Chapter 7

The sun slowly dipped toward the horizon. Long shadows stretched out underneath trees and buildings alike. Birds chirped from the treetops that lined an uphill stairway. Two people slowly ascended these stairs. One led the other by the hand.

"Are you okay, Ken-kun? We're almost there."

"Yep. Perfectly fine," Ken responded to his cousin.

Naru sighed and shook her head at how her cousin walked so carelessly since leaving the hospital while blindfolded.

Meanwhile, Ken slowly moved his head back and forth. Despite the white bandages pressing against his eyes blocking his vision, each of his steps lacked hesitation. 

Behind the bandages, he perceived the world in a strange way. Ever since leaving the hospital, he focused mainly on seeing his environment without reading too much into the details of everything around him. He steadily practiced filtering out most of the symbols and lines down to a hair's width. Currently, in his vision, the world looked like a black, blue, and white pencil-drawn animation of outlines.

Lowering his head, he looked at the outlines of two intertwined hands. Warmth passed from Naru's hand to his own as she gently led him up the stairs even though her skin felt colder than his own. Unintentionally, his fingers moved to caress hers. Perhaps due to sensory deprivation, he felt a slight tingle down his spine. Perhaps she felt something similar as well since her hand loosened briefly before tightening more than before.

"...Stupid."

The barely audible complaint barely reached Ken's ears. Although the action was unintentional, the reaction it garnered made the corner of his lips rise while he let slip a small snort of amusement.

"What are you laughing at, huh?"

"Just that holding hands is quite comfortable. We should do it more often."

A quick movement in Naru's outline blurred toward him. Her fist slowed with hesitation halfway but still bonked him on the head regardless.

"Pervert. Don't flirt with your cousin."

Rather than retort, Ken merely smiled while rubbing the sore spot on his skull with his free hand.

"Seriously, did you hit your head or something?"

"Maybe when you fell from heaven you landed on my head?" Ken jokingly replied.

Naru released his hand, cracked her knuckles, and asked, "Do you believe I won't hit you?"

"Hehe. Well, maybe."

Naru stared at Ken's casual smile for a few moments before sighing and grabbing his hand again. Barely refraining from further retorting, she resumed leading him up the slightly curved path of stairs. 

At the top of the stairs, Ken quietly studied the surrounding outlines. Aside from the two-story inn situated directly in front of them, mildly forested areas filled the rest of the grounds atop this almost mountainous hilltop. Briefly, Ken read into some of the symbols and lines he originally tuned out. Two things stood out to him more than the inn's unusual history. His brow wrinkled a little upon comprehending the concepts conveyed to him.

'The land is cursed?'

Although his eyes told him a natural curse rested upon these grounds by some sort of spiritual individual, the actual contents of it made him raise a brow. There was also a long-term spell structure set up over the grounds that inhibited the full effects of the curse, but the spell was too weak to fully mitigate it. His eyes barely twinged after comprehending the entirety of the spell.

When he tried to read the symbols about the individual who placed the curse, his eyes twitched. Not wanting to strain his eyes on something like that, he settled for figuring out the individual's motive. 

'Hm. I think I might be able to remove that weaker magic like I did yesterday, but I better leave it. I wonder if I can remove the curse, though? It hurts my eyes too much right now, but maybe I could in the future.'

Thinking such, he stopped reading into the magical effects covering the inn's grounds.

According to what little of the symbols he read into with his special sight, the main effect that the curse wrought was to influence incidents between people of different genders. While innocuous in and of itself, the curse did not distinguish who it influenced, leading to a long history of couples staying at the inn unintentionally intertwining themselves with other residents. Over the decades, it turned into a big enough mess of broken relationships that it shut down. 

Ken couldn't help raising his brows a little and ended up shaking his head.

'It's not exactly malicious, but it's certainly inconvenient and irresponsible. Guess that's why it's a female only dorm now. Was this something from the DxD franchise, or is it maybe from another franchise? Hard to tell, I guess, but I bet Tim would know.'

Other than that, he also noticed that the him of this world before he took over had once visited this place as a child with Naru, but the details on that only showed him that it was a fairly normal family vacation. However, considering the magical aspects of this place, he couldn't help wondering if some strange things happened back then that might not be recorded in the symbols he could currently see. 

In front of the building, Ken saw the outline of a woman holding a broom. She stopped sweeping in order to look at whoever was walking toward the inn. 

"Oh, you're back," The woman casually commented after pulling a cigarette away from between her lips. Her lower pitch of voice made her sound contradictorily relaxed and stressed at the same time. "So that's your cousin, huh?"

"Hi, Haruka," Naru responded. "This is my cousin, Narusegawa Ken."

Bowing slightly, Ken said, "Nice to meet you."

'She doesn't seem to be a witch, but she certainly has more physical and magic power than any other human I've met so far. Something about a family jujutsu… A little painful to read that part, so I'll take my time with it later. Either way, it seems like she's beyond a normal human, but still completely human. Pretty sure that's unusual for DxD without Sacred Gear or having a connection to Heroes or Magicians,' Ken contemplated with furrowed brows while greeting the woman.

"Likewise. I'm the caretaker here, Urashima Haruka. Call me whatever you like."

Ken nodded and replied, "Happy to make your acquaintance, then, Haruka. You can just call me Ken."

The woman raised a brow but then casually returned a nod, stuck her cigarette back between her lips, and resumed sweeping. 

In contrast, Naru nibbled her lip and wondered if she made a mistake in bringing her cousin here. Her foggy glasses hid a sharp glint in her gaze.

'Ken's not super handsome, but he's got a nice chin… and nice eyes… and a nice voice… He won't seduce them all, right?'

Naru shook her head in denial. She simply couldn't imagine her pure and innocent cousin who always used to follow her around as somebody who would do such a thing. 

Unaware of Naru's thoughts, Ken focused on a smaller outline approaching from within the building behind Haruka. The symbols and lines around the figure were especially thick, even for an older person. Other older people also had more lines on them due to longer histories, but this was different. It reminded him of when he saw Rias and Akeno yesterday, but on a slightly lesser scale. The symbols showed a similar history in Urashima Jujutsu to Haruka.

As he expected from the silhouette, a short and stout older lady with a somewhat hunched back slid the front door open and stepped outside. The blue runes and symbols on her informed Ken that this old lady was both the owner of the inn and also the grandmother of Urashima Haruka. Her greeting confirmed that information for him.

"Ah, hello there. Welcome back Naru-chan," The woman greeted with a friendly smile. "And if it isn't Ken-kun? I haven't seen you since you were a small child."

"I don't remember most of that trip too well, but I guess it's nice to see you again?" Ken replied in a questioning tone while feigning knowledge of the past.

Nodding in an understanding manner, Urashima Hina said, "It has certainly been at least a decade, so not surprising that you might not remember me. Nevertheless, I am happy to have you stay here during your recuperation."

"Thank you."

"Oh, and thank you for agreeing to my request, Urashima baa-san."

From beside Urashima Hina, Haruka offhandedly commented., "Would you like to have him stay in your room, Naru? If not, I prepared an empty room just in case." 

Naru frowned and tilted her head for a moment. Her eyes flickered over to Ken. As soon as she saw the bandages again, she inquired, "Is it okay for him to stay with me?"

Haruka waved her hand as if to signal that there was no problem with that. At the same time, she set aside her broom and said, "That's fine. I'll go grab an extra futon for him."

After Haruka entered the inn, Grandma Urashima waited for Naru and Ken to follow her inside. Shortly after entering the building, she commented, "I heard that you two were caught up in a gas explosion. I am really glad you are okay."

Head drooping upon hearing about the event, Naru solemnly said, "It was really dangerous." Then, her gaze shifted over to Ken who was currently removing his shoes. Her cheeks reddened slightly as she mumbled, "If not for Ken-kun, I might have been injured very badly."

"Hoho. Is that so?" Grandma Urashima asked in an amused tone.

"You're exaggerating. I just wanted to hug you," Ken said while giving Naru a slight smirk.

"Psh. And here I was trying to give you some credit," Naru snorted in response while tapping his shoulder with a fist.

At the side, Grandma Urashima grinned at their discussion. Although Ken could not fully see her expression, he wondered if she was thinking about youth or something.

From the entrance, the two young people and one old person walked into a fairly large entry hall. A square-shaped indoor garden added some life to the room. An upper floor walkway complete with wooden guardrails circled the garden in parallel with the ground floor. 

While letting Naru lead him by the hand around the indoor garden, Ken saw a new blue line streak across the outlines in his sight from above. Not even a second later, he heard wood breaking above him. His head whipped upward in response just in time to see the outline of a body hurtling right toward his face.

"Ah! What the hell, Su?!" Naru exclaimed. She tried to pull Ken out of the way, but as luck would have it, she failed.

Two legs split apart and flew past Ken's shoulders. Blue lines showed him an optimal path of avoiding injury, so he immediately followed that as much as his admittedly frail body would let him by falling backwards. Then, everything blurred.

Undergarments smacked him in the face.

Bodies tumbled to the floor.

Cloth of a skirt covered Ken's head.

A weird chirping sound entered his ear.

After a few thumps, Ken groaned due to weight pressing down on both his face and lower body. Thanks to the outlines, he could somewhat perceive one human figure sitting on his face and another sprawled out over his legs with a face between them.

"..."

He didn't bother moving. He just waited.

"Oh, hi! Sorry, mister!" A girl's voice exclaimed in a friendly manner from directly above his head. 

The girl spoke in a thick accent that Ken failed to recognize, but his eyes fed some information about the girl's origin to him.

"Wha-? What kind of perverseness is this?" Another female voice exclaimed from above, seemingly from upstairs. 

Then, a groan from near Ken's thighs added to the voices. The next moment, Naru's fist slammed the floorboards into splinters. She stood up and yanked the giggling girl off from Ken's face and immediately chewed her out by saying, "I haven't even been here for five minutes, and you just jumped on my injured cousin! Can't you be more careful, please?"

"Ehe. Sorry," Su replied while dangling in the air by her shirt collar. Turning her attention to Ken who was currently sighing from the floor, she said, "I'm sorry mister. I was trying to catch the turtle."

"Hm. I see that," Ken mumbled while picking up the turtle hanging out on his chest that was currently saluting him. He frowned while making eye contact with the small turtle that had a plethora of times more symbols and lines on it that made it look like a system glitch in his currently limited vision. 

'A… god? No, a messenger of a god? Or a member of an ancient species? I'm getting conflicting messages here,' Ken inwardly complained. He quickly stopped trying to read into the turtle when his eyes tightened almost immediately after he laid eyes on it.

"Muguu~!" The turtle exclaimed in a curious tone. It happily tapped on Ken's chest as though it had discovered something interesting.

"Ah! Where did that turtle pop out from?!" The voice from upstairs shouted. Pounding footsteps then scurried off further away upstairs.

"Such a weird looking turtle," Naru mumbled while furrowing her brows.

"Ah, there it is!" The tanned girl exclaimed. She then shimmied out of her sailor uniform top and dived for the turtle.

Naru's eyes widened into saucers. Then, her hand shot forward to grab the girl's ankles midair. 

"You rascal! I just said my cousin is injured! Leave him alone!"

Wanting no more of the curse's effects, Ken held the weird turtle away from his chest and rolled out of the way. He barely avoided the girl's head smacking the floor right next to him. 

"Ouch!" The girl exclaimed in a muffled voice due to her face breaking through the already broken floorboards. She still sounded pretty energetic, though.

Upon seeing that the girl's chest would have landed on his face if he hadn't moved, his mouth involuntarily opened out of pure exasperation. 

'This curse is crazy. Maybe I shouldn't stay here?'