Although it was just a tiny flame that seemed like it could be extinguished by a gust of wind, merely looking at it gave one a sense of dangerous aura, as if it contained the power to incinerate everything.
After a moment of astonishment, Fujiwara Chika immediately reacted.
"Wait, wait a minute!"
"What is it?"
Asakura, who was about to burn this alternate space with [Candle], paused.
"Kaguya... my friend is still inside!"
Fujiwara Chika hurriedly pulled Asakura's arm and pleaded, "Please, save her!"
Asakura frowned slightly: "Someone else is in there?"
He looked at the Fox Spirit beside him.
The latter stood on its hind legs and charged headfirst into the paper door in front.
However, the seemingly flimsy paper door was now as solid as if it were fixed to the space itself, becoming incredibly sturdy. The Fox Spirit's head-on collision not only failed to break the door open but also caused its own brains to splatter and even its eyeballs to fall out.
However, what would be a fatal injury for a carbon-based life form was merely a 'mere fatal injury' in the literal sense for this kind of spiritual life form, completely insignificant.
It pitifully turned its head to look at Asakura, emitting a low growl.
Asakura roughly understood what the other party meant.
"Your friend refused us."
He said to Fujiwara Chika, frowning.
"How could... Kaguya-chan..."
Fujiwara Chika murmured in disbelief.
"Tell me how you two got here."
Asakura asked the girl.
The pink-haired girl forced herself to be strong and recounted in full detail her experience of arriving in this space with her friend, Shinomiya Kaguya, to Asakura.
After listening, he pondered for a moment: "So, from the very beginning, that pendant inscribed with 'Grant Wishes' was in your friend's hand, right?"
"That's right... Is that important?"
"That is a magic item, 'Holy Grail,' which can grant the holder's wishes in a negative form."
Asakura explained concisely.
Upon hearing this, the girl immediately showed a look of understanding: "Is it the kind of thing that grants a wish for world peace, but ends up killing all of humanity? I've seen similar plots in light novels!"
"It's not that extreme; it doesn't have that much power. If I had to say, it's more like, 'Doraemon, I was taken advantage of by Gian,' 'Ching-ching-ching~ This is an M1917 American-made Smith & Wesson.'"
"In a sense, it feels even worse because it's so realistic..."
"In any case..." Asakura cleared his throat, "the current situation is very clear: this space is not some spatial bubble inexplicably attached to the real world, but a alternate space born from the Holy Grail responding to your friend's wish."
"Is this Kaguya's wish...?"
Looking at the endless, eerie, and old Japanese-style rooms around her, Fujiwara Chika found it hard to believe.
"From its manifestation, it should be keywords like escape or refusal..." Asakura responded, "It seems you were right to stop me just now. If we had burned this space without any preparation, your friend's mind might have been severely damaged."
In a sense, this space was somewhat similar to Yuigahama Yui's dessert world, except the latter's core was Golem, which Asakura had already shaped into Napoleon, while the core of this space was the girl named Shinomiya Kaguya, or more precisely, a part of her mind. The Holy Grail did not become the carrier of the space in this process; it was more like a catalyst.
"Although I knew Kaguya wasn't having a great time at home, I didn't expect it to be this bad..."
The pink-haired girl mumbled softly.
Asakura glanced at her, offering no comment.
After all, he hadn't forgotten that this girl's family background was quite high-tier in Japan's class society. How bad could someone be if they could be friends with her?
At this social stratum, there might indeed be some pressure from various sides, but compared to the lower-class people who struggle even for basic sustenance, these young girls' troubles, no matter how great, could only be considered 'moaning without illness.'
You can't eat abalone and foie gras every day and then complain about how miserable your life is, can you?
"So how exactly can we rescue Kaguya?"
Fujiwara Chika asked curiously.
After a good cry and release, with Asakura as her anchor, the girl's mindset recovered quite well, though unconsciously, her dependence on her 'Exorcist Mister' increased.
"Burning this place down is the last emergency option... While it might affect her mind, it's better than her being completely spirited away."
Asakura thought for a moment, "Let's try the simplest method first."
Saying that, he pulled the girl, who was about to ask 'What method?', and activated the magic [Fierce Scale] to cut them both from the alternate space back to the real world.
"Um... Is Fox Mister okay?"
Fujiwara Chika asked softly, a little conflicted.
After all, in that instant, the Fox Spirit's still unrecovered face had a pitiful look of 'I haven't gotten on the train yet!' 'Hey, give me peanuts!'
"It's fine, life finds a way."
"It's not a dinosaur..."
Fujiwara Chika mumbled softly, then suddenly realized she was with Asakura in a small, dim space.
After all, the various shops and stalls at the Soubu High School festival were essentially school classrooms. Even if Asagumo Chihaya's class had negotiated to use the adjacent classroom and divided it into dressing rooms with many simple partitions, the classroom area was still limited. Considering the foot traffic and convenience for visitors, the size of each dressing room was only slightly larger than those in clothing stores.
The moment she realized this, the girl felt the temperature in the cubicle rise, and even the dressing Mirror embedded in the partition seemed to be covered with a mist. The air was filled with their intertwined breaths, and even the unavoidable small physical contacts were infinitely magnified by her senses at that moment: the rustling of fabric, his secure, solid chest and arms, and his body temperature, which was a bit higher than a girl's...
Fujiwara Chika's face instantly turned bright red, and she seemed to be in a dizzy, confused state with an overloaded brain. Although she always called herself a 'Love Detective' at school, this actually pure and innocent girl had never had such a stimulating experience. If her body hadn't recovered well, she probably would have had a nosebleed by now.