Takahata Oumi neared the Sakisaka house. From a distance, it seemed as it always had, but as impressions often are, this one was wrong.

The first thing she noticed was the overgrowth in the lawn and on the short stone walls surrounding the property. The gate hung open, pushed inside. At this distance, a strange odor of staleness and rot permeated the air. Oumi felt more and more nauseous as she moved to knock on the door. Just as her fingers were about to rap against it-

"Hi onee-san! Could you please move over for a second?"

This was chirped out by the silver-haired boy who was apparently standing directly behind her.

"Eh, ah, what?"

Smiling at her like one would a particularly slow child, he nudged her to the right of the door.

"Dynamic entry!" There was a flash as he moved more quickly than her eyes could track, and then there was no more door.

She peered inside, and was met with a ludicrously painted interior, and perhaps the most pungent odor she had encountered.

Surely this wasn't Fuminori-kun's house?

But the layout and furniture proved her wrong. Even when slathered in shades of paint beyond her ability to describe, it was clearly the Sakisaka home. On the fallen door, the boy sat, his ahoge waving impossibly from side to side. He listened intently to the noises of the travesty of a house. In the distance, a strange shuffling sound emerged.

"fu-kun-some-wrong"

Oumi could make out hints of words, but the voice was strange. As though someone were speaking through a tube while underwater.

"Who's there?"

"..." The shuffling increased in pace, rapidly approaching the two from an unknown direction. As it grew louder, the horrid stench of the house intensified. Whatever it was that was coming for them, Oumi now doubted it was human.

Could anything so incredibly strange begin to be called human?

Oumi backed away, moving for the exit. She didn't think twice before running for the gates.

Halfway in the sprint to her apartment, she remembered; the boy. How could she have left him there?

This was the person that Oumi was, one who would ignore her own fears for others. For Tsukuba Yoh's sake, she had come here in the first place.

To enter again, she couldn't bear to imagine it. She abandoned thought and rushed back with one goal; get in, get the boy, get out.

\-^-/

As the squelching sound neared him, Nyahiro Yasaka's smile grew wider and wider. This was his first solo expedition, on his quest to become a deity hunter.

He fingered the newly sharpened forks in his pocket, and his bright green eyes glowed maliciously. An Outsider creature. Something beyond horrors from the stars. An entity that warped the fabric of the world to enforce its own existence.

Also known as a cute girl named Saya.

Once the creature entered his vision, he could see it. There was the illusion that his inhuman perception granted him, and he saw a radiant young girl with dark teal hair. Almost superimposed over this image was a strong nausea, as his human brain rejected the entity before him, refusing to perceive anything but the sheer wrongness of its existence.

Perhaps the son of a Nyarlothep didn't have the right to complain about that though.

He sensed the creeping tentacles before he saw them, and four forks, cursed by the blood of the insane deity-slayer Henderson, impaled them into the wall.

The creature shrieked, a terrifying sound.

"Heh." A first point to him.

He drew out more forks, opting to keep three in each hand between his fingers. Then he charged forward.

"Space CQC One! Forks of Tsukkomi!"

In an elaborate and wholly unnecessary combo, he attacked. The first strikes launched the extradimensional young girl into the air. He leapt up, and continued to slash and batter until the creature was nearly into the ceiling.

"It's over!" In a double strike, he slammed the monstrosity into the ground.

Nyahiro took a moment to observe that the alien looked adorably moe, despite the various bleeding cuts now across its body. Admittedly she had tried to kill him, and he was returning the favor, but that didn't make her any less cute. The girl shifted and began to rise. His monster hunting instinct returned and he was again struck with an urge to kill and destroy the thing before him.

He was completely unprepared for a net of tentacles to ensnare him, restraining his entire body with almost crushing force.

"...You hurt me. How can I appear to Fuminori with all these scars?" He could hear the girl's voice clearly now, his Nyarlathotep blood having taken over to preserve his SAN points.

"I was just going to kill you, but you've forced me to be cruel to you now. I'll show you what it is to suffer!"

The roving appendages forced their way into his ears, nearing his brain. They could never interface directly, as he was too sturdy to simply impale. However, at his core, Nyahiro Yasaka was fragile like any other human. He lacked his mother's truly impossible resistance and strength. His own deity hunting techniques had to be practiced constantly, while his sister was adapted substantially more to the strange and bizarre art of Space CQC.

He could feel the probing, as jolts of electricity raced between his brain and the tentacles that were disgustingly close to it. As Saya attempted to warp his already alien brain, he had only one method of survival. If he wasn't already in a terrible situation, he might have blushed in embarrassment.

"U- Nya, U- Nya, U-Nya, Let's Nya!"

This was repeated in his mind, over and over, until Saya screamed out and released him. There was no way that anything that entered his mind was surviving unharmed.

Short of a certain Bardiel, but that didn't count!

There was no more time for play, his enemy was dangerous and had to be dealt with as soon as possible. Reaching into one of the interior pockets of his jacket, he removed a small onigiri.

NOM

He felt it, the world slowed around him. This was sticky nature of rice superimposed on time itself. All things were slowed, hardly even moving, save for him.

'Za Warudo!' Came an echo from across time and space.

Nyahiro didn't pause to consider it. There was no more thought to be had, only decisive action.

Handful after handful of forks were launched out, each salvo freezing in place as it left his hands. As he released a final handful, time slowly returned to its normal pace. The forks moved at a crawl, in a single silver mass. Every second, as time moved back into place, it moved faster and faster. When the result could be observed, there was only one outcome.

Death.

The creature that had been Saya, the monster that had dared to invade his planet and take up the hour of private time he had for playing eroge, was dead beyond the concept. Shredded apart by a wave of cutlery.

Nyahiro had to shed a tear. That many forks sacrificed to end such a low existence.

And so he returned to the door, more than prepared to leave.

"Ah, the onee-san from before!"

There was no sign of his encounter, convenient barriers had so many uses.

Panting, Oumi came to a stop, "Boy, come on, it isn't safe here."

Nyahiro tilted his head cutely, "What do you mean, onee-san? Nothing's here."

And Oumi couldn't deny this, the house looked just as empty as it had before.

"W-well, you shouldn't be around strangers' houses at this kind of time. Come on, I'll walk you home!"

And so the half-alien and the regular high school student left the den of insanity that Fuminori Sakisaka's house had become.

\-^-/

Epilogue:

Fuminori Sakisaka was quite surprised to have found a person whom he could view and interact with normally. The strange takoyaki vendor seemed to be completely unaware that she was one of a few hints of nomalcy in his life.

He speared and ate another ball. This was incredibly delicious, the first nice thing he had tasted since the accident.

He'd be coming here more often, perhaps he'd bring Saya here sometime?