Chapter 2: It’s Been a While, So Let’s Try to Get These Stories Straight

It was a Saturday in early December.

For once, Ryoma Takei was enjoying a quiet, peaceful morning.

Normally, someone would come to wake him up, or ask him do something stupid, and he’d end up starting his day in a panicked rush.

Today, though, he woke up after a few rings of the alarm clock, and even after he finally sat up, he was alone in his room.

The thought “Stranger things do happen” was knocking about in his sleep-addled brain when he heard a voice yelling from downstairs. It seemed the panic was happening there instead.

He changed into his school uniform and descended the stairs, where he found four girls in the living room.

“Huh?” Ryoma wasn’t sure of how to react to the sight before him, because one of the four was someone he definitely wasn’t expecting to see.

His older sister Kotori, his little sister Shiori, and his childhood friend Mio Morikawa were a typical sight, sitting around the breakfast table as usual. But today, they were joined by a girl with red hair.

Ryoma recognized her as Ende, the young girl who had sneaked into his room yesterday and made a contract with him. She was wearing a uniform from Ryoma’s high school, and eating breakfast like she belonged there. Kotori was staring at Ende in disbelief, while Shiori and Mio were fixing her with their most deadly glares.

The minute Shiori and Mio noticed Ryoma’s arrival, they turned their hostility to him.

“Big Brother! Who is this person?”

“Ryoma! What’s going on here?”

Ryoma had no idea what to tell them; Ende hadn’t mentioned anything to him yesterday about staying at their house.

“Why would you ask me? How should I know?” he answered. But despite his confusion, he took a seat down next to Ende.

“Good morning,” she said. “I haven’t eaten like this for a while, but it’s nice to get to enjoy Japanese food.”

“Why are you eating breakfast here?” Ryoma asked.

Ende was utterly shameless. She had probably been brushing off Shiori and Mio’s questions in exactly this way. “It’s not as if I don’t have permission. Your big sister kindly made a portion for me.”

Ryoma’s elder sister Kotori did have a magnanimous personality, but he never would have expected her to cook for a complete stranger.

“What’s going on here?” Ryoma fixed his eyes on Ende.

“I’ll be living here for a while,” she said. “Oh, and I’ve transferred to your class, too.”

“Huh?! Why?!”

“We’ve signed a contract, which means our fates are intertwined,” Ende said as if it were the simplest thing in the world. “I need to keep an eye on how things are proceeding.”

“That wasn’t what I asked!”

“What do you mean, you’re living here?!” Shiori exclaimed.

“This is not okay!” Mio shouted.

“We don’t know what might happen next,” Ende said calmly, responding only to Ryoma. “I think it’s best if I spend as much time with you as possible so that I can deal with situations as they arise.”

She really had some nerve.

“Ryoma, eat your breakfast already,” Ende continued. “We’ll be walking to school together so that I can explain what’s going to be expected of you from now on. Oh, and we don’t need the childhood friend listening in. You’d better go on ahead.” Ende finally looked at Mio.

Mio’s face had turned red with fury. She was apparently too angry to speak. She finally sputtered, “Wh-Why do I have to take orders from you? Who even are you? What are you doing in our house?!”

“It’s not exactly your house, is it?” Ende asked. “I don’t see why I have to answer you.”

Ende’s response stunned Mio into silence. She was used to coming and going in the Takei household like she belonged there, but perhaps she was aware of this much.

“I’m his little sister, so you do have to answer me!” Shiori shouted. “And I will not allow you to live in this house!”

“But as the youngest of the family, I doubt you have the right to argue with the head of the household,” said Ende. “And I do have permission from the head of the household — Takehiko Takei.”

“H-He never mentioned it to me!”

“Me, either...” Ryoma wondered when she could have gotten that permission.

While Ryoma looked at the girl suspiciously, Shiori produced her cell phone and quickly placed the call.

“Hello! Dad? Huh? Oh... but... okay...” Shiori’s initial fire gradually faded, and at last she numbly hung up the phone. “He says the daughter of an overseas partner is going to be studying abroad in Japan and he wants us to look after her for a while...”

Ende nodded briskly. “That should settle it, right? I hope you’ll take good care of me. Now, Ryoma, finish your breakfast.”

“S-Sure...” He still had questions about all this, but he did have to go to school. Ryoma quickly began to shovel down his food.

Once Ryoma finished eating, Ende stood up.

Mio stood up with her. “W-We’re going to the same place, so we should walk together, right?”

“Hmm,” said Ende. “If you can’t be convinced to go on ahead, then we’ll go without you.”

With that, Ende placed a hand on the neck of Ryoma, who had stood up after her. Then, with perfect casualness, she pressed her lips to Ryoma’s. It all happened so suddenly that Ryoma had no chance to protest.

“Hey!” Mio froze up at the sight.

Ryoma’s mind went blank as he felt something bewitchingly warm wriggling around in his mouth.

“The childhood friend has locked up. Now, let’s get going!” Ende directed.

Ryoma could do nothing but let her drag him along.

✽✽✽✽✽

Ryoma’s school was a prep school, so they still had classes on Saturday mornings. But since fewer schools did that nowadays, there weren’t many other students out on the road that day.

After finally snapping back to reality, Ryoma laid into Ende. “L-Listen, you! You can’t just spring stuff like that on me!”

“You’ve saved a lot of girls in your time,” Ende said coolly. “That can’t be the first time you’ve been kissed, can it? I didn’t think it would lock you up, too.”

“No one’s ever Frenched me before!” Just the memory of it caused his face to turn red. He had a little experience, but it had all more or less been accidental. He’d never had someone aggressively seize hold of his lips before.

“Well, now that we can talk, let’s discuss what’s going to happen next.” Despite saying they were going to talk, Ende’s attention seemed focused on a trade paperback she was holding in one hand. She was reading it, skillfully turning the pages with one hand, and showed no signs of stopping.

Reluctantly, then, Ryoma decided to take the lead. “So, what exactly am I supposed to do? You mentioned something about an Evil God, right? But you left before we worked the whole thing out.”

Ende had only appeared yesterday. He had agreed to work with her, and she’d forced something she’d called the eye of the Evil God onto his right eye. The eyeball had disappeared, and apparently satisfied, Ende had left the room.

“Yeah,” said Ende. “I had a whole lot to do, after all. I had to transfer to your school and contact your parents.”

“Speaking of which, how’d you swing that so easily?” he asked.

“There’s not much you can’t do with sufficient money and influence.”

Ryoma still had his doubts about a mysterious girl being able to transfer to his school out of the blue, but Ende made it sound like it was nothing.

“Just what the hell are you?” he demanded.

“Oh, did I not explain that part?”

“No. You were in my room when I got home, and all you said was the stuff about wanting me to participate in the Divine Vessel War thing.”

Thinking back, he had agreed to the contract awfully carelessly. Ryoma was used to getting swept up in strange situations, but this time he wished he’d asked a few more questions first.

“Just think of me as a mysterious figure who manipulates this world from behind the scenes,” Ende said. “Like I said before, I have enough money and authority to do whatever I want, so I’ve got a lot of time on my hands. To alleviate some boredom, I decided to take part in the Divine Vessels War. Well, I think that’s enough about me, don’t you? I could explain a little more if you like, but it’s not really relevant to what’s going on.”

“Why would someone as powerful as you want to live in my house?” he demanded.

“Because early in the story, the protagonist’s house is a safe zone.”

“Huh?”

“Like I said at breakfast, I also want to watch things unfold up close... but while I’m effectively invincible, getting involved in the Divine Vessels War means that others like me might come after us. I’m not exactly clinging to life this late in the game, but if I’m going out of my way to participate, I want to get as far as I can.”

The immortality stuff sounded fishy to Ryoma, but there was nothing in her expression that suggested she was joking. He decided not to think too hard about that part. He didn’t understand this girl Ende from the start, so one or two more mysteries didn’t change much at all.

“Well, whatever. So what did you want to discuss?”

“First, let me give a brief explanation of the Divine Vessels War,” Ende said. “As it sounds like, the participants are trying to steal things called Divine Vessels from each other. You’ll be a part of that.” She made it sound like there was no turning back at this point.

“Steal things... I bet that’s not something we can do peacefully, huh?” he asked.

“Yeah. It means you kill each other. Of course, you can take the vessels without killing, but killing is probably faster and less likely to bite you in the backside later. Since the victory isn’t decided until the very last second, showing mercy to the wrong opponent could get you killed down the line.”

“Um, so the goal is just to collect all the vessels, then?” Despite what she said, if that was all it took, then killing might not be necessary. He didn’t know what he might run into as they went on, but he was hoping to avoid killing as much as possible.

“Yes,” she said. “If you collect them all, the Evil God will come back to life and grant your wish.”

“Wait a minute. What do you mean, come back to life? Isn’t an Evil God a thing you should try to stop from coming back to life?” Ryoma suddenly got a sinking feeling about this. She’d mentioned collecting Divine Vessels, but she hadn’t mentioned anything about this resurrecting an Evil God.

“You might be right,” Ende said. “The last time it happened, it started World War II, so if he revives again, it might cause the third go-round, perhaps?”

“Hey!”

“I don’t think there’s any need to worry, though,” she shrugged. “The second one worked itself out, after all. But let’s not get bogged down in that detail. We can talk about it later.”

It seemed she had no intention of discussing that part anymore, so Ryoma urged her to continue with her explanation.

“The Divine Vessels are parts of the Evil God’s body,” Ende said. “They’re comprised of four eyes, six arms, and one pair of legs that includes left and right. There are also the heart, ribs, wings — those act as a pair, like the legs — head, spine, tentacles, horns, scales, and pit organ, which makes twenty in all. Which means there are twenty participants, too.”

“It sounds like a monster!” Ryoma exclaimed. It was hard for him to imagine what that would all add up to be, but it didn’t sound like anything he wanted to see.

“Yeah, I’ve never seen the complete version either, so I’m kinda looking forward to it. There’s more to him than just the Divine Vessel parts I named, after all.”

“Well, appearance aside... twenty? That’s a lot.”

She said they’d be stealing the Divine Vessels from each other, and while he might not have to fight them all, it was still sounding like an annoying amount of stuff to track.

“Hey, it won’t be that much trouble,” she said. “Quite a few have been consolidated by now, and there will probably be even fewer participants eventually. If you really want to conserve energy, you could just challenge the last man standing, but I wouldn’t recommend it. All the Divine Vessels come with their own unique abilities, so whoever collects the most will inevitably be more powerful.”

“And I’ve got one of them myself, right? What ability does it give me?”

That part, at least, didn’t surprise Ryoma at all. He’d gotten mixed up with people with crazy powers before, and whenever he did, he’d find he’d unlocked powers of his own, which he’d have to use to get out of the trouble.

“The abilities of a Divine Vessel are determined at the time they’re first observed,” she said. “Usually that occurs when they’re matched with a host, but my kind have a power called Soul Reader. So just looking at them, for us, causes them to be observed. Usually the personality of the host influences the ability, but your Divine Vessel was mostly influenced by me. So, sorry to tell you, but your ability is pretty unimpressive.” Ende didn’t sound very sorry at all.

“Yeah, nice disclaimer,” he said. “Would you just tell me what it is already?”

“You have the Evil God’s upper eye, which confers magical sight. That’s a power to see something special, or to influence the things you look at. Your magic sight can tell you how many books a person’s read.”

“What?”

“When you look at someone with your right eye, you’ll see a number over their head. That number will tell you how many books that person’s read in their life.”

Ryoma paused, thinking about it. “What am I supposed to do with that?”

Even after thinking, he couldn’t figure out how that could possibly be useful. It was neither poison nor cure. The best he could think of was if he were thrown into a bizarre quiz game and asked to name how many books a person had read... but he doubted that would ever come up.

“Nothing,” said Ende. “There’s no way it’s ever going to be useful, and no dangerous situation in which it could possibly turn things in your favor. So if you’re thinking it might just come in handy someday, you should abandon the very idea right now.”

“You seem pretty confident about that... so what’s the point of me having the eye, then?”

“The ability may not be useful, but the Divine Vessels resonate from time to time,” she said. “This allows hosts of Divine Vessels to detect each other’s location. I mean, without something like that, the war would never end, right?”

“I think I get the drift. But what, concretely, am I supposed to do? Just find people with Divine Vessels and beat them up?”

“More or less. Wait for the resonance, find a host, and steal their Vessel. Incidentally, you seem like the type who doesn’t like to get innocents mixed up in these things, right?”

“Of course.” Ryoma furrowed his brow; that seemed to go without saying.

“You won’t allow innocents to be used as pawns or human shields?”

“Of course not! Stop asking already!” he snapped.

“I see. That’ll make things tricky... but maybe also interesting, in a way. Perhaps the protagonist effect will make up for it, too.” Ende looked up from her book, her expression truly troubled in a way he had never seen from her before. But that lasted only for a moment before she smiled again. “There’s an enemy here.”

“What?!” Ryoma looked all around, but saw no sign of an enemy nearby. The people around him all seemed completely ordinary.

“I can’t tell where they’re watching us from, but this book is depicting us from the enemy’s point of view, so it’s obvious we’re being watched.”

“Depicting us? Point of view?” he asked.

“It’s one of my abilities. I can choose one worldview and view it in the form of a book. If it’s about the past, I can even see people’s states of mind with perfect clarity. If it’s happening now, things get a little sketchier. If it’s in the future, I can only read about broad trends. Anyway, if you don’t want innocents to get dragged into this, you’d better turn right here.”

He didn’t understand what she was talking about, but he did as he was told. “What’s going on here? I thought you couldn’t know these things without the resonance stuff. Or is this unrelated to the war?”

“No, it is related... I think the final boss is about to appear.”

“Final boss?” he asked. Ende’s statements were always so clipped; they rarely made any sense to him.

“Try to read between the lines. The final boss of the Divine Vessel War would have to be the Evil God, right?”

“Huh?” he said. “I thought you said he couldn’t resurrect without all his body parts.” She had just been talking about how the Divine Vessels were parts of the Evil God’s body, and bringing them together would bring him back to life. That meant he shouldn’t be alive right now... so how could he possibly be here?

“Well, you can ask him that yourself,” she said.

At some point, the people around them had vanished. Ryoma kept following Ende’s directions until they arrived at a run-down old park. The confident way she directed him suggested that Ende knew the local geography well.

The park was in the middle of a residential zone and roughly twenty meters square. It seemed rather neglected, with rusty equipment and a sandbox littered with trash.

There were two people standing in the park. One was an older boy wearing a blazer. His hair was long, with bangs that concealed most of his face, and he was about as tall as Ryoma.

Ryoma identified his blazer as the school uniform of Seishin High School. Seishin High was in the same city, and he saw students wearing that uniform on the train to school every day.

The other person was a man, both taller and older than the boy. He was smiling gently, and had an affable air about him that got on Ryoma’s nerves.

“Hey,” the man said, addressing Ryoma and Ende. He seemed perfectly at ease with no malice about him, yet it felt unsettling to have a complete stranger call out to him in the park.

“‘Evil God’ and ‘Host,’” said Ende. “They’re our enemies. ‘Host’ is pretty vague, though... It may mean he has a Divine Vessel inside him, but it also suggests there’s nothing else noteworthy about him. Why would someone like that have a Divine Vessel?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, but... didn’t we come here to get away?” Ryoma asked. “Why did we run into our enemies anyway?”

“Oh, they were clearly waiting for us here.”

“You mean we walked right toward them?!” Ryoma yelled at Ende, who didn’t sound at all guilty about it.

“You didn’t want to get innocents involved, right?” she said. “If we’d kept walking towards school, they might have ambushed us somewhere along the way.”

“Fine,” Ryoma snapped. “But look, that guy seems pretty human to me. You made it sound like he was some kind of monster. Is he even really our enemy? He doesn’t even look like he’s gonna attack.”

“It’s true that the Evil God is not necessarily our enemy. But I wonder...” Ende turned towards the man. “Are you our enemy or not?”

“That’s a good question,” said the man. “This boy is a carrier of a Divine Vessel, which means he is your enemy. Whether or not I am is a bit more up in the air... Right now, I’m on his side, but that might not always be the case in the future.” The man pointed at the boy beside him. There was no sign of tension about him at all — no sense at all that he was their enemy, nor that he was involved in the war.

“There wasn’t even any of that resonance stuff,” Ryoma mentioned to no one in particular. He had been told that vessel holders were supposed to fight after being drawn together by resonance, so why were they running into each other now?

“I’m sorry if I’ve disappointed you. This is a bit of an extracurricular activity... the war isn’t meant to be so rigorously scheduled,” the young man said apologetically. There was something oddly timid about him.

“So, what do we do? Fight?” Ryoma asked. “You seemed to have your hopes up, but right now it’s not humility to say I’m just an ordinary high schooler.”

In certain circumstances, Ryoma had found himself able to use special powers or weapons, but at the moment he effectively couldn’t do anything. For instance, if he’d been summoned to a fantasy world where magic was commonplace, he’d be able to use it, but the minute he came back to his own world, he’d lose that ability.

“There are things we can do, so don’t worry about that,” said Ende. “The question is whether or not you want to fight him. I think he just wants to size you up, and I’d rather avoid a fight right now if we can.”

Ryoma looked at the man again. There was nothing bloodthirsty in his manner, and he showed no signs of wanting to attack them right away.

The boy spoke for the first time. “You want me to take these guys on?” The words bespoke a great confidence on his part.

“No, I’ll fight this time,” the young man said. “I don’t think you’re quite ready to handle an Outer.” He stepped forward and left the boy behind. “Shall we, then? I just want to see what you can do, but it could still turn out fatal if you’re not careful.” As the man spoke, the sky above them suddenly turned black. “I overheard you saying you didn’t want to harm innocents, so I’m putting up a precaution. No matter what happens in this park, it shouldn’t harm outsiders. Also, you’re only supposed to fight me. This boy isn’t ready yet.”

“What the heck?” Ryoma asked, dumbfounded. He was no stranger to odd phenomena, but seeing the sky turn black like this was still surprising.

“It’s a barrier,” explained Ende. “If it’s true that nothing we do in here will affect the outside world, then we probably can’t get out, either.”

“That’s right,” the man said. You can’t escape until I release it, or you defeat me.”

While Ryoma was still fishing around for how to respond, the man approached him.

“Well, this isn’t any good... I can’t exactly get your measure if you won’t fight me...” The man rubbed his head with his right hand, looking troubled. Perhaps he could tell that Ryoma was in no mood to fight. “You leave me no choice. I’ll provide a light show of my power, and you can decide what to do from there on.” With those words, the man disappeared.

“Where’d he go?!” Ryoma shouted.

“I’m right here.” The voice came from behind him.

Ryoma turned around to see the man standing about five meters behind them, his hand on the support pole for the slide. There was clear disappointment in his eyes.

“If you can’t see me when I’m going this slow, you might want to quit right now.” As he spoke, the man uprooted the slide from the ground. It wasn’t that big, but it still should have been too big for a human to lift at all, let alone with one hand.

Then the man threw the slide at him.

Of course, Ryoma couldn’t perceive that movement, either. He could just assume what had happened from the fact that the next thing he knew, the man was in a throwing position, the slide had disappeared, and there was an enormous crash behind him.

He turned around to see the slide in pieces at the entrance to the park.

It must have hit the barrier — that’s what he’d meant when he said what they did here wouldn’t affect the outside world. It was as if there was a thick wall around them.

“You said there were things we could do, didn’t you?!” Ryoma grabbed Ende’s shoulders and shook her. He had no idea of how to deal with this. Pathetic though it may be, all he had to rely on now were Ende’s words.

“Let’s see... The boy looks weaker, so why don’t we go after him?” Ende pointed to the boy, who hadn’t budged from his original position.

“I wouldn’t recommend that,” the man said breezily. “If you do that, I’ll get serious. I just want to see what you can do. If you can prove that you’re worthy to participate, I’ll withdraw.”

“That’s probably true,” Ende said.

“Don’t give me this ‘probably’ stuff! What are we supposed to do, then?” Ryoma shouted.

“Don’t worry,” Ende said. “I’d expected we’d have to fight on about this level. That’s why I chose you.”

Something hit the ground beside Ryoma, as if cued by her words.

“Huh?!” He looked beside him to see if the man had thrown something again, but all he saw was a giant box looming over him. It was squat and wide, but still taller than Ryoma.

“Huh?!”

The box also had legs. Its knees were bent as if to absorb a shock, suggesting it must have jumped here from somewhere.

As he watched, dumbstruck, the legs withdrew into the box, and then it opened from the center as if spreading its wings. It took Ryoma a few seconds to realize that this thing, stuffed with books, must be a bookshelf.

“What is this?” he demanded.

“My bookshelf.”

“I know it’s a bookshelf! Why did it jump here, what does it want, how’d it get around the barrier, and all kinds of other questions! Well? Is it gonna fight for us or something?”

“What are you talking about?” Ende said. “A bookshelf can’t do anything but hold books.”

“It just jumped here, didn’t it? It has legs!” As Ryoma continued to lay into Ende, he could hear the young man laughing.

Ryoma realized it wasn’t time to be squabbling with her — their enemy could attack at any moment.

“Oh, don’t mind me,” the man said. “You have some sort of plan, right? Then I’ll wait as long as you want.”

Ryoma looked over and saw the young man smiling. Maybe it was true that he was going to wait. He must have really thought they were no threat at all; the man was brimming with confidence.

“He said he’ll wait,” Ryoma said. “So the big bookshelf jumped over to us. What now?”

Ende didn’t answer him, but just started browsing through the books on the shelf. “Hmm... ah, there it is.” Ende pulled out a book and opened it up.

“Are you seriously going to start reading that?” he demanded.

“No, I just need it open. Now you can fight.”

Ryoma heard something else hit the ground.

“At your command, I have come,” a voice intoned.

Ryoma turned at the familiar, clear sound of the voice. A girl was kneeling there, clad in silver armor.

“Huh? Uh? I didn’t call you here...” Ryoma said immediately. He’d never even thought of calling for reinforcements.

“Hmph!” The girl pouted in response.

“Um... Regin, was it?” Ryoma asked. “What are you doing here?”

She was a Valkyrie, a girl Ryoma had met once in another world.

“Incidentally, I guess there’s no limit on things entering the barrier from outside, huh?” Ende commented.

“Is that really important right now?” Ryoma demanded.

“This is one of my abilities. By opening a book about a given story, I can change the worldview we inhabit. That means that right now, you have all of your abilities from a previous adventure.”

As usual, he felt like Ende wasn’t actually responding to anything he said. But he decided to set that aside for now. The power of a Valkyrie should be enough to deal with the Evil God.

“I don’t get this at all, but you’re saying Regin here is the real thing? Then that’s enough for me! Reginleiv! Beat that guy!” Ryoma pointed to the young man.

“As you command.”

The girl — Reginleiv — stood, drew her sword, and rushed at the young man.

* * * * *

Natsuki was resting in the waiting room of an abandoned hospital.

She’d begun her flight on Friday afternoon, had spent all night running around town, and had arrived here in the morning. She’d intended to skip town, but she hadn’t made it that far.

He had sent pursuers after her. Those who shared with her the fate of a killer... those given power by him. They seemed to have spread immediately through the city.

She didn’t have the same sight that Yuichi did — eyes that would tell her a person’s true nature — but she could at least identify others of her kind.

Fortunately, it seemed Natsuki’s recent abstention from killing had dulled her presence to the other serial killers. It meant that she could detect them, but they couldn’t detect her. However, her opponents seemed to have realize that, and simply blocked off all routes out of town.

He had given power directly to 14 individuals, including herself. That wasn’t enough people to completely lock down the city... and they weren’t all necessarily in the city, either. But they had adherents, and she had heard that some of them had special abilities, too.

For now, all she could do was hide in a place that would make her hard to find, but she knew she couldn’t remain in the ruined hospital forever. Abandoned buildings would be the first places they searched.

She could ask someone to take her in and hide her, but she had foolishly let him see her in her school uniform.

Her identity was known.

If they investigated the school, they would learn everything about her. Then they would investigate her handful of friends, and she’d be found right away.

She had a few contacts in the underworld, but seeking help in a world of betrayal and intrigue, in her current condition, would probably end with her even worse off.

If only I’d made up my mind a little sooner... Natsuki thought.

She regretted it. She had wanted to leave town to keep her comrades out of danger, but now it was all for nothing.

Against mere serial killers, Yuichi could probably handle himself... but not him. No one could do anything against him.

But despite feeling that way, perhaps she had unconsciously begun seeking Yuichi’s aid, because the hospital she was hiding in now was close to where he lived.

Mochizuki Gastrointestinal Hospital, otherwise known as the Pink Clinic. It had once been a vampire stronghold, Natsuki had heard, until Yuichi had disrupted that.

Natsuki could sense a faint enemy presence. It was heading right for the hospital.

This was the way it had been, over and over again, since yesterday. After shaking them off, she would be fine for a while... but they always came again.

Natsuki stood up from her chair.

What should she do?

If running away wouldn’t solve the problem, then maybe she should try to break through, taking out as many of them as possible on the way. But the reason Natsuki hadn’t done that yet was because of him.

He was keeping his presence masked for now. That meant he could be coming along with the serial killer. If he was, she didn’t stand a chance.

As she wrestled over what to do, her enemy arrived in front of the hospital.

Fight and break through, she decided.

At the same instant, the glass door shattered.

The enemy had thrown something through the door, which rolled to Natsuki’s feet.

It looked familiar...

It was Sakiyama’s head.

Natsuki froze in shock. That meant she couldn’t fully dodge the next thing that came flying...

A spike.

The spike, fifteen centimeters long, struck Natsuki through the right shoulder. She glanced at Sakiyama’s head again and noticed several spikes were rammed into it, as well.

“Hello! Big sister’s here!” A woman stepped through the broken glass that used to be part of the door.

“Alberta... since when did you become my big sister?” Natsuki asked as she pulled the spike out of her shoulder and tossed it aside. Fortunately, the damage was minor; she could move her arm, which meant she could still fight.

“Well, we are like sisters, aren’t we?” the woman asked. “And I became his disciple first, which means I’m the big sister.”

The woman was wearing a top hat and an old-fashioned riding uniform. The long-skirted black dress also resembled a mourning costume.

Her name was Alberta, and she was a serial killer just like Natsuki.

“How did you know I was here?” Natsuki asked as she reached for the medical scalpels hidden in her uniform and gripped one in each hand. Alberta might not tell her everything, but she might let slip enough information for her to get away.

“That,” Alberta said as she pointed at Sakiyama’s head. “You know your big sister is skilled in magic, don’t you?”

“I didn’t know that, actually.” Natsuki knew almost nothing about Alberta’s specialties. The only thing she did know was her sadistic personality.

“Oh? What a shock! Well, if you don’t know, you don’t know, but there’s a spell for getting runaways to come home,” said Alberta. “I used a form of that, you could say. I cut off his legs, stuck talismans on them, and buried them at a fork in the road. Then, since his body was going to waste, I drove a spike into his navel and stuck spikes around his body to give it a more human form. Of course, in the end I ended up having his head tell me.”

She must have run into Sakiyama while he was searching for Natsuki. Sakiyama had been good at stalking, but other than that, he’d been an ordinary human with no special skills. He wouldn’t have stood a chance against a serial killer.

Natsuki felt bad for Sakiyama just a little bit. He might have been a stalker creep, but if he hadn’t gotten involved with a serial killer, he wouldn’t have met such a gruesome fate.

“You took the name Natsuki Takeuchi, right?” Alberta asked. “Then I suppose that’s what I’ll call you.”

“What do you want?”

“I was told to bring you back,” Alberta said. “Come along now, would you? Of course, I don’t even know why you ran away. It’s so strange. You should be glad he came here especially for you.”

To Natsuki, they were the ones who were strange, but it would be no use pointing that out.

Alberta produced an axe from beneath her long skirt. “I was told not to kill you, but it seems to me that I can do anything as long as you’re not technically dead. Of course, even if you die, it’s no big deal! Your big sister is skilled in necromancy, as well!”

With her long skirt fluttering, Alberta charged right in. She raised the rather heavy hand axe with ease, then swung it down.

Natsuki dodged it.

A medical scalpel couldn’t exactly block an axe, and while Natsuki’s scalpels were stronger than most, so were Alberta’s axes. She couldn’t cut the axes while she was attacking with them, and their weight was overpowering.

But the weight of the axes gave Natsuki an advantage, too. Both weapons were easy to use, but they differed in their speed.

Once she’d swung the axe, Alberta couldn’t heft it again that quickly, and even if she could, it would be slower than the scalpel. Which meant that Natsuki could counter quickly after she dodged.

Natsuki watched the path of the axe, then tried to swing her scalpel in the brief opening created before Alberta brought it up again.

Instead, though, Natsuki ended up jumping away with a gasp.

The scalpel hadn’t reached Alberta — she hadn’t even been able to swing it at her.

Her right arm wouldn’t move. Rather, it seemed to have a mind of its own, as it moved to cut at herself instead. Natsuki released the scalpel in her left hand so that she could restrain her right arm.

“Oh, sorry to tell you!” Alberta said mockingly. “This battle was actually decided after the very first hit.”

Natsuki didn’t know the underlying principle — perhaps it was part of the magic Alberta had mentioned — but the first spike Alberta had hit her with appeared to be the cause.

“Natsuki dear, ready to give up?” Alberta smirked. “Or do you still think you can turn things around?”

As Alberta was suggesting, it would be difficult to recover from this. The inability to use her arms was a fatal blow to her. She could still attack with her legs, but she couldn’t really hope to defeat Alberta with that alone.

“I guess I should probably dismember you. Then you can’t possibly get away.” Alberta began advancing slowly, her manner triumphant.

Natsuki kicked at Sakiyama’s head at her feet. It was a cruel move, perhaps, but if Sakiyama had been alive, he would probably have gladly let her kick him.

Sakiyama’s head didn’t hit Alberta, but she hadn’t dodged it or knocked it aside. In fact, it hadn’t even gone flying at her. Sakiyama’s head bit Natsuki’s right foot, causing a spike in its mouth to stick into her flesh.

“Natsuki dear... I gave you a hint, you know?” Alberta said. “I told you I was a necromancer. Why are you being so careless?”

Her right leg now had a mind of its own, too. Unable to stand now, Natsuki fell over.

“Natsuki dear, you’re so weak. Is it true you haven’t been killing at all lately? You used to be stronger, didn’t you?”

Maybe it was true that she had gotten weaker. It was possible that she couldn’t have beaten Alberta back then, either, but she would have at least put up a decent fight.

“Well, I’ve taken your right arm and right leg already, so let’s do our cutting on the left side first,” said Alberta.

Natsuki began racking her brain for a plan, but nothing came to mind. She couldn’t think of any way to fight back with the parts of her body she still had control of. She didn’t want to give up, but there was nothing she could do.

Alberta raised her axe high.

Natsuki glared at her attacker.

That was all that she could do — but even if she was about to die, she wouldn’t turn her eyes away from it. Natsuki still had her pride.

Alberta’s axe came down.

There was a high-pitched sound of something whistling through the air, and then the axe went flying in a different direction.

Natsuki saw it happen. The axe, and Alberta’s right arm, had both gone flying with the same force with which she’d brought them swinging down.

Natsuki and Alberta looked at each other.

They both seemed equally surprised.

The arm and the axe hit the wall with a bang.

“Hello, there,” came a voice from behind Alberta.

Alberta turned back. Natsuki could see the speaker, as well.

It was a young woman who looked like an office worker, holding a pair of blood-stained scissors in her hand.