by Yoru Sumino
“Stay back!”
Mr. Backside scrambled again to his feet and rushed to the fourth floor, joining back up with the rest of his party. My clone glared at them from the hallway while I glared at them from the stairs, leaving them a clear path to the third floor and making it obvious to the intruders where they could run.
Was there no special technique I could think of here to threaten them? I growled again, pondering, when there came the harsh sound of Motoda clicking his tongue.
“There’s two of them?” I thought I heard him mutter, when suddenly he did something unbelievable.
He took the bat that he had been gripping with his left hand the whole time into his right and went swinging at the clone.
“Take that!”
Not knowing what might happen if the clone were to take a hit, I had it back up while I shook my body intimidatingly at him. Seeing this full display of anger, Motoda took a step back. As he did so, both I and the clone each advanced in turn, closing in around him.
What was with this guy? Though I would never show it, the heart I wasn’t quite sure I had felt like it was thundering in my chest.
Seriously, to just go swinging at a monster when you didn’t even know the extent of its power? Motoda returned to his two companions and readied his bat again. He seemed to come to a conclusion based on the fact that the clone had avoided his swing, not attacked in return, and conversely how the attack appeared to anger me. He smiled his usual unpleasant grin, looked towards the clone, and muttered, “That one must be its kid.”
Though his declaration was both incorrect and absurd, for my purposes it was perhaps rather useful. I knew exactly what it was he intended to do next.
“Take that!”
Once again, Motoda swung the bat towards the clone, and when the clone dodged, he swung again, just as I suspected he might. He was exactly the sort of person who would happily attack what he identified as the weakest enemy. He stared at the clone, who he had determined to be a child, with the exact same expression as when he looked at Yano-san during the day.
Avoiding his attacks was no problem. If I needed to, I could run away too fast for them to ever catch me. The other two behind Motoda were frozen in place. Thus, there were only two real problems here.
First off, Motoda had realized that the clone was not going to return his attacks. Truth be told, I had been commanding the clone to smack his bat away, but the clone had not budged. Perhaps it was because I hadn’t imbued it with the image of attacking the first time that I summoned it.
Second, I couldn’t allow them to touch my main form. I still had no idea what would happen if they did. The tables would be turned on me if the black drops were to turn Motoda into a monster as well.
What was with this guy?! I’d never imagined Motoda would be so reckless! As the clone retreated farther and farther back, I had no choice but to show them that I had full intention to strike.
Recalling that night on the roof, I ignited the black droplets within me, with a far more restrained image than before, opened my mouth, and let out a small flame. Carefully, carefully, so as not to burn them.
“Wah!”
The other two boys had been watching Motoda fight the clone. Feeling the heat from the flame, they jumped back from me. It was apparently effective, as they went running over to Motoda.
“It can breathe fire!”
“Dude, this is bad!”
“We gotta get outta here!”
I continued to close the gap, inch by inch, as they shouted, forming a pincer of sorts with my clone. Of course, the clone was still capable only of defense, so it wasn’t as if I could keep this up forever. I needed them to scamper off home.
I maybe got a bit careless from there, frantic in my execution.
I should have had my clone pop outside, and come back over to me, but I underestimated my enemy. Just as Motoda’s attack stance seemed to slacken, I instead made the clone leap towards me, up over the three boys’ heads.
I really hadn’t expected Motoda to be so thoughtless.
I don’t know if he knew what the clone was going to do, but he almost reflexively tossed the bat in my direction. The bat arced towards me, so close that it nearly struck the other two boys, and to my dismay, grazed the tail of my clone.
The clone vanished instantaneously, like smoke. Then, one of the fluorescent lamps in the hallway shattered, making an impressive sound. For a moment, it felt as though time stopped.
“…Crapcrapcrapcrapcrap!” Mr. Backside babbled, dashing in the opposite direction from me.
I felt exactly the same way. Oh crap.
Besides me, he seemed to be the only one here with a honed sense of danger. As I faced down the other two, something cold, like sweat, dripped down my skin. It was bad that the lamp had shattered. However, I was far more concerned that they had seen that my clone could be defeated with a weapon. I couldn’t assume that such an attack wouldn’t also work on me. In fact, it was possible that anything that struck me with ill intent could have an effect.
In other words, even if I sent them packing tonight, there was a chance that they might come back to the school some other night to hunt me again.
Perhaps I could strike them over the head with something and knock them unconscious? No, I had never directly attacked anything with this body and had no idea how to regulate my strength. I had no idea what I’d do if I accidentally killed them.
As this debate ran through my head, I decided to summon up another clone in the meantime. And yet, it would not come. Was there some sort of restriction to the ability?
I couldn’t let them underestimate me. I was a monster. I should be feared.
I roared louder than before, letting a font of flame pour from my mouth, putting on a show of anger that my companion had been dispatched.
“Yo, we need to get out of here!” said the boy from the neighboring class to Motoda, taking a step back. Motoda took a step back as well but persisted in glaring at me.
“Betcha we can get rid of that one too, can’t we?”
“Wh-what the hell’re you saying?! If we don’t get outta here, the guards’re gonna show!”
I couldn’t let myself fall a step behind them. So, before they could run, I took a step forward and let out an earsplitting battle roar. A noise that loud was sure to bring the guards rushing in, and if they dealt with the intruders, then that was good enough for me.
Apparently I’d made the right move. Perhaps assuming that the monster before them was truly enraged, the boys began to run away from me.
I expanded my body to fit just within the width of the hallway and gave chase. I was careful to regulate my pace, just quick enough that they couldn’t escape me but just slow enough that I would never catch up. I opened my mouth as I crept behind them on my six feet, driving them down.
Still in good form, they began to run faster. In a sharp showing of split-second decision-making, when they reached the end of the building, they swiftly changed course, heading for the stairs. I leaned my body into the turn and followed suit.
My tail swayed back and forth, smacking against the walls.
The repeated sound of it caused one of them, the boy from the neighboring class, to thoughtlessly turn halfway around to look. He was between the fourth and third floors when his foot missed the last step just before the landing and he stumbled. I leapt to avoid him in the nick of time, clinging to the window that was pouring moonlight down into the stairwell. Only the emergency light now remained to shine its eerie green light.
“Hey—wait a—!!”
Before I bothered determining whether his words were addressed at Motoda or at me, I crawled along the ceiling, and turned about to glare at him. Seeing a monster defy gravity was sure to be unsettling.
It would have been splendid if this was enough to frighten them, but this was not the case. Motoda stared at me, half-turned, making no moves to run.
Just then, my vision was assailed by a bright light.
“
Oi! Run!”
The voice was coming from the boy from the next class over. When I looked in the direction of the sound, spots dancing before my eyes, I saw a phone in his hand. The light must have come from that. Seriously, dude? This wasn’t an anime or a game—you couldn’t just assume that bright light would pierce through a shadowy monster. That said, it was still effective against me—the human somewhere inside.
I had to scare them once more before I could let them run, I thought. I dropped to the floor to chase them down into the hallway, my eyes still stinging. I would keep chasing them down to the first floor, then let a big fireball out on the grounds, and that ought to finally be enough.
Or so I thought, but the pair were not so kind as to abide by my assumptions.
“C’mon,” said Motoda, running not towards the stairs but towards the hallway. Realizing that the command was directed towards him, the other boy scampered after him, a few beats behind. I followed.
Just what was his game? What in the world did he intend to do?
As I followed them, roaring, Motoda passed by one empty classroom, then another, finally putting his hand on the front door of the room occupied by our class.
A momentary tremor ran through me, but it was fine, I had remembered to lock the door that Yano-san had unlocked somehow. Ka-chak, it went—the sound of the lock properly doing its job.
“Damn it, what the hell?!”
I wasn’t quite sure what Motoda had been expecting. He cussed at the door and took off running again. I chased behind until I had very nearly caught him, opening my mouth as though to swallow him whole.
There was nothing to obstruct my open mouth.
Undaunted by his failure, Motoda ran and laid a hand on the back door. Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result is a mark of insanity, I thought to myself, and was instantly betrayed when the door opened.
The two slipped inside the classroom as I, still running, passed them by.
How? Just as the question crossed my mind, I heard the sound of the lock clicking shut.
It hadn’t even occurred to me, because we always went through the front door. Had Yano-san unlocked the back door, too? Why? And why had Motoda run straight to the classroom as though he knew?
Panicking, I turned around and stared into the classroom through the window. The two of them stared back at me, sweat dripping down their faces.
Meanwhile, my body rippled with nerves. Yano-san was hiding in the supply cabinet just behind them. If they found her, it was all over.
It was just as I finished the thought that it happened. Almost immediately, I saw the door of the supply cabinet open, and Yano-san peeked out, grinning smugly, perhaps to ascertain what was going on.
Are you stupid?! I wanted to curse but held back. I needed to keep their attention on me.
As always, I put a certain image in my mind. Unlike always, however, I did so slowly, carefully, so as to draw out my enemies’ fears.
I scattered myself like liquid and poured into the classroom through a crack in the doorway. Bit by tiny bit, the black droplets seeped into the classroom, like a cauldron bubbling over, like a poison gas spreading.
The pair were frozen still. No doubt they’d never imagined that I might make my way into the room like this. As I reformed my body into a smaller thing than it had been out in the hall, I heard a scream.
What do you think, boys? Didn’t think I could do that, did ya? I thought cruelly, laughing through my monstrous mouth.
“What is with this thing?!” shouted Motoda, seizing the chair closest to him and chucking it my way. I grabbed it up with my tail and tossed it gently right back, as gently as when I had handed Yano-san the umbrella. This was merely to show them that I was capable of touching objects directly.
Somehow, though stunned, Motoda caught the chair, looking hatefully towards me.
“You messin’ with me?”
He must have assumed I was toying with my prey, though in reality, I didn’t have that sort of luxury anymore. Frightening them off for good without being able to actually touch them had turned out more challenging than I expected. But if Motoda thought the predator had made him into a plaything? That suited my purposes just fine.
After all, that was what he always did to others.
My body was roiling now with something other than nerves. I couldn’t take my time here. I needed them to leave the classroom before they could discover Yano-san. I couldn’t just scare them out onto the balcony and have them jump. This was the third floor, after all.
As I considered how I could scare them away, my opponent made his move. Motoda grabbed Kudou’s bamboo sword from kendo club, which lay above the lockers we all used, turned toward me, and readied himself.
Crap, I thought staring down the wooden blade. But it wasn’t Motoda’s battle stance that unnerved me—it was the fact that I saw his companion behind him, looking for a weapon so he could take up arms against me alongside Motoda. Never once taking his eyes off me, he reached slowly in the direction of the cleaning supply cabinet. Perhaps he thought that I wouldn’t notice.
What could I do? My heart and my brain were on fire. I needed to act, and yet I stood there, overthinking what my next move should be, and so I acted too late.
His hand reached the handle of the cabinet. Twice his fingers swept past it, but the third time he took hold and gently tried to open it.
However, the cabinet didn’t open. Yano-san was probably barring it from within. Just when I thought I could finally be at ease, however…
“Some…one’s…in here!”
Before I could shout, How stupid can you be?! the two boys jumped, trying to distance themselves from the cabinet from which they had suddenly heard a high-pitched voice. This was a boon to me. I swallowed back my scream and leapt over to the cabinet. This was it.
It all happened in the blink of an eye, so I couldn’t say that I had recalled Yano-san’s words or anything like that.
I opened my mouth up wide and chomped down with all my might onto the supply cabinet.
And then, I imagined.
Inside my body was a universe. A vast space was unfurling inside of me, greater than could be seen from outside. My mouth was the entrance to this space from which I could swallow up anything I chose. Those things would lie within me, and I could spit them back out whenever I wanted.
In a matter of seconds, I swallowed the supply cabinet up whole, like a bird swallowing a fish. I completed this task without even having the freedom to doubt whether I actually could, looking the two flabbergasted boys in the eye.
Once again, it felt as though time stopped.
“Waaaaaaaaaaaah!!!”
Apparently, seeing a monster swallow up something larger than them had given them quite the shock. The pair screamed and then rushed from the classroom, tripping over themselves.
With the power of imagination, anything is possible.
Of course, I had no reason to believe such a thing, but the question was always in the back of my mind: But what if I could? What if I could sprout wings and fly? What if I could sink into the ground? What if I could teleport? And from out of those flights of fancy came a pocket dimension. Though of course, I was a monster. Swallowing things up was just what we did.
And yet, I had never truly tested my power, still afraid of hearing those words.
If you can do anything, then rescue me.
No matter what power I had, that was not something I could do.
That said, at least during the nighttime, I would do all that I could. If I didn’t, that idiot would wind up revealing herself. That was exactly how hopeless she was.
At the very least, tonight, this monster could rescue her.
After standing the bamboo sword that Motoda had so violently tossed up against the shelf, I decided to give chase. I needed to at least force them off of the school grounds.
It was easy enough to pursue them as they tripped down the stairs. As I gave a roar from behind to let
them know of my presence, the pair glanced back, let out a scream, and then ran with all they had.
I looked at Motoda, who cried pitifully, “Stay back!”
This was starting to get fun.
When they reached the first floor, the pair sensibly ran straight for the entrance and then directly outside. It was here that I realized that, unlike Yano-san, they had not bothered to change into their indoor shoes when sneaking in.
Now that we were outdoors, I could finally change myself to a size of my liking.
I found them running for the gate. As if he had been kindly awaiting the other two, Mr. Backside was there as well.
I vibrated my body up to a properly kaiju-like size and placed my first step down just where the trio were about to tread. With the writhing black drops as a cushion, the motion made no sound but still kicked up dust off of the ground.
They continued to the gates, falling over themselves at least twice. Now, for my insurance policy. Very carefully, making sure that no one was around, I breathed flames in the direction they were running. Just as I pictured it, a path of fire stretched until just beyond the gate, leaving them no route but the one by which they might escape. They rolled on the ground and looked up at me, eventually growing motionless. Was it simply too hot for them? They couldn’t even stand, it seemed.
As I stood there, puzzled by their sudden cowardice, Motoda screamed something.
I strained my ears to listen. It sounded like a curse. He was peering at me, wide-eyed. “Damn it! Just what the hell are you?!”
Your classmate, I obviously could not reply.
“We weren’t even doing anything!”
Sure, they hadn’t done anything…yet. But once again, I could not reply. Instead, I stamped my foot once, a warning that I could crush them at any moment.
Though I had countless times now shown them just what my shifting forms could do, Motoda persisted in his bluff, glaring daggers up at me despite the fear plain on his face.
Just then, as I felt my irritation rising, he said something he should not have.
