Corner the Perp!

Okarun and Aira walk into an unused classroom, and the doors swing closed on their own, sealing the pair inside. Kinta assumes Okarun is shutting him out, yet when he opens the door he simply finds a lesson underway and no trace of his friends. Momo recognizes that the two are now within Empty Space, which puzzles Okarun, since Turbo Granny's power left him long ago; worse, he discovers part of his body has bonded to a prep table. Aira transforms into her Acrobatic Silky form and tells him to back off, though Momo urges caution, warning that Empty Space points to aliens. Just then Aira notices her skirt has melded with Okarun's trouser leg, and Momo calls out a volley of kitchen knives racing at them.

The girls knock the blades aside, but the instant they near Okarun their outfits fuse to his as well. Aira treats this as evidence of a marriage proposal, which only stokes Momo's fury as she orders the two apart. Catching sight of the little figures stitching the cloth, Momo calls them pygmies and breaks them up, steering the kitchen knives with her mind to slice the joined garments free. She tells Aira that pygmies are perched on her right shoulder, but the warning is useless, since neither Aira nor Okarun can spot a single one, even as Momo insists the room teems with them arming themselves from whatever lies on hand. Blind to her foes, Aira chooses to swing wildly with her hair to smash everything in reach; the pygmies counter by pinning her locks down and touching a prep table burner to them.

Momo, Okarun, and Aira end up trapped within Empty Space, opening the clash that pits the three of them against Koki and her pygmies. The tiny creatures fasten the group's clothing to nearby surfaces and hurl knives using catapults. Momo alone watches the pygmies flood the classroom, while her two friends stay completely blind to them. When Aira attempts to fling the cooking counters and level the room, the pygmies instead bind her locks and move to ignite them.

Appearing in Volume 20 and released on October 22, 2024 within the Ultimate Yokai Saga, this installment opens the direct confrontation with Koki and her pygmies. It confirms that Empty Space can manifest without Okarun's transformation, and that almost no one besides Momo is able to perceive the pygmies.