favors you're owing me becomes concerningly long?" (Z)

"Whatever! Please!" (I)

In the first place, I have no idea what to think about this and what it entails.

She walks into the room.

"Who's this? (S)

"Apparently her personal call-girl." (Z)

I have to clarify this.

"She's a to me affiliated demon and right now my only hope to get some understanding about what happens here." (I)

Rather fast her eyes set on Yoko.

"Hm, her life aura definitely changed." (Z)

"Is this bad?" (S)

"Delusional idiots should please stay quiet. Hey girl! Would you look me into my eyes for a moment?" (Z)

That a demon asks this should disturb everyone, and her tone while saying so isn't making things any better.

However,

"With pleasure!" (Y)

That's far too cooperative towards a demon!

"And? What is wrong? That's not how it should be, right?" (I)

"Quiet, I need to concentrate. It's not easy to spot the soul through the eyes." (Z)

That's a thing?

I let her do her thing, till she's done.

"And?" (I)

"I'm no expert on souls. That stuff can become ridiculously complicated. Like examining a cloud with constantly rearranging patterns. But from what I've gathered there's nothing wrong with hers." (Z)

"Then how comes this extreme personality change?" (I)

"If you ask me, I'd say it's an imbalance. The light your friend pushed in there is affecting her alignment. Her personality has problems adjusting to the slight dissonance this caused. Experiences and core personality can't perfectly align with the base, which is the soul. And this affects her demeanor." (Z)

"Does that mean she'll stay that way?" (N)

"Sigh, do I even have to answer to the background characters? No, I don't think so. Rather it's an attempt of her personality to somehow find its own setting. It's oscillating between the extremes to find the new middle ground. It might be that tomorrow she becomes extremely aggressive, or depressively whiney, or she'll stay like this for a week, while her mood slowly drops down to base level. Anyway, it will eventually settle to what she's comfortable with." (Z)

"I am comfortable!" (Y)

"Sure you are, Princess Fluffy. I bet she's going to explode rather soon and would advise everyone present to get some distance." (Z)

I never thought that this one slip-up of mine could become this bad.

"Anything we can do for her?" (J)

"If you want her to stay as much herself as she was you should confront her with her old self. The dissonance might cause violent reactions but nothing permanently harming. Apart from that, I would advise against messing any further. Such things should be left to heal on their own. Any further measures could make it worse. Her personality is not stable and extremely prone to outer influence." (Z)

"Okay, you've got it. None of you will do anything to "adjust" her. No "becoming a better person", no "well-meant tips", no "training her to become a warrior of justice"! Do you understand?" (I)

No idea if anyone was tempted, but she's my patient and I won't allow anyone to ruin her.

That my dark side put a bit of force into my voice was actually helpful.

There's this echo in my voice and it goes deeper and more pressuring whenever she says stuff which improves the impact it has on people.

I have barely any idea how to treat that girl, but if Zika said it's best to leave her alone there might be a good reason for this.

Anyway, I believe my presence to be detrimental to this process and leave.

Still, on the way out I question Zika further about the girl's condition.

"Do you really think it will settle? She was a goth and now... this! Isn't it kinda extreme?" (I)

"Sigh, and now I'm also a consultant for teenager troubles as it seems. Goths aren't necessarily dark. At least not all of them. They enjoy the lifestyle. The girl was never depressive or had especially dark thoughts. Right now she only questions her own self. It's more about her life choices than her base personality. She probably knows as well that her attitude might be a bit exaggerating things, but can't help it, as it's a necessary step to finding her true self. Souls aren't my expertise, but personalities certainly are. She's quite normal for a teenager. On another note, you're not. What was that just now?" (Z)

She might be referring to my dark side who just chimed in.

"Uh, I told you how I merged?" (I)

"I avoided thinking about it. But now I start to worry about how many of your thoughts we are away before this whole piece of dirt drifting in an endless expanse gets swallowed as a whole. So tell me, how stable are you at the moment?" (Z)

"Somewhat? We talked it out, me and my dark side. I don't think I'm innately evil or plan to take over. I only want to merge to become whole again. Aside from that I'm still myself and don't think that anything will change." (I)

"Wh-what is this about?" (M)

"Uh, yeah, sorry. I didn't want to exclude you, Makoto. You see, Wednesday I was called to another dimension. As it turned out a part of mine I lost before was behind everything. It was just at it to spread over the whole dimension and worked on invading earth. But when I came it switched plans and just got back into me. As it's only a fragment of mine it wants to merge with the rest and now Zika unnecessary worries that it might get out of control and devour our planet. Aside from that, there was absolutely no problem." (I)

Now Makoto stares at me mouth agape with a slightly freaked-out expression.

"And this is it?! Seriously, my family had to attend an assembly of all spiritual instances of our country to discuss how to deal with you, and now I'm starting to question if it's a good idea to leave you unattended." (M)

"Welcome to my world." (Z)

"Hey, you didn't only ask to accompany me for surveillance, right?" (I)

"Iori, I think you need to be surveilled. I believe you that you're not an evil demon, but the things you're doing if left to your own devices... Even you can't say that it's okay! I mean, a dark side?!" (M)

"I met her! She's actually not that bad." (C)

"Whatever you think, little exorcist. But there's one thing you little control-freaks should realize. Control is an illusion. The only difference between surveilling her or not is that you'll see your impending doom coming. Need an example? The reason why you don't have to struggle to preserve your realm from invading demons is that you don't fight as much at the moment. If you would, you would spread awareness, which would spawn more demons. You have no idea how vast and numerous the nightmare planes are and believe me, you cannot contain them. Simply avoiding drawing attention is the best way to go about this. What I want to say is that sometimes a world-shattering problem is best left alone." (Z)

Eloquent as always this demon.

"Hey, hey, why don't we all come down? I have the perfect solution which will make all of us happy." (C)

We all stare at Chiaki who already basically announced to us that any moment something stupid will come out of her mouth.

"How about we all do something together? You know, having fun!" (C)

"And I'm out." (Z)

And with this, Zika vanishes, leaving a flame circle on the ground while the rest of us has to remain here with Chiaki's antics.

I completely fail to understand what she's even going on about.

And who's going to clean this?!