Ningen Series Volume 1 Chapter 2

Chapter 2: Iori Mutou (2)

Iori Mutou—17 years old, female.

She never took off her knit cap, not even in summer.

Her height was on the tall side, and her weight was on the light side.

She was born on April 23, and her blood type was A.

Her family was made up of a father, a mother, an older brother, and an older sister.

She was bad at taking things seriously.

Whatever the situation, she had the habit of poking fun at everything.

She was an eleventh grade student at a private, co-ed high school that had the highest college acceptance rate of any school in the prefecture. She was not a member of any school clubs and maintained excellent grades, but thanks to her typical att.i.tude and conduct, she wasn’t generally perceived as a “model student” by those around her. At best, she was considered an easygoing cla.s.s clown and a burden when it came to gym cla.s.s, and while her occasional naivety had (half-teasingly) earned her the nickname “Dancing Girl” from some of her undercla.s.smen, other than that, she wasn’t viewed as particularly special.

She had nothing that could really be called a hobby, and while she didn’t have anything she could get especially pa.s.sionate about, she never felt terribly discouraged over anything, either. To put it less kindly, she was the type who never got overly invested in anything. Still, that didn’t mean she couldn’t understand emotions like joy or excitement; when she was in junior high, one of her friends had told her, “You seem like you have fun just being alive,” and it was an a.s.sessment she found rang true.

Putting aside what the girl herself thought about it—from an objective point of view, the seventeen years of her life to that point had been filled with a reasonable amount of happiness, a reasonable amount of unhappiness…

And they had, most likely, been something perfectly “normal.”

✦   ✦

“Really… What a bind.”

There is a proverb that gets thrown around frequently when discussing global environment issues: “It is easier to tear down than to build up.” If we deployed every nuclear weapon possessed by all the military powers of the world, obliterating every bit of greenery off the face of the earth would be a simple task, but reconstructing all that obliterated greenery would take a monumental amount of time—is essentially what it means.

But is that really true?

Is destruction really so simple?

Even without splitting hairs and claiming that it took humanity an equally monumental amount of time to develop nuclear weapons, in reality, to actively desire the destruction of a planet we as humanity have worked so long and hard to build up—and to actually act on that desire—is something incredibly hard to do. To hold destructive impulses exceeding a prescribed limit is just as difficult as holding none at all.

The same can be said about one’s own life…

So thought Soushiki.

They often say, “It’s hard to live, but it’s easy to die,” but Soushiki had never believed that for a second. Nor did he believe that killing one insignificant person was enough to signal the “end” of someone’s life. An “end” had to be something more decisive, more fatal. At the very least, that was how Soushiki Zerozaki defined the term.

Those who don’t commit suicide are those who don’t have the courage to go through with it—Soushiki would typically be the first one to raise an objection to that glamorization of suicide, but he wasn’t so narrow-minded as to refuse to acknowledge the mentality in and of itself.

But putting that aside.

Alone stood Soushiki Zerozaki, the beheaded corpse of Yasumichi Kagawa lying in front of him. He had already wiped the blood off his scissors and slipped them back into his suit.

“…Really now, what a bind. Perhaps I went about inviting her the wrong way. Kids these days are so innocent, or maybe just ignorant… At any rate, I’ll just have to learn from this mistake. Live and learn, live and learn.”

With a wry smile, Soushiki rubbed at his right hand. Upon closer inspection, there was a visible bloodstain on the back of it. That blood, however, had not belonged to Yasumichi Kagawa. Soushiki wasn’t so unskilled that he would accidentally shower himself with the blood of an opponent already on his last legs.

“…”

And yet, if an outsider took a look at the scene, no one could blame them for a.s.suming Soushiki was, in fact, “unskilled.” After all—it wasn’t someone else’s blood.

“…Red, hm?”

Red—blood.

It had been quite a long time since he had seen the color of his own blood—and taking into account that a young girl like that was the reason he was looking at it, this was probably a first.

She had been unarmed. Still, that hadn’t meant he had let his guard down. He had been perfectly cognizant of the fact that her nails were longer than they needed to be (plenty long enough to serve as a “weapon,” at least), and even if they hadn’t been, he still hadn’t intended to take her lightly.

And yet—regardless of that.

She had dug her nails into his right hand, taken advantage of the moment he recoiled ever so slightly—and succeeded in escaping from Soushiki Zerozaki.

Now, not even her shadow lingered beneath the bridge.

“She got away, did she? Such an unruly girl, that one. She truly reminds me of my little brother. Or perhaps even of Soushiki Zerozaki in his younger days,” murmured Soushiki as he stuck a Band-Aid over the back of his hand. “Well then, whatever shall I do now? It looks like it really was just a short while ago that Iori-chan ‘awakened.’ I’m a little worried about leaving her on her own. Well, it would be a little more than worrying—it would be dangerous.”

Soushiki’s current “mission” was to find his little brother and bring him back, and thus, he did not have the time to be dealing with an unknown quant.i.ty of uncertainties. However—with that said, what was he to do in this situation? It probably wouldn’t be all that dangerous to leave his brother on his own. For all his problems, he was levelheaded at his core and possessed a decent amount of self-control. Even if he did commit some murders, his kill count surely wouldn’t exceed the double digits. It would likely cause a stir, but as long as it was confined to a short period of time, it would remain within the scope of everyday life.

But as for the girl in the knit cap…

“If she were just a homicidal maniac, leaving her on her own might not be an issue—but given that she was able to escape from me empty-handed, she isn’t just a homicidal maniac…

“She’s a psycho killer.”

A sharp glint flashed in Soushiki’s slender eyes.

“At this rate, there’s no knowing how many hundred or how many thousand people will end up dying. It’s as if a row of launch b.u.t.tons for a nuclear missile were laid out before a clueless child. In the worst case scenario, an entire city could be wiped off the map,” Soushiki muttered to himself, looking genuinely put upon. Soushiki muttered to himself with an expression that, contrary to his words, told that he didn’t particularly care whether a city was wiped off the map or not. Soushiki muttered to himself, as if to say that there was something more important at stake.

“Besides, this bothers me on a more personal level. Take Yasuchi-kun here, or that man on the train. Something about it doesn’t sit well with me. It’s ‘bizarre.’ It’s hardly unusual to find myself standing on an unfamiliar stage before I know it, but hmm—yes, I suppose that’s what I’ll do. It would be better for my mental health to eliminate any unknown uncertainties ahead of time…”

Soushiki trailed off.

And then, in one long, slow motion, he once more drew Mind Render from the inside of his suit.

“…And in any case, it doesn’t look like I have much of a choice.”

With a soft laugh, he turned to look in the direction opposite of Yasumichi’s corpse.

There—in droves.

In droves—in droves.

People had begun to gather.

Were they onlookers who had been drawn in by the commotion surrounding Yasumichi Kagawa’s corpse? No.

There were five people.

No, one more person—a short girl who looked elementary school age—was hidden in the shadow of the other five. That made for a total of six people: three men and three women. Each and every one of them had an empty look in their eyes. Even disregarding the little girl as an outlier, there was no sense of cohesiveness within the group. A man well into adulthood, a blond teenager, and a young man with the air of a sportsman. A young office lady next to a middle-aged woman who seemed to be housewife. At the very least, the six of them didn’t give the impression of a group of friends. To even find a shared hobby or interest between them would likely be a difficult task. The six spread themselves out, surrounding Soushiki.

“You’re a member of the Zerozaki Family, aren’t you?” the group spoke in unison.

It was eerie.

Then, each one of the six took out a weapon dangerous enough to have no place in everyday life, brandishing it before Soushiki. Even the elementary school girl wielded a stun gun that had clearly been designed with no regard for the law.

“…Oh dear. Now this is the ‘oh dear’ to end all ‘oh dear’s.” Soushiki gave a light shake of his head, looking fed up with the situation. “Really, I have to wonder… It’s true that I’m a handsome man the likes of which is rarely seen, but I had no idea I was irresistible enough to attract men and women of all ages. I’ll have to keep that in mind from now on.”

His attempt at lightening the atmosphere had no effect on the group of six. While it didn’t help that the joke itself wasn’t particularly funny, that didn’t seem to be the only issue.

Bit by bit, the enemy closed in.

Apparently unbothered by the fact that his joke had fallen flat or by the way the six were slowly shuffling towards him, Soushiki merely continued to spin his scissors around his fingertips.

“…Hm? In that case, should I a.s.sume someone was sent after her, as well?”

The sharp snap of the scissors echoed through the area.

Much like earlier, he looked as though he found the gesture to be something of a ha.s.sle—however, that annoyance spoke to the fact that this was something Soushiki Zerozaki had accomplished with ease hundreds of times before.

“Well then, well then, let’s do without the peace negotiations this time. It seems I’ll have to conduct your exam in a bit of a hurry, you pitiful little puppets.”

✦   ✦

She ran away.

She had run away.

Iori Mutou had finally arrived at her own apartment building. By the time she snapped out of her trance, she had already slipped past the self-locking automatic door and was catching her breath in the elevator hall. Her knees were shaking, her head was dizzy, and she looked ready to collapse on the spot. She lifted her head and surveyed her surroundings, but that perverted praying mantis was nowhere to be found. From the looks of things, he hadn’t chased after her.

“Now then…”

And with that.

She began to fret.

It was all well and good that she had escaped her second predicament, but the initial problem still hadn’t been resolved. That is, while the matter had been swept under the rug for a bit thanks to the appearance of that pervert, there was no way to erase the truth that Iori had “stabbed” Yasumichi. The wireframe man had dealt him the finishing blow by cutting off his head, but that didn’t undo the fact that Iori had thrust a knife right into Yasumichi’s Adam’s apple.

The sensation lingering in her hands—hadn’t disappeared.

As if she were prepared to repeat the same action over and over again…

Iori could still remember the feeling to the touch.

“…Mm. Yeah.”

In what was perhaps an example of the homing instinct at work, she had made her way home without even thinking about it—but how in the world was she supposed to explain her bloodied school uniform to her family? Forget “how” to explain it—maybe being honest and upfront about it was all she could do.

The time was just past 7:00 PM.

At that time of evening, her father, mother, sister, and brother would all be watching television together (the Yomiuri Giants vs. Hanshin Tigers game). They might make a few pa.s.sing comments about how Iori sure was late getting back, but they probably wouldn’t be all that worried about it. It wasn’t unusual for Iori to stay out late into the evening, and only a very special kind of family would jump to a ridiculous conclusion like: “Hmm, our youngest daughter sure is late getting back. She might be out killing a cla.s.smate somewhere!”

“Aw man… They’re gonna be really shocked…”

But still—she didn’t feel nervous.

She lacked any sense of urgency.

Or rather—even at this point in the game, Iori still felt no guilt about stabbing Yasumichi. “I’ve committed a horrible crime” wasn’t even a thought that crossed her mind.

Even though she had killed someone.

Despite that she had killed someone.

How to put it… She had the feeling that something more consequential than that was happening to her now. Something that would make murder seem like a trivial matter was happening to her and her surroundings. Even though she knew full well that murder was anything but trivial.

And yet—it was the wireframe man, not Yasumichi Kagawa, who weighed on her mind. His very existence was turning murder—turning death—into something she considered insignificant.

“Umm… I think he said something about being ‘so chic’…?”

Thanks to the shock over what he’d said next, she couldn’t remember it very well.

At any rate, she recalled what he had said to her.

“You should refrain from talking with family, friends, and teachers, as well. You wouldn’t want to kill your family and friends, would you?”

“You’ve strayed from the right path, so if you meet with someone now, you’ll only be able to think about killing them.”

She shook her head furiously.

There was no way. Why was she taking that perverted praying mantis man so seriously? He had cut off Yasumichi’s head without so much as flinching. (…She didn’t have room to talk, you say?) That may have been an easy enough feat for someone wielding such an atrocious blade (…although, wasn’t its shape a bit ridiculous?)—but to pull off that easy feat so easily was something very hard to do. It’s the same as how doing something natural as if it were perfectly natural can actually be incredibly difficult. For instance, say you were to swing a bat. That’s simple enough. Anyone can do it. But would you be able to swing that bat if another person’s head were right before your eyes? Is that something just anyone can do?

Physically, it’s doable.

Psychologically, it’s not.

Even though—it’s the exact same motion.

Feasibility and viability are not necessarily one and the same. The probability of something and the expected value of something can deviate wildly.

They deviate.

And consequentially, they break down.

They collapse in on themselves.

Even if someone managed to plan the perfect crime, they would still need determination, courage, and backbone to actually carry it out. However, that wireframe man—without any determination, courage, or backbone, without even a plan, but of course not unexpectedly, just as if it were perfectly natural—had cut off another person’s head. Compared to when Iori had stabbed Yasumichi in the throat, it was an entirely different type of murder.

He was, most likely, a frightening person.

A very, very frightening person.

“…”

And yet.

“From someone else’s point of view, I bet there isn’t much of a difference… between me and him.”

If she met with someone, she’d only be able to think about killing them.

How ridiculous. It was such an utterly ridiculous thing to say.

But still—Iori found there to be something strangely persuasive in the speech that wireframe man had delivered as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

“…Mm. Yeah.”

That said—she had no choice but to continue on her way home. There was a part of her that wanted to be comforted by her family, but more practically, she just wanted to change out of her bloodstained uniform (it was gross, it smelled, and it stood out). She had thought about sneaking into her room and getting changed before anyone noticed, but the layout of her apartment made that impossible. The first room you would enter after opening the front door was the living room, and from there, there was a hallway that led to three bedrooms. In other words, she couldn’t get to her bedroom without going through the living room first. (Iori’s room was the furthest one down the hallway, and it was a room she shared with her sister.)

“…Aaah.”

Fretting about it wasn’t going to get her anywhere.

Iori finally came to that decision after she had fretted for about thirty more minutes. Thinking about it, she realized that loitering around in that b.l.o.o.d.y school uniform was probably the most dangerous choice she could make. It was a miracle that n.o.body had said anything to her yet.

“Alright. Alright, alright, alright.”

Now that it had come to this, she just had to leave things to chance.

No matter how things turned out in the end—she couldn’t bear the thought of never seeing her family again. She should forget about what that pervert had said and believe in her family’s love for her, as well as her own love for her family.

“…”

Love.

It was the first time in Iori Mutou’s life that the word had rung so pragmatically, yet so coldly, and moreover, so distantly. In the end, perhaps she was just running from reality, unable to accept the truth that she had committed a murder.

Perhaps she just wanted someone to reject her.

Or perhaps she wanted someone to accept her.

Either way.

She wanted someone to pa.s.s down some sort of judgment.

Just like the wireframe man had done earlier.

“…I guess it’s all over for me.”

It’s not as though this was the moment before her death—but nonetheless, she reflected on her life to that point as if it were flashing before her eyes.

Those seventeen ordinary, boring years of her life, filled with things both good and bad. Those seventeen years she had spent thinking she would never get anywhere, those seventeen years she had spent running away.

Escape.

Avoidance.

Taboo.

Iori had never particularly loved nor hated that life of hers, but knowing that she would never be able to go back to it now…

She couldn’t help feeling something about it.

She called the elevator, stepped inside, and pushed the b.u.t.ton for the tenth floor. Before long, the elevator had arrived at its destination. It had hardly given her any time to compose herself. Time was marching on much too quickly.

But still—how was she to broach the topic?

Even if she stressed that it had been self-defense, even if she mentioned that someone else had dealt the finishing blow, none of that changed the fact that Iori had stabbed Yasumichi, and she wondered how her family would react to the news. Her father would probably be furious, and her mother would probably cry. As for her sister and brother—she wasn’t sure. They weren’t particularly close siblings. They might just find the whole thing a nuisance. They might hurl abuse at her. While lost in those thoughts, she had reached the front door. She thought about pushing the doorbell, but decided there was no point in being so formal.

She prepared herself for the worst and stuck her key in the door.

I love you, Mom, Dad.

I hate you, but I love you, Sis.

I hate you, but please don’t hate me, Bro.

She felt no resistance. The door wasn’t locked.

“…Hmm?”

No resistance? The door wasn’t locked?

That was weird—it was strange, it didn’t feel right.

The entrance of the apartment building had an automatic lock, but that didn’t mean the Mutou family kept the habit of leaving their own front door open. They could have forgotten to lock it—but that didn’t seem likely. Whether they were in or out of the house, they would never forget to lock the door. With the exception of Iori, no one in the Mutou family was absentminded enough to do that.

She slowly opened the door.

She counted the number of shoes—her father, her mother, her sister, and her brother.

It was the same as always, no doubt about it.

No doubt about it, and yet—

“…!”

Iori leapt inside the apartment, and without even bothering to take off her shoes, leapt into the living room in a single bound. There, the typical sight of an evening dinner could be seen. Food on the table—dinner being eaten—the television across the room—the channel turned to the Giants vs. Tigers game. The score was 0-0. It was currently the top of the fifth, with the Hanshin Tigers up to bat.

All that was different from usual was that there was only one person eating dinner, and it was a man Iori didn’t recognize—only two things. And those two things were more than enough.

He looked like a fairly young man, but there was a mysterious aura about him that made it difficult to pin down his age. And, how to put it… He had an odd appearance. Of course, a complete stranger making himself at home in her apartment and eating at her dinner table already exceeded the upper threshold of oddness, but the man’s sense of style went above and beyond even that. The lower half of his body was clothed in a black hakama, while he wore a training gi made of bulky cloth over his torso; altogether, he looked like he was all dressed up to go do some kendo or aikido training. Feminine features, j.a.panese-style gla.s.ses, and long, black hair tied back with a white cloth headband—at the very least, Iori had never seen anyone dressed like that outside of television or manga.

Without showing any particular interest in Iori—or rather, without showing any signs that he had even noticed her—the man in the hakama remained fixated on the Giants vs. Tigers game.

When Iori’s gaze wandered, she happened to notice a long pole-like object leaning against the chair next to the one the man was sitting in. Well, considering Iori was able to identify the object in an instant, perhaps there was no need for the “-like” qualifier. However, while not quite on the same level as those giant scissors the wireframe man had wielded, it was an object more detached from Iori’s everyday life than even kendo or aikido, and so, it took a bit of time for her to come to a conclusion.

“…”

It was a naginata.

What’s more, it was the larger model of naginata so often wielded by warriors past…

An enormous artifact beyond compare.

It was an item that had no place in the living room of the average household.

“…Hm? Hmm? Oh. Welcome back.”

The man finally spoke, turning to face Iori.

A gentle voice and an elegant smile.

She couldn’t help but be captivated.

“…I said, ‘Welcome back.’ Now what do you say?”

“Oh, r-right. Thank you.”

After being told the same thing twice, Iori had responded in a flutter, but she had no obligation to thank this strange man. As soon as that occurred to her, she lifted the head she had bowed, yelling, “W-Who do you think you are?!

“Y-You can’t just let yourself into someone’s house like this… Where are Mom and Dad?! Don’t go eating somebody else’s dinner! By the way, those are my chopsticks and rice bowl!”

“I’m well aware, Iori-san—hehehe.”

Upon speaking Iori’s name before she had even introduced herself, the man in the hakama stood up. He wasn’t particularly tall. He was about the same height as Iori, a bit on the short side for a man. Taking a look at his feet, she could see he had kept his shoes on indoors. Moreover, they weren’t just any shoes, but traditional zori sandals worn over red tabi socks. He gave the strong impression that he was dressed for the wrong era.

What the h.e.l.l? Iori asked herself, at a total loss.

Was today j.a.pan’s National Perverts Day?

Was she the only one who hadn’t known about it?

“First, allow me my charming self-introduction… I’m Naguma Sawarabi.[1] My name is Naguma Sawarabi. Nice to meet you.”

“Oh, yes, it’s nice to meet you, too.”

Thanks to her previously mentioned innate sociability, Iori dipped her head in a bow on reflex. Naturally, she came to her senses almost immediately and corrected her posture.

“—No, no, no, it’s actually not very nice at all…”

“Dear me, what a cruel thing to say! You shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, you know. I’m not dressed this way out of personal preference, so I’d appreciate it if you could take that into consideration.”

“…Uh huh.”

If you’re not wearing it out of personal preference, then what, is it part of your job? Do you get paid by the hour if you go around looking like that? Wow, what an easy job, I sure am jealous, Iori thought, though she lacked the courage to say any of it aloud.

The man—Naguma Sawarabi—giggled as he watched Iori’s expression.

“Why don’t you take a seat? Let’s have a nice, calm chat. I’m not particularly hoping to start up a sword fight in your apartment,” said Naguma, first sitting back down himself. Then, he pointed to the seat across from him. “By the way, which team are you a fan of: the Giants or the Tigers? For the record, I prefer the Giants. Baseball is all about the Yomiuri Giants, if you ask me.”

“I hate baseball… It’s all b.a.l.l.s, bats, and all other sorts of scary objects.”

As she answered his question, Iori reluctantly sat down across the table from Naguma. If possible, she would have preferred to run away from this inexplicable anachronism of a man, but he was clearly the one holding the power in this situation, and furthermore, this was Iori’s house. Why should she have to flee her own home?

Casually, she picked up a fork that was lying on the table. It was something she did subconsciously, so Iori herself didn’t notice she was holding it. Every single one of her conscious thoughts was focused on the man in front of her—Naguma Sawarabi.

“…I apologize for coming into your home without permission. I only did it to make my entrance more impactful, so just between you and me, there wasn’t very much point to it.”

“There wasn’t any point to it…?”

“I do my best to make a good first impression, you see. I always endeavor to express the beauty of Naguma Sawarabi in a way everyone can understand. After all, I’d feel sorry for the ones who weren’t born with good taste, if they were never able to comprehend my magnificence. It’s important to know how to make compromises.”

“…If you don’t get out, I’m going to call the police.”

“Oh? My, my. What a strange thing to say! If a police officer came here now, wouldn’t that spell trouble for you, Iori-san?”

Naguma grinned. In contrast to his polite—his excessively polite—demanor, it was a truly repulsive smile. More than anything else, it evoked a visceral feeling of disgust. Like watching something beautiful warp into something hideous—that was the best way to describe it.

“How do you plan on hiding that bloodstained sailor uniform? You’d be in a bit of a tough spot.”

“You’re right—but I’ve already made up my mind about it. Besides, you’d be in just as much trouble, Sawara-san.”

“It’s Sawarabi. We’re not friends, so don’t go giving me a nickname. Family names are of the utmost importance to our kind, remember? Such is the case for the Yamiguchi, such is the case for the Niounomiya—and such is the case for the Zerozaki, of course.”

“…Zerozaki.”

Zerozaki—oh, that was right.

The wireframe man had called himself by that name.

Zerozaki—and, that’s right, Soushiki.

Soushiki Zerozaki.

The moment she remembered that name, she felt somehow… relieved.

Mysteriously enough.

However, Iori’s almost inappropriate reaction must have struck Naguma as unexpected, as his slender eyebrows slanted with displeasure.

“When I saw that you were living a normal life with a family of civilians, I had considered the possibility, but… Iori-san. Are you… not a Zerozaki?”

“…U-Ummm…”

At Iori’s bewildered response, Naguma clicked his tongue in irritation.

“The h.e.l.l…? So you weren’t…?”

Naguma had, at the very least, been maintaining a pretense of politeness—but now, his diction began to fall apart.

“What the h.e.l.l, man…? This sucks… This really sucks… Dammit… Dammit… Dammit…!”

His voice came out sounding like a low-pitched groan. Eyes cast downward, he grumbled to himself in a m.u.f.fled undertone. The rough sound of one of his sandals kicking a table leg could be heard. Since he was looking down at the floor, it was impossible to read his expression.

“So it wasn’t just an act…? The h.e.l.l… The h.e.l.l… I don’t f.u.c.kin’ get it… If I knew things were gonna turn out like this, I would’ve gone after Mind Render first… Dammit. That h.e.l.l f.u.c.ker better not have been done in by those lousy puppets…”

Naguma continued to mumble to himself in his mutated manner of speech. It was a terribly crude and muddled soliloquy. Evidently, the polite way Naguma had been speaking just moments ago wasn’t his natural tone of voice.

“U-Um…”

“…Oh, you don’t have to worry anymore. Once I finish eating this, I’ll leave. I apologize for the intrusion; it seems I was mistaken. I’m sorry for the trouble. My deepest apologies. Haha, that aside, this is absolutely delicious. Would you mind telling me what the name of this dish is? Hehe,  hehehe.” His way of speaking had returned to normal, but his movements remained as violent as ever as he devoured the food laid out on the table. The show of gluttony made for a stark contrast with his outward appearance. “Really now… What a waste of time this turned out to be. At least it wasn’t a waste of effort, I suppose. Things didn’t turn out for the ‘worst,’ as Brother would say…”

“U-Um!” She didn’t seem to be getting anywhere with Naguma, so Iori slammed her hands down on the table and yelled. “That dish is braised pork kidney, and it’s my favorite! Wait, no, f-forget that, where’s my family?! At this time of evening, my family should be sitting at this table, not you!”

“Ah…?”

Naguma raised his head with a bemused expression on his face. Then, as if he were mocking Iori from the bottom of his heart, he let out a mean-spirited laugh and answered her question in an intentionally provocative tone.

“They would have gotten in the way of my entrance, so I piled them up in that room over there,” he said.

“Piled them up.”

As dense as she was, Iori Mutou was not quite so dense that she couldn’t understand what that expression implied. On the contrary, she was able to make the connection almost immediately, seeing as she had experienced an incident very similar to that implication not too long ago—and with her very own body, at that.

Her bloodstained sailor uniform.

The sensation lingering in her hands.

The b.u.t.terfly knife.

She felt no urge to deny what he had said.

Rather, it was natural.

Rather, it was inevitable.

It explained everything.

Naguma had said there wasn’t very much point to it.

He had said there was no point to it.

It had been pointless.

This man—pointlessly.

Pointlessly—he had killed her family.

Her family!

“—Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!”

She took action instantaneously. With the fork she had just noticed she was holding still in her hand, she leapt out of her chair, reached over the table, and with the tip of the utensil aimed at the man’s temple, swung her arm down. Just like when she had stabbed Yasumichi—or perhaps even more quickly than that—her body moved before she even had the chance to think.

“Huh? Ah, woah!”

It appeared he hadn’t noticed Iori’s attack until the moment it was about to connect—or rather, it looked like he hadn’t even expected it—as all the composure disappeared from his expression, and without even bothering to hide his dismay, he leaned his entire chair backwards to dodge the blow from the fork. Iori’s right arm missed its mark, only barely grazing his bangs, and Naguma caught it in a firm grip.

“d.a.m.n, that was close… Hehe—hehehe. What a surprise, you really caught me off guard. It’s like you turned into an entirely different person, my goodness.” He tightened his grasp on her arm. “You made almost no unnecessary movements. Hard to believe I came so close to getting killed by a fork.”

“…I’m sorry, that hurts.”

Iori opened her hand and let go of the fork of her own volition.

“I’m sorry. I won’t do it again, so please let go of my hand. I’m not putting up a fight, see?”

“…What an anti-climax.” Looking vaguely affronted, Naguma loosened his grip. Composure, however, had yet to return to his expression. “Where did all that intensity of yours go? What happened to your hatred and rage over your family being killed?”

“The pain in my wrist takes priority.” She used her free hand to pull her face into a smile. “Look, see? Aren’t I cute? Aren’t I such a precious high school girl?”

“…Fine.”

Naguma let go of her hand.

In the same instant, Iori stood up from her chair and took three steps backwards. She rubbed at the bruise that had formed on her wrist, and then—perhaps a little late, given that she had already begged him for mercy—narrowed her eyes and glared at Naguma.

“…Honestly now… If nothing else, that unpredictability of yours has ‘Zerozaki’ written all over it.” It appeared it was indeed a little late, as Naguma Sawarabi only shrugged his shoulders, showing little interest in Iori’s gaze. He adjusted his gla.s.ses, which had been knocked askew. “I’m not entirely sure what to do here… If my brother were here, what would he say? …Hm… yes, I suppose that’s it. Either way, it always pays to be prudent… so I’d best seal off your movements here and now.”

So said Naguma, in a tone so casual he might as well have been deliberating over whether to bring an umbrella with him even though it wasn’t supposed to rain. Then, he picked up the naginata that had been propped up against the neighboring chair. He had claimed he didn’t intend to start a sword fight in her apartment—but apparently, even overlooking what he had done to her family, that had been a blatant lie.

d.a.m.n, I hate liars.

While nonchalantly moving his naginata, easily over two meters long, into the middle stance position, Naguma Sawarabi faced off against Iori Mutou. There was still a table between the two of them, but Iori could sense that it wouldn’t make for much of an obstacle—that it hardly made a difference whether it was there or not.

At the very least, he was certainly no amateur…

And most likely, things were already past that point.

It finally dawned on her. The moment her surprise attack with the fork had missed, she no longer had any hope of winning. Although it was something she’d done on the spur of the moment, that had been her last and only chance.

He was the same type as the wireframe man she had met that evening.

A frightening person.

A very, very frightening person.

A very, very broken person.

Why is this happening? Iori lamented.

She hadn’t done anything to deserve this. Sure, she hadn’t spent all seventeen years of her life on the up-and-up, and she had pulled her fair share of nasty pranks, and she could hardly claim she’d never made trouble for other people—but she honestly couldn’t think of a single thing she’d done to warrant being thrown headfirst into a situation like this.

Until just a few hours ago, she had been living a normal life.

She had been alive.

She had been normal.

So, why?

Why, before she even knew what was happening, before she had even done anything, had things ended up like this?

She had never planned on killing anyone—and she hadn’t done anything to merit being killed by someone else. There was no compelling reason for her to quietly accept whatever befell her, be it the wrath of G.o.d or the justice of heaven…

So why was this happening?

“What is all this about?! What the heck is a ‘Zerozaki’?! I don’t know anything about that! I haven’t the slightest clue!”

“What is a Zerozaki? Haha, that’s what I’d like to know. I’m not the one you should be asking. What are the Zerozaki, I wonder? My brother might know something, but he’s a taciturn person, you see. He never tells me anything.” As he spoke, he gradually closed the distance between the two of them. Despite his show of flippancy, he hadn’t lowered his guard against Iori in the slightest. “It would seem—mm, I’m really not quite sure. You’re all over the place. The most likely possibility is—yes, perhaps you’re in the process of becoming a Zerozaki?”

“…?”

In the process?

What did that mean?

Forget that, what the h.e.l.l was this guy going on about? It wasn’t a matter of figuring out what he meant; it was like he was straight up speaking Martian. She couldn’t keep up with him any longer. Enough, forget it, this didn’t have to be her house anymore. She’d been keeping it a secret, but she was actually an orphan all along. So she just needed to hurry up and run away. You know, 3000 Leagues in Search of Mother.[2] But could she get away? That was the real issue. Iori had used up a significant amount of stamina getting home, and where she was currently standing, she was already within the range of his weapon. If she made any conspicuous movements, Naguma’s naginata would pierce through her in an instant. She highly doubted she could evade it.

Still, she had to run away.

One way or another—she had to run away.

“…”

Come to think of it, though, why a naginata?

Naginata? Naginata… A naginata, huh… I mean, whatever floats your boat.

That aside, she had to wonder if the man had made his way to her apartment building wearing that bizarre get-up and carrying his naginata out in the open. If he had managed to pull that off, it would be no less of a miracle than Iori getting all the way home in her blood-soaked uniform. Or had he changed his clothes after arriving? That would be pretty dumb in a different kind of way. It appeared he really did put an emphasis on theatrics—but she certainly wasn’t willing to be killed over something like that.

Her mother. Her father. Her sister. Her brother.

Had they… really been killed? Was there any chance that Naguma’s words had been nothing more than a cruel intimidation tactic? That it had been a bluff to unsettle Iori?

As if to take advantage of the brief moment Iori turned her attention elsewhere, unable to bear the tension—Naguma pointed the blade of the naginata at her, lifting it so it was aimed diagonally upwards. The tip of the blade was positioned to cut from her throat to her jaw. Not a shred of mercy. It was neither a threat nor a bluff; it was a strike aimed square at her vitals, a surefire one hit kill.

She could see the trajectory of the attack.

She could just barely follow it with her eyes—but her body wouldn’t move. She knew all she had to do was jump backwards to avoid it, but she knew just as well how impossible that would be with her physical capabilities. In the face of the third crisis of her life… it seemed there would be no escape.

The end?

It was over.

Over?

What was?

Rip.

“—Eeeek!”

Iori heard the sound of flesh being torn apart—and let out a scream.

However, while the scream itself belonged to Iori, the torn flesh did not. Unlike Yasumichi, Iori’s vocal cords were not so exceptional that she could continue to scream after having her throat sliced apart.

What the torn flesh belonged to—what had been torn apart before Iori’s eyes—was something that had burst in through the window behind Naguma, something that had been tossed into the room. Namely, a human head.

The face belonged to a girl around elementary school age.

Naguma’s naginata had gouged it right through the center. The head had served as a shield—as a cushion—and prevented Iori from taking any damage, but Iori wasn’t dauntless enough to rejoice under the circ.u.mstances.

“Wha, ah, ahhhh! Wahhhh!”

The impact of the severed head combined with her own surprise forced Iori back a step, while Naguma let out a startled yell, pulled back his naginata, and whirled around to look at the window behind him. The window gla.s.s had been smashed into large pieces. Most likely, it had shattered when the head was thrown inside—but before anyone had time to make the connection, one by one, even more human heads came flying into the living room through the gaping hole.

“…Eeek?!” “—Whaa?!”

Iori was terrified, and Naguma was dumbfounded.

The various heads landed on the table with a loud thud. One, two, three, four—five. Counting the first one, it made for a total of six. A total of six severed heads had been catapulted through the window. Just try picturing it: a cl.u.s.ter of human heads dancing wildly through the air. It was like something straight out of a ghost story told on an old summer night.

“…Yoruko Arihama, Kurahiko Kitada, Madoka Kajino, Hiroaki Masaguchi, Mayumi Kouzuki, Rikuyuki Ikebashi…”

Finally, the entire window, frame and all, came flying into the room. Naguma brushed it aside with a single stroke of his naginata—then zeroed in on the balcony. Following his example, Iori turned her attention in the same direction.

“…They all ‘fail.'”

Standing on the balcony, which was now fully exposed and clear to see—was a man with a silhouette like a wireframe model, rotating a pair of eerily large scissors around the tips of his fingers.

“Heheh—heheheh.”

Soushiki Zerozaki.

Soushiki Zerozaki laughed.

“…!”

On the scene.

Yet another murderer—a psycho killer—had arrived on the scene, yet another frightening person had joined the fray—nothing more or less than that. Thinking about it rationally, nothing about the situation had changed—rather, it was possible things had gotten even worse—and yet.

All the tension left Iori shoulders…

And she crouched down on the spot.

It wasn’t out of fear—it was out of relief.

She felt greater relief than she ever could have imagined.

The scissors rang out with a metallic snap. With the scissors still closed, Soushiki pointed the tip of the weapon at Naguma’s chest.

“Heheh. Heheheh—heheh. It looks like I managed to arrive before the slaughter. …Hey, you flagrantly suspicious pervert over there.”

Look who’s talking.

“Don’t you lay a hand on my little sister.”

I’m not your f.u.c.king sister.

(Yoruko Arihama—Failed)
(Kurahiko Kitada—Failed)
(Madoka Kajino—Failed)
(Hiroaki Masaguchi—Failed)
(Mayumi Kouzuki—Failed)
(Rikuyuki Ikebashi—Failed)
(Chapter Two—The End)

[1] The first kanji character in the name “Naguma” is the same as the first character in the word “naginata.” “Sawarabi” is the t.i.tle of the 48th chapter of The Tale of Genji.

[2] 3000 Leagues in Search of Mother is an anime that aired in 1976.