Chapter 18: “You can’t even do anything!”
Since it took me a while to come out from the rooftop, I worry about Mutsuki-san and Satou’s safety.
Compared to the normal Mutsuki-san, her right leg was injured.
I ran down the stairs and landed at the place where I parted ways with Mutsuki-san.
“Mutsuki-san! Satou!”
I tried calling out to them, but there was no response from the two of them. The darkness just drowns out my voice. When I looked down the hallway, all I could see was the flickering red light from the emergency bell, and I couldn’t see the light from the flashlight I had given Mutsuki-san.
The monster whose upper body was covered in spiders didn’t seem to be here either.
I shivered as I saw the pieces of the dead spider slammed against the wall. A spider that Mutsuki-san crushed with a roundhouse kick.
The offal still shines in the faint light of the night.
“My legs are shaking…… I’m so hopeless.”
Just looking at the corpse of a spider that would never move or attack me again made my legs tremble.
The darkness gradually fades away.
It was as if the moon, which had been hidden behind the clouds, came out. When I was on the rooftop, I could see a sky full of stars, so it wouldn’t be surprising if the moon was out.
A pale light shines in from the hallway window. I run through the hallway relying on the light.
In the hallway illuminated by the moonlight, dead spiders were scattered here and there.
There are spiders that have stuck through glass and spattered their red body fluids, spiders whose limbs have been torn off and only their bodies left, and conversely, spiders whose torso has been torn off and been cut in half, and spiders whose original shape is intact but whose internal organs are seeping out.
Countless spiders were rolling around in the hallway, sprinkling their body fluids like buckets of water.
As if weaving through the gaps between the spiders, blood was flowing all over the place, as if to guide me.
Is it Mutsuki-san’s blood or Satou’s?
My heart pounded with impatience and anxiety.
The blood was turning left in the middle of the hallway.
“Is it this way…”
A corridor on the second floor leading to the second building of the school building.
This school has a gymnasium, the first school building, and the second school building built side by side, and each is connected by a breezeway. The second floor of one building has a connecting hallway that connects to the second floor of the second building, and so on, each building and floor has a connecting hallway that connects to each building and floor.
The view of the courtyard from the breezeway was pitiful.
A group of students, who must have been invaded by insects, are huddled together under the moonlight. They just wander through this world with no destination.
When they spot me in the breezeway, they seem to have forgotten that there is a difference in height, and sticks to the outer wall of the breezeway on the first floor, looking up at me.
I just caught a glimpse of them and passed by.
The corridors of the two buildings were in a similar state of devastation.
However, the atmosphere is clearly different. I even hesitated to call them out loud.
The air is so concentrated and heavy that it feels like it’s going to be difficult to breathe. It’s as if every time you breathe, it accumulates in your body, making it feel sluggish.
――Suddenly, the glass in the chemistry lab is blown away.
What jumped out from the glass was a spider. From the glass in the laboratory to the glass in the hallway. The spider broke through the two panes of glass and fell into the moonlit courtyard.
I step into the laboratory.
“Mutsuki-san!”
A cabinet filled with laboratory equipment such as balances and scales. Mutsuki-san leans over there. In her right hand, she was holding a bat that she had brought with her from the baseball club.
Is the bright red liquid stuck to the bat the spider’s body fluid?
“……Mo……mmy”
The monster wearing spider armor overturns the experimental table that gets in the way of its progress. Lightly, like flipping over a tea table.
The pipe that was connected to the sink broke with a sound. The gas burner attached to the desk was also pulled out, along with its tube.
A strange smell of gas leaking wafts inside the room.
The monster’s power that easily pulls out the attached experiment table. If the student council president, who said the door on the roof was safe, saw this scene, he would probably fall down in fear again.
“You, why are you here!”
The monster lifted the experimental table, still wearing wriggling spiders on its upper body. He shows off like a weightlifter. The monster’s arms are definitely swollen compared to the last time I saw them.
I was looking for Sato.
I looked around the laboratory relying on the moonlight. Under the experimental table, in the shade of the cupboard……
My vision suddenly reverses.
An experiment table crosses the space I was in.
I’ve never seen something so huge fly in front of me. Who could have predicted that the experimental table would fly?
The experiment table hit the cupboard in the back.
The glass of the cupboard breaks and the person leans over. Beakers, test tubes, flasks… They fell out of the cupboard like an avalanche, and the sound of crushing echoed throughout the laboratory.
“You’re just a burden!”
I was helped by Mutsuki-san. It seems that I escaped trouble by pushing me down and lowering herself.
“Are you stupid? Or are you an even bigger idiot who can’t even notice that?”
“I……”
“You can’t even do anything! Why did you come here!”
Mutsuki-san, who had buried her face in my chest, was understandably enraged when she looked up after a moment of distress.
“I came to save you!”
I retorted to Mutsuki-san who was sweating.
“Then why am I saving you?”
“Oh, that’s…”
“A hypocrite being hypocritical, you just say what you want and then run away with your tail tucked between your legs.”
I guess she’s trying to confront a monster.
Her slender arms are covered in scratches and cuts. Her right leg is still swollen, an injury that requires her to go straight to the hospital. Her uniform is also torn in places. Her torn skirt had slit-like cuts.
“Still, I want to help you, Mutsuki-san.”
“Like I said, you can’t do anything!”
“I can be your shield at least!”
I was getting emotional.
The wave of emotions I had forgotten surged over me again.
My not-so-calm heart was shouting those words on its own.
“You can become my shield at least? You sure talk big. You’re a hypocrite who let people die.”
“…… I did let them die. That’s true. But!”
I stand up and face Mutsuki-san.
“My desire to help you is not a lie. Even if I’m scared and trembling…… I thought that I wanted to help you despite that so I came here.”
“What kind of change of mind is that?”
Before I could answer Mutsuki-san’s question, a spider flew towards me.
Now is not the time to focus solely on Mutsuki-san’s conversation.
“Enough, I’m so sick of it.”
A spider with its body curled up approaches at high speed. The fastball fired from the monster’s thicker right arm was definitely increasing in speed. If the target had been me instead of Mutsuki-san, I would have definitely gotten a clean hit in the face.
Mutsuki-san gripped the bat in her right hand tightly and swung it sharply.
There are two sounds of the wind cutting.
A thrown spider and Mutsuki-san’s swing.
The two collided in the blink of an eye, and the winner or loser was immediately decided. The trajectory of the bat, released like a drawn sword, catches the spider and sends it flying back toward the ceiling of the laboratory.
“It was a bit short. At most, a second base.” (TN: A baseball reference.)
The spider’s own speed and the power of Mutsuki-san’s bat.
A bursting sound was born from the collision of forces coming from both sides.
The hard skin that covered its body was torn off, and its internal organs were scattered all over the classroom. The long, intestine-like tube stuck to the blackboard in the laboratory, and the spider, which had lost its insides, was stuck to the ceiling.
Eventually, it is pulled by the force of gravity and falls in front of the monster.
The expression on Mutsuki-san’s face as she spoke lightly was not as light as her tone.
“……Mom……my”
Thick, log-like hands grabbed the spiders that were clinging to both his shoulders. The spider that was grabbed by his right and left hands stopped moving and curled up so that the backs of their mouths were touching.
“He’s like a stupid guy who only knows one thing and keeps repeating it……”
She sighs and smiles fearlessly. Sweat rolls down her cheeks and reaches her chin. Mutsuki-san wipes it with the sleeve of her uniform, looking annoyed.
“Mutsuki-san, it’s already…”
I take Mutsuki-san’s arm. Her thin, white, porcelain-like skin was red and painful from the cuts.
“Don’t touch me so casually. I’ll kill you.”
Perhaps she was angry, but her words had the same strength as those she would say to a monster.
Even so, I won’t let go of Mutsuki-san’s hand.
Mutsuki-san clicks her tongue.
“I’ll apologize first.”
After kicking me away, she rushed towards the monster who was swinging to throw the spider.
“…Mutsuki…sa…”
A strong kick to the abdomen causes me to let go of Mutsuki-san’s hand.
By the time I knelt down on the floor, Mutsuki-san had already finished cooking the spider that was thrown from the monster’s right hand. With a twist of her body, she uses all her might to knock the spider down to the floor.
Body fluids spread out on the floor.
The broken legs were sent towards me.
He wasn’t even given time to throw the second pitch with his left hand.
Mutsuki-san, who had come around to the monster’s left hand side, turned her back to the monster with the momentum of the kesagiri. (TN: slashing a sword diagonally from the shoulder)
This move is a preparatory action to deliver a more powerful blow. It unfolds as if executing a choreographed dance, flawlessly performed with a touch of madness.
A flash of rotational power exploded into the monster’s left hand.
The spider, along with the battered left hand, is pulverized. As if bursting from within, the spider’s organs erupt from the left hand, shattered by the impact of the bat.
The gracefully flowing hair surrounds Mutsuki-san’s face.
With even more elegant steps, Mutsuki-san adds a spinning force as the bat sweeps through the monster’s right hand.
The fingers of the monster’s right hand bend in unexpected directions.
Enduring the pain in her right leg, Mutsuki-san adds even more speed. Leaping onto the experimental table behind the monster, she ascends with the grace of a triple jump. Poised to strike down upon the monster’s head in a manner akin to breaking a bamboo stalk, she soars upward. It’s reminiscent of the ‘men’ strike in kendo, a blow targeting the head.
From the heavens to the earth.
Like a lightning bolt, the bat slams down onto the top of the monster. A decisive blow, having sealed both the monster’s right and left hands.
That’s what it seemed to me.
However, the performance doesn’t conclude as anticipated. The bat rolls on the floor, a merciless metallic sound echoing.
The metal bat that struck the monster’s cranium had bent.
With a swing of her hand, Mutsuki-san inadvertently drops the bat.
The impact was enough to bend the bat, and there’s no way the user wouldn’t bear the burden. The law of action and reaction accompanies everyone. Even the exceptional Mutsuki-san is not exempt. Landing just behind the monster, Mutsuki-san shakes both arms, contorting her face in pain. Gazing at her trembling hands, she remains unaware of the monster’s counterattack.
With its right hand, fingers now broken, the monster delivers a back fist to the unsuspecting Mutsuki-san.
It wasn’t an attack that could be generously described as sharp. If it were Mutsuki-san, it should have been easily avoidable.
However, Mutsuki-san couldn’t evade it.
Whether due to the overuse of her right leg, carelessness, or sheer unpredictability, Mutsuki-san couldn’t avoid it.
Using her right hand to barely shield her face, she was struck by the back fist. Mutsuki-san, sent sliding across the floor, kicking laboratory chairs aside, eventually came to a stop as she collided with the wall.
“Mutsuki-san!”
Forgetting about the pain in my abdomen, I ran to Mutsuki-san.
“…Don’t yell.”
She pushes me away and tries to stand up, but she ends up leaning on me.
“You… you only need to worry about yourself…”
Whether experiencing a mild concussion or simply struggling with her words, Mutsuki-san’s speech is faltering. Yet, her attempt to put up a brave front makes her seem all the more poignant.
“I… won’t run away. I will never run away.”
Pushing me aside, she grabs the chair that had rolled away. Perhaps from the impact of being punched or from colliding with the chair when thrown, blood flows from her head. The vivid red liquid, unsuitable for her pale skin, traces a path from her forehead, eyebrows, and eyes down to her cheeks.
It’s like red tears.
“I’ll definitely… kill you.
Like possessed by a ghost, she repeats it. The blood tears flowing from her left eye reach her chin and spill onto the floor. The fallen blood tears create small dots on the floor, one by one.
I stand before Mutsuki-san, who takes a step towards the monster as if possessed, with both hands outstretched, blocking her way.
“Are you protecting the monster? Or do you want to be killed?”
“It’s not like that.”
“Just looking at you irritates me. Your hypocrisy makes me sick.”
Mutsuki-san’s gaze sharpens.
“Even so, it doesn’t matter. I just don’t want to see you get hurt any further.”
I exert strength even to the tips of my outstretched fingers.
I didn’t want Mutsuki-san to fight any longer. I didn’t know what had driven her this far.
But if I let Mutsuki-san fight here, she would undoubtedly continue to fight until her last breath.
That, above all, was something I desperately wanted to prevent.
“You can’t fight. Let’s run away.”
“What will running away solve? A fairy tale about surviving without a fight… truly the words of a hypocrite.”
From behind me, I hear the ominous footsteps of fear. When you turn your back, you become sensitive to the sounds from behind. The uncertainty of the distance from the monster only intensifies the fear.
It’s an act akin to throwing away one’s life.
“Your legs are trembling, aren’t they? Are you scared?”
While rubbing the arm that defended against the monster’s attack, it laughs.
“Why don’t you run away?”
The monster closes in behind me. It feels like I can hear the creature’s breath near my ears.
“You’re gonna die. If you stay like that, for sure.”
The scraping sound of spider legs resonated in my ears. It trembled my earlobes, penetrated my eardrums, and whittled away at my courage.
Both of my legs were trembling so much that I couldn’t bear to watch.
“See you, Mr. Hypocrite.”
Mutsuki-san waved her hand at me. She bade me goodbye like a friend would.
The monster’s footsteps stop.
“y…… Mom…… m”
The voice came from above my head.
Tension caused my heart to stop.
The rhythm of life halted. A shiver ran through my entire body.
An overwhelming violence poised above.
The image of the monster swinging its arm down painted itself vividly in my mind.
The distinct image traced the arc just as I had anticipated. What awaited beyond was death.
