Chapter 12: “……Why”
“Kana, you said all that and yet……”
Kazuki mutters like a crock.
“Because Masaomi isn’t there and I miss him.”
“Uhm, that’s not it. I’m…… that…… I’m worried about Masaomi, so I unreasonably her.”
Mizuno-san protects Kana.
“What’s so good about this kind guy?”
Mutsuki-san, who was holding a fire extinguisher, muttered hostilely.
“……Ka, Katou-san’s……?”
At Mizuno-san’s voice, everyone turned their attention to Katou-san.
Katou-san’s belly swelled to an unbelievable extent. Then, when it swelled and stopped moving, it wriggled through her uniform, exposing bright red feet.
Gnarled gray legs stained with blood.
Katou-san made no movements. There was no sign of her moving a finger, and her mouth remained half open.
A spider similar to the one that came out of the teacher’s mouth was completely exposed through the uniform. The shape is the same, but it is slightly smaller.
The spider spun its three eyes, put away the tentacles that were protruding from its mouth, and jumped away.
Confirm surroundings, capture, and predate.
It was a quick, familiar movement, as if it were a series of movements.
Fortunately, the speed was not unavoidable. Kazuki and I moved our bodies to avoid it. The spider that failed to catch a prey stuck to the blood-covered wall and once again repeats the process.
Then, of all things, it decided to aim at the people on top of the stairs.
From my point of view, Mutsuki–san is on the left. Kana was on the right, and Mizuno-san was behind her.
Is the spider aiming to the right or left?
Mutsuki-san holds a fire extinguisher to intercept it. Her round eyes were stained with hostility.
“Kana! Run away!”
Kazuki’s scream vibrates my eardrums.
The spider, perhaps pushed by Mutsuki-san’s vigor, jumped towards Kana on the right.
Kana can’t react to that.
“Kana!”
Kazuki’s scream shook my eardrums again.
Perhaps that cry reached the spider, but it did not attach itself to Kana. Perhaps its aim was off, but it only grazed Kana’s neck and didn’t even touch her.
But I’m horrified.
Instead of passing by Kana, the spider was attached to Mizuno’s skirt.
Mizuno-san is too scared to move.
The spider deftly made its way towards Mizuno-san’s face, hooking its legs on the fabric of her skirt.
Mizuno-san’s face contorted in fear.
It goes up her skirt, her stomach, and then her chest, as if trampling over her. Mizuno-san seemed to be overwhelmed by the force and fell onto her back.
The crutches fell into the hallway.
“No! NOOOOOOOO!”
The spider firmly grabbed Mizuno-san’s face with its six legs and deftly used its remaining two legs to pry her mouth open.
“Mizuno-san!”
I endure the pain in my back and run.
“NOOOOOOOO! MASAOMI――!”
She tries to pull the spider off with her hands, but it won’t let go.
Its feet dug into Mizuno-san’s face.
Mizuno-san’s blood flows from the place where its legs are fixed.
My heartbeat accelerates.
It’s the blood of my important person.
The blood of the person who smiled at me.
――She’s asking for help.
However, my legs suddenly slowed down as I tried to climb the stairs, and I fell forward.
…My legs were shaking.
The spider didn’t seem to care about me trying to help, and just shoved its body into the pried open mouth from the butt side. Like a mollusk, it bends its joints in all directions and buries itself into Mizuno’s mouth.
I scolded my trembling legs, but they still didn’t move as I wanted.
It’s like being scared of the spider.
‘I don’t want to die’, ‘don’t go’, as if they were addressing me.
…The spider was no longer visible.
After the spider entered Mizuno-san’s mouth, she looked at me strangely for a moment and said:
“……Why”
――won’t you help me?
My vision turned bright red.
Mizuno-san spits out blood from her mouth immediately following that and stopped moving.
After a few seconds, she slowly stands up.
She moves her joints in an awkward, mechanical motion. As Mizuno-san walked, her leg kicked the crutches that were lying around.
Her bandaged feet are firmly planted on the ground.
Right foot, left foot.
She’s walking steadily, step by step.
Even though it was supposed to be a moving scene. Why is it so sad?
“Ma……sa, o…… mi…….”
Mizuno-san becomes invisible due to tears.
“Sa…… omi, Ma……?”
She slowly reached out her hand and approached me. Blood spilled from her mouth like spring water, staining her uniform, skirt, and bandage on her right leg bright red.
“…….”
Mutsuki-san waved the fire extinguisher in her hand without saying a word.
“STOOOOOPP!”
I muster up as much voice as I can.
Without mercy, the fire extinguisher hit Mizuno-san directly in the back of the head.
When Mutsuki-san realizes that Mizuno-san, who has collapsed in the hallway, is still moving, she picks up the fallen crutch and smashes it against the railing of the stairs, breaking it. As she sorts through the board that was part of the crutch, she notices the sharpness of the tip.
“Sorry but”
It was as is she was talking to me.
Mutsuki-san thrusted the slab in Mizuno-san’s heart.
“……Ma, o o, mi”
Parts of my name are being used as her death cry. Her left chest is dyed red.
The area that supplies blood to the entire body was hit, and blood gushed out like spring water.
The main character who puts an end to the devil.
It lacked reality, like a scene from a movie.
More than that, the idea of a student killing another student is completely disconnected from reality.
Mutsuki-san turns to the side to look at Mizuno-san, who doesn’t move in the slightest. After a while, a spider crawled out from there. As if to say she was waiting for it, she stomps it and rubs it against the hallway like she’s putting out a cigarette.
A spider’s foot that couldn’t fit into Mutsuki-san’s foot was sticking out from the arch of her foot.
“What happened?”
The student council president and Satou seem to have finished working on the barricade, and come running from the other side. As if understanding the situation in detail, he lifted his glasses with his fingers and turned his cold eyes towards Mizuno-san.
“She will be a hindrance anyway, so sooner or later, similar outcome will happen to her.”
I wanted to run right away and use what is stuck in Mizuno-san’s chest to stab the student council president’s chest.
I wanted to kill him.
“……I’m so glad that it isn’t Kana.”
Kazuki passes by me. He won’t make eye contact with me at all.
I crawl closer to Mizuno-san.
When I gently stroked her cheek, there was still a faint warmth, just like when I was with Katou-san. Mixed with the smell of blood, I could smell Mizuno-san’s sweet smell.
“You killed her.”
I understood what she wanted to say.
“A cowardly, incompetent, all-talk hypocrite killed her.”
Katou-san was certainly alive. However, as the spider’s puppet.
“In case of an emergency, aren’t you going to use me as a shield?”
Because I protected Katou-san, Mizuno-san became a collateral as a result.
I’m helping a living person.
I should have done the right thing.
And yet.
“I’m cancelling the contract. Obviously.”
Additionally, I was unable to move my legs in an emergency.
I was frightened and cowered.
It was just as Kazuki said.
“Mutsuki, the barricade on the other side is complete. We’ll create this one as soon as possible.”
The student council president gives instructions to Mutsuki-san without caring about people’s deaths.
“I know. Don’t give me instructions every time.”
Mutsuki-san leaves behind footprints made from the spider’s body fluids.
He lets out a troubled sigh and the student council president also headed towards the classroom.
“M, murderer.”
Satou widely detoured around me, said that and followed after the student council president. It’s unavoidable for Satou, who knows nothing about the situation, to think so.
“Masaomi”
Kana hugs me from behind.
“I will never leave Masaomi behind.”
My tears trickle down and dropped on Mizuno-san’s cheeks. Like washing away her cheeks that were covered in blood.
“I…… am…… I……”
Why won’t you help me?
“I…… her die……” (TN: Probably “I let her die.”)
She needed help. She had strong faith in me. She was certain that I will help her…….
But that look of despair on her face when she realized she had been invaded by the spider. Those eyes directed at me.
Yes, she is.
She was betrayed by the person she trusted.
“Don’t cry, Masaomi. Don’t cry.”
Kana pats my head. Like a mother cradling her child.
“……Natsumi……Natsumi……”
A promise kept in the worst possible way with a loved one who couldn’t keep it.
I kept calling that name as if to make amends.
