The worst part about walking through Tokyo with Kasumi Hayakawa wasn't the staring.
It was the geometry of the staring.
Every head turned at exactly the same angle—about forty-five degrees—to track Kasumi's legs in those ridiculously tight tactical pants. Then their eyes would drift up, pause at strategically interesting locations, reach her face, and experience some kind of religious awakening. Finally, as an afterthought, they'd notice Suzume trudging along beside her like a particularly determined barnacle.
[This is how sidekicks feel. This exact feeling.]
"Stop walking like that," Suzume muttered as they crossed through Shibuya Station.
"Like what?"
"Like you're on a runway."
Kasumi smirked at her.
"This is just how I walk."
"No one naturally walks with that much hip!"
"I have a lot of hip. It has to go somewhere."
A businessman walked directly into a pillar while watching them pass. The sound his nose made against the concrete was weirdly satisfying.
"Oh shit," someone said behind them. "Is that—"
Here it came. The Kasumi Recognition. Suzume had seen it happen at the maid cafe. First the double-take, then the frantic phone fumbling, then—
"Is that Rescue Girl-sama?"
[Wait, what?]
Suzume turned to find three teenagers staring at her with the kind of expression usually reserved for pop idols or particularly impressive cats.
"Um," she said, which was definitely not what heroes said.
"Holy fuck it is!" The tallest one, a girl with bleached tips and a Devil Slayer phone case, actually bounced. "You're really her! You saved those people in Koto!"
"I—yes?"
"Can we get a picture?"
Before Suzume could answer, they'd surrounded her, phones already out. One of them made a peace sign. Another threw up what might have been gang signs or possibly just arthritis.
"Say 'fuck the Association!'" the bleached-tips girl suggested.
"I don't think—"
"FUCK THE ASSOCIATION!" all three screamed in unison.
The camera clicked.
They scattered immediately, probably to upload it to every social media platform that existed and several that didn't. Suzume stood there, frozen in an awkward peace sign she didn't remember making.
"That was adorable," Kasumi said.
"That was mortifying."
"Your face went through like seventeen different emotions. It was amazing."
They kept walking, but now Suzume noticed the recognition everywhere. The convenience store clerk who gave her a thumbs-up. The old lady who whispered "good job" while passing. The salary man who definitely took a creep shot but at least had the decency to look ashamed about it.
"This is weird," Suzume said.
"You're famous now. Get used to it."
"I don't want to be famous. I want to be useful."
"Lucky for you, you're both." Kasumi checked her phone. "Two blocks to the dungeon."
---
The Meguro portal sat in the middle of a shopping district. It seemed like the System had all of reality to work with and consistently chose maximum inconvenience. The portal itself pulsed green, C-rank, but with flickers of red bleeding through like capillaries.
[That's not good.]
The usual yellow tape created a hundred-meter perimeter, with Player Response Officers standing around looking officially useless. A small crowd had gathered, the kind that formed around car accidents and celebrity breakdowns.
They approached the tape. The nearest officer, a middle-aged man with the expression of someone who'd given up on life sometime around 2019, held up a hand.
"Authorized personnel only."
This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.
"We're the Dungeon Rescue Guild," Suzume said, trying to sound official.
He looked at her. At Kasumi. Back at her.
"The what now?"
"The rescue guild. We're here to—"
"Oh!" His face lit up with recognition. "You're that girl who told Deputy Director Yagami to fuck off!"
"I didn't—why does everyone think I said fuck?"
"It was strongly implied," the officer said sagely. Then, louder: "Hey guys! It's Rescue Girl!"
Every officer turned. Several pulled out phones. One actually applauded.
"We're going in," Suzume said before this could get worse.
"Can't let you do that." The officer's face fell. "Destabilized portal, safety protocols, you know the drill."
"The drill that leaves people to die?"
"That's the one."
Kasumi stepped forward, and the atmosphere changed. It was subtle—the way she shifted her weight, how her hand drifted toward her spear—but suddenly every officer in range remembered she was Level 24 and they were Level Nothing.
"We're going in," she said. It wasn't a threat. Threats implied you might not follow through.
The officer looked at his colleagues. They all found interesting things to stare at that weren't this conversation.
"I'm going to turn around," he said carefully, "and count to one hundred. If people happen to cross this line while I'm not looking, well. That's hardly my fault."
"One," he said loudly, turning away. "Two. Three..."
They ducked under the tape and ran for the portal.
"Four. Five. What's that? Is that a bird? I should definitely look at this bird for a while..."
The portal swallowed them, green light giving way to darkness.
The dungeon was what Suzume had started thinking of as "Classic Cave"—stone corridors, dramatic torches, the occasional skull for ambiance. The System really needed new material.
"Eight Players," Kasumi said, checking her phone one last time before they lost signal. "They were heading for the boss room on the fifth floor when things went sideways."
"Fifth floor. So probably still there or retreating upward."
"If they're alive."
[They're alive. They have to be.]
They moved fast but careful, Kasumi taking point with her spear while Suzume watched for traps. The first three floors were empty except for monster corpses—the original team's work.
"Clean kills," Kasumi noted, examining a dead Rock Lizard. "At least they weren't completely incompetent."
"Then why haven't they—"
A roar shook the corridor. Not a normal C-rank roar, the kind that maybe made you nervous. This was deeper, hungrier. The kind of roar that rearranged your internal organs just to remind them who was in charge.
"I'm gonna guess B-rank," Kasumi said. "At least."
"Let's hope not."
---
They found the Players on the fourth floor, barricaded in what used to be a treasure room. The door was barely holding, something massive slamming against it in regular intervals. Each hit sent cracks spreading through the stone.
"Eight heads," Suzume counted through a gap in the door. "All moving."
"All terrified," Kasumi corrected.
The door exploded.
The thing that came through had probably started as a C-rank Ogre. But the destabilization had done something to it, stretched it wrong, added parts that didn't belong. It had too many joints in its arms and its face had split vertically, showing rows of teeth that went back farther than geometry should allow.
Level 31
HP: 1,847/2,000
MP: 0/0
Kasumi nodded.
"I've got this."
She moved like water, if water had trained for ten years and carried a very sharp stick. The spear found gaps in the ogre's skin that shouldn't have existed, created wounds that leaked black blood that smelled like burnt copper.
Suzume darted past them both, into the room where eight Players huddled against the far wall.
"We're here to help," she said, already checking injuries. Broken ribs on the tank, mana exhaustion on both mages, the healer completely tapped out.
"Rescue Girl?" one of them gasped. A kid, maybe seventeen. "Holy shit, you're real?"
"Unfortunately. Can everyone walk?"
They could, barely. Suzume got them organized, supporting each other, while behind her Kasumi turned the ogre into increasingly artistic chunks.
"Move!" Suzume called.
They ran. Or hobbled quickly, which was close enough. The ogre tried to follow but Kasumi's spear convinced it that bleeding out was a better life choice.
They made it to the third floor when the dungeon shuddered.
"What was—"
The floor cracked. No, not cracked—opened. A perfectly circular pit appeared directly under Kasumi's feet.
[No.]
Suzume's hand moved without thought. The Rescue Line shot out, wrapping around Kasumi's waist just as gravity remembered it existed. The sudden weight nearly pulled Suzume down too, but she braced against the wall, muscles screaming.
"Got you," she gasped.
Kasumi dangled over darkness that went down forever or at least until it got bored. She looked up at Suzume with an expression that was entirely new—surprise mixed with something softer.
"You caught me."
'Yeah... I did."
Suzume hauled her up, pretending her arms weren't about to fall off. Kasumi climbed over the edge and for a moment they were very close, close enough that Suzume could see her eyelashes were naturally that long, the absolute unfairness of it.
"Thanks," Kasumi said quietly.
"No problem. Just, uh... Don't fall in pits. It's bad for team morale."
"I'll add it to my to-do list."
They got the Players out without further pit-related incidents.
The crowd outside had tripled, everyone filming as they emerged. The eight rescued Players were immediately swarmed by friends, guild mates, one very emotional mother who kept alternating between hugging her son and slapping him.
[Finally, some more XP.]
Name: Aoi Suzume
Class: Rescuer (Level 5)
HP: 70/70
MP: 105/105
EXP: 10/300
[Civilians Saved (Lifetime): 21]
[Players Saved (Lifetime): 25]
Attributes:
Strength: 3
Dexterity: 11
Intelligence: 27
Endurance: 9
Luck: 8
Suzume watched them reunite, feeling something warm settle in her chest. This was why. This exact moment. Not the fame or the recognition, but this—people going home who almost didn't.
"Hey," Kasumi said beside her. "We did good."
"You did good. I just carried bags."
"You saved me from falling into the literal abyss."
"Again, that's my job."
"Your job is to save civilians."
"You're very civilian-adjacent."
Kasumi laughed, and several people in the crowd immediately fell in love with her. Suzume couldn't blame them.
"Come on," Kasumi said, bumping her shoulder against Suzume's. "Let's go before someone asks for more pictures."
"Rescue Girl!" someone shouted. "Can we get a—"
"Running now," Suzume decided.
They ran, leaving the crowd behind.
But Suzume caught glimpses of phones, of uploads already happening. By tonight, everyone would know the Dungeon Rescue Guild had succeeded again. That they'd saved eight people the system had written off.
[This might actually work.]
As they headed back toward Shibuya, Kasumi still walking with too much hip and Suzume still feeling like a sidekick, something had changed. The doubt that had lived in her chest since Akane died had gotten quieter.
Not gone. Never gone. But quieter.
