Perfect Blue: Complete Metamorphosis

by Yoshikazu Takeuchi

  Mima held the handle closed, her life in her grasp. The metal dug into her fingers until they bruised and swelled. But Mima held her grip.

  The man gave up. He released the handle, and then drove the tip of the knife through the ventilation holes.

  Reflexively, Mima pressed herself into the back corner. The sharp edge of the blade rushed past her eyes and then back out again.

  “I know you’re in there,” the man said. “If you don’t open that door right now, I’ll cut your face with this knife. You have nowhere to go, and I’m not leaving until you come out.”

  Mima knew he was right. If she didn’t do something to change the situation, that knife was cutting into her one way or the other. She had to do something—but what?

  Before Mima could finish the thought, the knife came through the center slat, and then again, and again. The blade scraped against the metal door with a terrible screech.

  Mima made herself as small as she could, but there was only so much she could do.

  Again and again, the knife’s tip passed perilously close to her forehead. Once, the blade even brushed her bangs.

  The stress and fear had pushed Mima’s mind to the limit. Her nerves were an overinflated balloon, ready to burst at a single pinprick. If that knife pushed through those slits one more time, it could very well be the pin to end it all—to end her.

  I’m trapped in this tiny locker, she thought. I have nowhere to run. Even if I had a way out, I hardly have the will to take it.

  A desperate thought crossed her mind. If her fate was to be anointed by that killer’s knife while trapped in that locker, she’d rather open the door and face him. She’d rather put up a fight than silently await an inevitable death.

  Having found her resolve, she began to turn the handle.

  Just then, a crashing sound broke the silence. The man jumped in surprise before turning to the source of the disturbance. Mima looked the same direction.

  The door of one locker, diagonally across, was standing open. Rumi stood within it, her eyes so wide they showed white all around.

  She couldn’t handle it any longer, Mima thought. She couldn’t stay waiting in the darkness.

  For a moment, Rumi’s sudden appearance had startled the man into stunned stillness, but he quickly recovered and came swinging the knife at Rumi.

  Rumi’s wide eyes popped open even wider. She shrieked and flapped her arms like a chicken and fled from the locker room.

  The man laughed through his lipless mouth and ran right after her.

  Chapter 9

  REVERSAL

  I

  Rumi ran blindly through the pitch-black halls, striking a wall here, tripping over a desk there. None of that mattered. She kept on running in full panic.

  Each time she fell, her hands came up pricked with glass shards and wooden splinters, but she hardly felt any pain. Running with such reckless desperation, she finally seemed to have lost the man. For a while, she had heard his breathing at her back, but it was gone now.

  At last, she arrived at the green room near the emergency exit. Relief flooded her. The dim light offered respite from utter darkness. Here, she could manage to calm her nerves.

  Rumi sat down in a chair and let her shoulders drop. She looked down at her feet and saw pools of blackened blood that had accumulated in little mounds on the floor, congealed into something like coffee jelly. She hadn’t known that blood could pile up like that.

  This was that freak’s blood. He had removed his own skin—his own skin. And then he tried to skin Mima-san.

  No matter how much he loved idols, how could that passion have brought a man to do what he had done? He was a freak. And not just any freak, but one of total and unparalleled monstrosity.

  Rumi remained seated in the chair for a time, but eventually she began to fear his sudden appearance, and the thought of it compelled her to her feet once more.

  I have to get out of here as quickly as I can, Rumi thought.

  She popped her head out the door and searched for any sign of the man’s presence. She strained her ears for the sound of his breathing or his footsteps rustling in the dark.

  She heard nothing.

  Realizing that this was her chance, Rumi decided to run for the emergency exit—but something inside her held her back.

  Mima-san, she thought. She couldn’t leave Mima-san here to her fate and only save herself.

  And so she remained in that room.

  She returned to the chair and considered what course of action would best help Mima. She could stay in the TV studio building, find Mima, and face the man together. That was one option. But it wasn’t one she saw ending in their victory.

  Instead, Rumi could escape the building and find help, whether from Tadokoro or the police. The more she thought about it, the more that seemed like the best choice.

  She made up her mind, and in the next moment, she was out of the room.

  Swish!

  Something cut through the air directly in front of her face.

  The knife’s edge glinted amid the darkness. The man was there.

  Rumi recoiled and fell into the shadows at the edge of the hallway.

  The man stood silhouetted by the green room’s dim light. “I told you you couldn’t run,” he said in his wheezing voice. “You’ll never escape me.”

  He brandished the knife and said, “I’ll start with you. I’ll kill you first, and then I’ll take your skin. Then Mima will be next. If you’re wondering why I’m going to kill you first, it’s simple. I always save the tastiest bite for last.”

  He swung the knife down at her.

  Rumi rolled to the side, dodging the strike. The knife just barely grazed the side of her stomach.

  Holding a hand to the wound, Rumi shakily got to her feet. A single streak of blood ran through her fingers.

  The man changed his grip on the knife and came at her with a horizontal slash, aimed at her face. Instinctively, Rumi jerked to the side; the knife passed millimeters from her cheek.

  The man grunted in frustration and began to swing the knife with crazed abandon.

  With her eyes locked on his, Rumi moved away. She took a step back, and her heel caught on something—a piece of scrap wood.

  Rumi lost her balance, twisting sideways as she tumbled to the floor.

  The man straddled her, pinning her shoulders down with his knees. He gripped his knife with both hands and raised the weapon high.

  Rumi tried to shake him off of her—she wrenched her body with all her strength—but the man didn’t budge.

  Within his mask of flesh, the man’s eyes glimmered with anticipation. He shouted, “Say goodbye!” and swung the knife down.

  Rumi grabbed his wrists with both hands. But still the knife kept coming. With her hands still on his wrists, she turned her head to the side.

  The knife grazed past her face, leaving a small cut beneath her earlobe before striking against the floor.

  The man clicked his tongue, then took another stab at her face. This time, Rumi rocked her shoulders, throwing off his aim, and the blade left another shallow cut at the base of her neck.

  A thin spray of blood spurted out and painted the man’s eyeballs red.

  The man grunted and cursed, then grabbed Rumi by the chin with his left hand. “Let’s see you try and move your head now!” he cried.

  He raised the knife once more.

  This time, Rumi was finished. She closed her eyes in resignation.

  The next moment, a flash brought daylight to the room.

  The man covered his eyes with his hand. For just an instant, he slackened his hold—but it was just enough time for Rumi to free herself from under him.

  Once she had, she saw two figures standing behind him.

  Simultaneously, the figures shouted, “Rumi!” and “Rumi-chan!”

  Rumi gasped. “Tadokoro-san, Yuji-san…”

  She slipped past the man and staggered to their side. Tadokoro caught her in his arms. Yuji dis
carded the camera he was holding and embraced her from behind.

  As she gave herself over to the safety of their arms, she realized that the burst of light had come from Yuji-san’s camera flash. Rumi turned to look at the photographer when suddenly she screamed.

  Standing just behind Yuji was the man, and in his hand was the knife.

  The moment Rumi screamed, Yuji spun to confront him, squaring off against the unearthly monster with the skinless face.

  Without any hesitation, Yuji lowered his center of gravity and rushed at him, ducking around the knife. Yuji drove his shoulder into the man’s solar plexus and tackled him with such force that the photographer could have been mistaken for an American linebacker.

  The man grunted and spewed frothy blood from his lipless mouth. He teetered for a moment before falling over forward, knife still in hand. It was on that knife he landed. It drove into his throat, right near his Adam’s apple.

  Coughing up massive amounts of blood, redness leaking through his teeth, the man rose unsteadily to his feet. Even with the knife jutting from his throat, he came on, shuffling zombielike toward the three. A normal person would certainly have died by now, but this was a monster, beyond the rules of nature.

  Yuji crouched again. He aimed his shoulder carefully, then tackled once again, sending the man flying back.

  The man tumbled into the darkness of the hallway. He struck the wall, head cracking against it in impact.

  This time, he remained still.

  Attempting a reassuring smile, Yuji said, “Rumi-chan, are you all right?”

  Her face a mess, Rumi leaned against the cameraman, who gently put his arms around her. She asked, “Is he dead? Tell me he’s dead.”

  “He’s dead,” Yuji said, softly brushing her hair. “You don’t need to worry anymore. Look, he’s not moving.”

  Tadokoro asked with concern in his voice, “Where’s Mima? Did anything happen to her?”

  Rumi’s eyes went wide. Her sudden rescue had pushed Mima from her mind.

  She looked up at Tadokoro and said, “I think she’s all right. But she’s probably still running around the building trying to escape that monster. She has no way of knowing he’s dead. She’s probably terrified right now, the poor thing….”

  Yuji said, “Tadokoro-san, let’s find the main breaker and get the power back on in this place. We need light first.” He gritted his teeth. “This musty darkness is too depressing.”

  II

  Mima felt herself floating in the air.

  A moment later, her body slammed against the concrete floor. With the wind knocked out of her, she remained still for a minute, nursing her pain.

  It was too dark for her to see anything, but she knew she had fallen down some steps—four or five, she thought. She imagined what could have happened had it been a whole flight of stairs, and the terror of the thought made all the hairs on her body stand on end.

  At the top of the steps, she could see the faint outline of an object, but nothing more. This was as close to total darkness as it could get, as if the air itself had turned to black.

  Mima got on her hands and knees and proceeded slowly, feeling about with her hands, searching for more steps or other dangerous obstacles in her path.

  After a short time, her hand touched something. The object was firm and round and about the size of a rugby ball. Here and there it had little bumps and valleys, and on the top there was something akin to hair.

  It seemed to be a mannequin head.

  She searched around with her hands and quickly found several more of the heads scattered about. Apparently, Mima was in some kind of storage area.

  Now that she thought about it, she recalled seeing a male idol singing some song with several mannequins behind him. The props had likely been left behind after the recording.

  Next to the mannequin heads was a pile of scrap lumber, which Mima suspected had been used to construct the set. She circled around the lumber pile to proceeded ahead, but her way was soon blocked by a large object that occupied the floor.

  Her hand brushed against its cold metal surface. Feeling around, she found a large, curving metal fin, and then several more. Mima quickly concluded it was a giant industrial fan used for special effects. The fan must have tipped over flat on its back.

  She had seen this fan before, during the taping of her song, “Innocence Forever!” The machine had been used to blow the cherry blossoms through the air.

  Mima found herself flooded with memories of her debut. For a moment, all thoughts of that stalker left her mind, and she relived the path her career had taken her and the emotions she’d felt along the way.

  Some of it had been painful. Some of it had been sad. But those were outnumbered by times of fun and happiness.

  I’m not sorry I became an idol, she convinced herself in the dark.

  Tadokoro and Yuji supported Rumi on either side as the three went deeper into the studio building.

  Holding out a disposable lighter to light the way, the manager said, “The breaker room should be downstairs, if I remember right.”

  Together, they searched for a staircase down.

  III

  Mima’s body went stiff.

  She could hear a strange sound. It was like a giant cockroach rustling across the floor.

  Was it Rumi?

  Mima dismissed the idea. Though she had no proof, she knew it wasn’t.

  Mima kept moving, trying to put distance between her and the source of the noise.

  Along with the scratching crawl, she started to hear something that sounded like a person trying to clear their throat. Whatever the thing was, it was alive.

  Mima felt her knees go weak. The only living things in the building were her, Rumi, and that man. If the sound wasn’t coming from her or Rumi, that only left one answer: him.

  Mima forced strength back into her legs and kept crawling ahead, hand by hand and foot by foot. She moved as carefully as she could to keep from stirring up any noise that would give her location away.

  But no matter how quietly she moved, she couldn’t silence the rustling of her clothes. In the pitch-black stillness, the sound of fabric brushing against fabric seemed to echo through the void.

  Suddenly, that giant cockroach sound intensified. There was no doubt: it was closing in.

  He had found her.

  From somewhere behind came a voice that sounded like it was coughing up blood.

  “Mi… ma…”

  If she had had any doubts as to who it was, they were now gone. It was him. It was that skinless monstrosity crawling toward her through the dark.

  Urged forward by that voice, Mima kept moving.

  Out of nowhere, Mima felt her sense of balance leave her. Even though she was still crawling on her hands and knees, her head began to spin.

  She tried to figure out why that might be, when she realized the answer. It was the floor. At some point, the floor had begun to slope. She hadn’t been able to see it in the darkness and the incline had upset her sense of balance.

  Careful not to let herself become too dizzy, she proceeded up the slope. Eventually, she reached the top, and the floor became level again.

  Still not sure where she was, Mima kept on going, propelled forward by the desperate need to get as far away from that man as she could.

  At some point, she had lost her shoes, and just below the hem of her jumper dress, her kneecaps were covered in scrapes.

  None of that stopped her. She kept moving forward, because moving forward was her only hope for survival.

  For a moment, Mima’s heart froze between beats.

  She’d felt something clammy and sticky touching her calf. The thing wrapped around her leg and began to squeeze.

  Mima knew what it was at once. It was that man’s bloodied hand.

  Mima kicked with her leg to try to free herself from his grasp.

  The man’s voice pierced into her eardrums. “Mi… Mima…” As he spoke, his voice gurgled like a drainpipe.
“You can make my desires come true. Please. Make my… make my…”

  Mima kicked into the void with both legs and hit the man harder than she’d expected.

  The man grunted in pain.

  While he was stunned, Mima got to her feet and tried to walk forward a few more paces, but her foot met with air where the floor should have been. She gasped and recovered her balance. There was no floor

  ahead.

  Quickly, she realized why—or at least, she came up with a good guess.

  The slope had led up to a stage, and this was the stage’s edge.

  Mima momentarily considered leaping down. It might not be that long a fall. But Mima stopped any such thought.

  Jumping down would be her last resort. Until then, she would try to fight the man on the stage.

  Just as she resolved herself to fight, the man’s hands came down on her shoulders.

  Rumi called out, “Yuji-san, over here! Is this the main breaker?”

  Up on the wall, in a storage space filled with mannequin heads, lay a large breaker panel. Yuji came over and opened the green metal door. Bringing the lighter’s flame up close, he examined the dusty switches within. Toward the bottom right, one switch stood out as noticeably larger than the others.

  “This must be it,” Yuji said, flicking the switch to the ON position.

  Light flooded the building.

  IV

  Without warning, everything became too bright to see. Mima reflexively closed her eyes. With her vision adjusted to the total darkness, the light felt as painfully bright as if she’d stared directly into the sun.

  Slowly, she cracked open her eyelids and saw a mass of red flesh in front of her. It was him. That skinless man. To her horror, his knife was embedded deep in his throat.

  He opened his eyes and stared at her.

  Mima shook his hands from her shoulders and tried to escape, but there was nowhere for her to go.

  They were standing on a long, narrow stage with a slope at its far end. Including the ramp, the stage extended a few dozen meters. Mima’s back was to the opposite edge, where the surrounding floor opened to the basement below.