“Huh? What is all this?” she couldn’t help but ask.
Mutsuko answered with the air of an expert. “They’re elevator maintenance manuals! I got one from every company that makes them. Escalators, too!”
“Um, but why do you...”
“For survival! We of the survival club think it’s important to be armed with the information to survive in any situation!”
“Survival? Survive what exactly?” Yuichi interrupted. Mutsuko ignored this and pressed on.
“Did you know the thing they do in movies where you get out through a hatch in the roof is impossible? See, you can’t open them from the inside! I look up at the ceilings of elevators a lot, so I know! So you’d be stuck if someone attacks you, right?”
“Yeah, I remember... anytime you’re in an elevator, you’re craning your neck all around...”
“But elevators do have a compartment in the lower wall! Did you know that? They’re there to carry coffins! So if it comes to it, you can hide in one of those!”
“Um... Aren’t those usually locked?” Yuichi growled in frustration.
Aiko had never heard of such a thing. But if there were doors like that, they would have to be locked.
“So you pick the lock!”
“And... you said ‘if it comes to it.’ Just what are we hiding from, exactly?”
“...Zombies, I guess? Zombies are pretty dumb, so they probably couldn’t find you there!”
Aiko’s jaw slowly dropped as Mutsuko continued her never ending elevator rant. She could see what Yuichi had meant when he called her “an unfortunate case.”
“Oh, and I hear the newest elevators have sideways escape hatches. They let you move to the next elevator over. Wouldn’t that be a great adventure?!”
“Uh huh.”
“And escalators, oh! They have maintenance shafts underneath! So if a ceiling collapses and you can’t pass up top, you might be able to pass through underneath! This is really useful information!”
“You just read that in some manga!”
“Sakaki... what is your sister even...” Aiko trailed off, looking at Yuichi for help. She was completely lost.
“Ah... Um, my sister’s the president of the survival club.”
“Right.”
“It’s a club where they talk about stupid stuff.”
“Wrong!” Mutsuko shouted. Her manner did a complete 180. “This knowledge is necessary to survive our modern age! Sudden earthquakes, biohazards, serial killings on isolated islands, alien attacks, being pulled into post-apocalyptic or fantasy worlds... there are all kinds of dangers out there! We simulate and discuss a variety of situations so we know how to protect ourselves! That’s what the survival club is about!”
“Most of those don’t exist. There’s no such thing as aliens, and no one’s getting pulled into other worlds,” Yuichi said dismissively.
Aiko agreed with him in principle, but vampires did exist, and she’d seen undead creatures just yesterday. It was a little hard to just reject the rest out of hand.
“We do more than talk, too! This is today’s assignment! We’re gonna practice passing underneath escalators using these maintenance manuals!”
“I’m begging you... do not go around town messing with escalators based on stuff you read in manga...” Yuichi pleaded with her.
“Don’t worry! We’ve got help from the manufacturers! It’s a real field trip!”
“How do you get so much motivation?” he asked flatly.
“Hey... Just who is your sister, exactly?” Aiko whispered to Yuichi. It was hard to believe a normal high school student could get in touch with elevator manufacturers.
“Beats me. I don’t know anything about her personal connections, or where she gets her money...” he responded.
“We do running practice, too! Survival requires stamina! And we train up our grip strength and our arm strength, too, which is really useful if you end up dangling from a ledge! Speaking of which, I never asked your name! What is it?”
“...Aiko Noro...”
Aiko shrunk a bit before Mutsuko’s boundless enthusiasm.
“Oh, Noro, huh? What a cute name! Makes me think of norovirus!”
“...That might be... the rudest thing possible to say...” Yuichi moaned, hanging his head.
Aiko shared the sentiment. She had never been called a virus before.
“So, that means you’re joining the survival club too, right, Noro?”
“Huh?” The complete jump in logic caused Aiko’s jaw to drop. “Where did you get that idea?!”
“I’ll get your application ready! I let Yu handle them, so just fill it in and give it to him!”
With that, Mutsuko turned and left. Just when it felt like she would never stop talking, she was gone, just like that. Aiko’s head was still spinning from the whirlwind enthusiasm.
“Um...” she said.
“I guess now you see what I go through,” Yuichi muttered.
“Yeah...” Aiko stared at the door Mutsuko had gone through, and nodded.
✽✽✽✽✽
After his sister left, Yuichi decided to go home. If he didn’t have to go to her club, there was no reason to stay at school.
“I’m gonna go grab my bag. You moving out ahead of me?” he asked Aiko. She might have some business of her own, after all. He was a little worried, but they wouldn’t necessarily be able to walk home together every day.
“No reason to go out of our way to walk home separately,” she responded. The route home was more or less the same for both of them, but Aiko’s house was roughly ten minutes away from Yuichi’s.
Yuichi went down the stairs and headed for the classroom. Aiko was following a few seconds behind, her own bag in hand.
He opened the door.
Someone was there.
It was a boy, dressed in a school uniform and baseball cap. He was sitting at the back of the empty classroom at Yuichi’s desk.
The moment Yuichi saw him, he slammed the door shut.
Yuichi ducked, did a backwards roll to the wall, and shouted “Noro, get down!”
Something whistled through the air, putting two holes through the wooden door before thunking into the wall behind him. Impaled deep in the concrete, they vibrated from impact.
Kunai: a long, slender shuriken, usually employed by ninjas. It was as if two had just sprouted out of the wall, right at the level where Yuichi’s head had been a moment ago.
“Huh?” Aiko stared in shock.
“I told you to get down! ...Well, too late now, I guess. Let’s get out of here!”
Yuichi stood, grabbed Aiko’s hand, and started running.
“Wuh? Huh? What?” Aiko cried, letting herself be dragged along. She seemed too confused to do anything else.
“It’s a serial killer!” he shouted.
“Huh? Takeuchi?”
“No! It’s Serial Killer II!” Without stopping, Yuichi cast a glance behind him. The classroom door opened and the boy stepped out.
“Serial Killer II.” That was the label over his head.
It was hard to tell from this distance, but judging from his height, he was probably about their age. His uniform was the high-collared type, though, so he must not have been from their school.
“Serial Killer II? That guy?”
“Yeah! That’s what it says above his head!”
How can there be a two?! Yuichi thought frantically. We haven’t even figured out how to deal with one yet!
The boy began striding leisurely in Yuichi and Aiko’s direction.
Chapter 5: The Battle Against Serial Killer II
“Hey! Why are we running away?”
“Because he’s chasing us, duh!”
“Why is he chasing us?”
“How should I know?!” Yuichi dragged Aiko by the hand until they reached the end of the corridor.
Luckily, Serial Killer II didn’t seem to be in a hurry. They’d put a lot of distance between themselves and him.
&n
bsp; Like all first-years, their classroom was on the fourth floor. The second-years had their rooms on the third floor, and the third-years on the second. The first floor contained the music room, art room, and staff office.
Classes for the day had been over for a while. At the very least, there was no sign of students here on the fourth floor. But there would still be students and teachers on the first floor involved in club activities.
Yuichi was torn. Should he call for help? Or should he try to face the serial killer himself?
“What should we do?” he asked Aiko, for lack of anyone else. But she seemed even less sure than he was.
“Oh! Um... First, what does he want? Is he after you?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know if he’s attacking indiscriminately, or if he’s after me in particular.”
“If he’s trespassing on school grounds, we’ll have to tell a teacher, right?”
“Normally we would, yeah, but he’s a killer. For now, we need to run. Going up would take us to the roof, so I guess we go down!”
Getting away from the school had to be their first priority. He’d just made up his mind about that and turned his gaze to the stairway, only to see the boy in the baseball cap standing right there.
“Hey. Are you Sakaki?” he asked casually. “I didn’t expect my first volley to miss. I’d heard you were just an ordinary person.”
During the time they’d lost sight of him, he must have gone down to the third floor to head them off. He must be quite fast.
“Sorry, Noro!” Yuichi swept Aiko up in his arms and ran as fast as his legs could carry him. Aiko seemed bewildered about being picked up so abruptly.
“Come on, let’s have a little talk!” the boy called, running after them.
Not good! He’s catching up to us! There was no way Yuichi could get away while carrying Aiko.
Things flew past them from behind.
Huh?!
Kunai, most likely. He didn’t stop to see. The boy had thrown a few dozen at them, trying to keep the pressure on.
There was nowhere to run. Yuichi kept up his pace, slamming into a classroom window at full speed.
“Eeek!” Aiko screamed, but Yuichi ignored it, knocking a desk over as he landed inside the classroom.
At almost the same moment, the door went flying, kicked in by the killer.
Yuichi fled for the outside-facing window.
I can’t do this with my hands full! Yuichi shifted her from both arms to carrying her only in his left.
“Hey! Huh? What the—”
Yuichi planted his hand on the frame of the open window and leaped outside. He felt briefly like he was floating.
“Waaaagh!” Aiko screamed.
The next instant, his right hand found purchase on the bottom frame of the neighboring classroom window. He kept his grip up, flexing the arm and kicking off the wall to propel himself upwards again.
Grabbing the rail on the upper part of the frame with just his fingertips, he kicked through the glass and slid into the classroom next door with one smooth motion. Then he bounded for the exit, slamming through the door to run out into the hallway.
Okay! That bought us a little time!
Yuichi didn’t stop for a moment. He kept running until he reached the end of the hallway. There was a stairway that could take them up to the roof, or down to the third floor.
Yuichi looked behind him. The killer boy hadn’t shown himself. He might still be in the classroom.
What should I do? Yuichi thought.
Earlier, he’d considered going down to escape the school. But now he knew that wouldn’t work. That boy was definitely a killer. He wouldn’t hesitate to kill anyone he met. If Yuichi went downstairs now, it would only increase the casualties.
Still, if they went to the roof, they’d just end up cornered...
“Hey! Would you put me down already?” Aiko scowled up at him.
Yuichi set her down on the floor.
“What was that?” she cried. “I thought we were dead! My heart’s still pounding!”
“What else could I do? If we’d just kept running straight down the hallway, he’d have thrown more shuriken at us.” There was no time to waste in worrying right now. Yuichi steeled up his nerve. “I’m going to wait here and lure him up to the roof. You escape downstairs.” Alone, he could probably hold the boy off.
“No way!”
“Huh?” Yuichi couldn’t believe it what he was hearing. If they split up, there was a better chance that at least Aiko could stay safe. He was the one the boy was after, after all.
“I said no way! I can’t get away by myself! It’s better if we stay together! B-Besides, what if I run downstairs, and he comes after me...?” Aiko clutched at Yuichi’s uniform sleeve. She was shaking, terrified of the idea of being left all alone in a situation like this.
She had a point. Yuichi had assumed the killer was after him, but he couldn’t be sure. Besides, if they split up and the boy took Aiko hostage, he would lose any hope of getting out of this.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. We’ll get out of here together.”
The words reassured Aiko, who smiled slightly. “So? What will we do on the roof?”
“I was thinking I could buy time on the roof, and you could call my sister and get her to come by.”
“Huh? Why would we want your sister here?” Aiko stared at him in sheer bafflement.
Perhaps that was natural. But Yuichi’s sister was always thinking through scenarios like, “What if terrorists attacked the school?” She might know what to do about a rampaging serial killer.
The boy came out of the classroom and started walking slowly towards the two of them.
“Anyway, let’s get to the roof,” Yuichi said. “I have an idea.” He pulled Aiko by the hand up the stairs.
The door to the roof came quickly into sight, but something beside it drew Yuichi’s attention. It was a stack of damaged desks. They must have been stored there for later disposal.
Yuichi tugged the desks out and hauled them to the top of the stairs.
“What are you doing?” Aiko asked.
“Just what it looks like. If he comes up after us, I’m gonna drop these on him!”
“Um, Sakaki, that’s... bold...”
“After that... Noro, have you got money? Lend me— I mean, give me some!” Yuichi said.
“Is this really the time to be shaking me down?!”
“Yes! How much do you have?”
“Um, about 100,000?”
“What the hell? Why does a high school student have that much money on her?”
“None of your business! Why do you need money, anyway?”
“Any 500 yen coins?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Hand them over!”
Yuichi was aware that he wasn’t making sense. But his sheer desperation may have gotten through to her, because she took out ten five hundred yen coins from the school bag she’d been clutching the whole time.
He heard footsteps coming up the stairs.
The moment he saw the hint of a shadow on the landing, Yuichi threw the desks. They tumbled down the steps with a loud clatter, seeming ready to hit their pursuer dead-on...
The boy threw his hand to the side. It was a casual gesture, like brushing away a fly, but the result was dramatic. The mountain of desks was batted aside, and they crashed into a wall. Yuichi’s trap hadn’t even slowed him down.
The boy’s baseball cap fell off, revealing a head of short golden hair. But that wasn’t what drew Yuichi’s attention.
It was the horn.
There was a single blue, translucent horn growing out of his forehead, about the length of a fist. There was no way he could fit something like that under a baseball cap. Given its translucent appearance, maybe it was a hologram.
“Oh, jeez, he’s stronger than I thought...” Yuichi muttered.
The boy slowly ascended the staircase. He didn’t seem to be in a hurry at all.
He’s... playing with us... Yuichi assumed he had come to kill them, but the boy seemed to be in no hurry at all. It was impossible to understand what he was thinking.
“What are you doing?” Aiko asked.
“We can’t just keep running around mindlessly. We need to find the quickest route to my sister’s club room... ah!”
“What?!”
“...They might be out on their field trip...” His sister’s words came back to his mind.
Yuichi pulled Aiko out to the roof. There was a chain-link fence all around the edge. At first glance, there was nowhere left to run. Yuichi brought Aiko to about the center of the roof and spoke to her.
“Noro! Grab onto me from the front like a koala! I need both hands if we’re going to get out of here!”
“What the heck? I can’t do that!”
“It’s okay, you’re little!”
“Don’t call me little! And that’s not the issue!”
“Just do it!” Yuichi tugged Aiko toward him.
“Huh?! W-Wait a minute!”
“Just wrap your arms around my shoulders, and your legs around my waist!” The sharp edge to Yuichi’s voice must have surprised her, because she did just as he asked.
The sight of her clinging to the front of Yuichi’s torso would have looked ridiculous to any outside observer.
“It’s a little hard to move, but I think it’ll work,” he said.
“What the hell are you two doing?” The killer boy stood at the entrance to the roof, struck dumb by their current state.
“We’re getting ready to do something about you!”
“Oh, yeah?” The boy didn’t seem at all threatened. He must have been confident in his prey’s inability to escape.
Yuichi balled a hand into a fist. There were two 500 yen coins between each of his fingers: a total of eight.
“Take this!” From his slightly constrained posture, he held up his right arm, brought it back behind him as far as he could, then launched it forward. Snapping his wrist, he released the coins.
The weighty metal discs rained down on the boy.
The boy’s arrogance vanished in an instant, and he hastily crossed his arms to defend himself from the barrage.
Immediately after the throw, Yuichi turned around, ran to the fence, and climbed it, with Aiko still clinging to his front.
The World's Strongest Little Brother Page 7
