All the Divine Vessels were in one place now, which meant the Evil God’s revival was probably imminent. They would probably act either today or tomorrow.
The revival of an evil god seemed like a pretty bad thing, and it certainly had to be stopped. But he didn’t know what the monster hunter specialists had planned, so his best course of action for now was to watch and act based on how things unfolded. At any rate, he wanted to find out what was going on in the sacred territory.
Just as he was thinking that, there was a commotion among the students sitting by the window.
“Hey! You guys need to settle down! Did you forget you’re in high school?” Hanako Nodayama, who was holding class at the moment, yelled at them.
“Teacher! We know, but something weird’s going on! Look!”
“Huh? It’s just a dog running around on school grounds! I’ll beat you black, and — oh, that is unexpected...”
Hanako approached with the air of one taking up a challenge, but returned to her lectern looking surprised.
“Hey, is one of you guys making your middle school daydreams reality or something?”
“Teacher, the rest of us have no clue what’s going on,” Shota, the student sitting in front of Yuichi, asked. “Could you fill us in?”
“Okay! It’d be a pain in the ass to try to explain, so anyone who wants to look out the window, just go ahead and do it. I give permission!”
The students all crowded to the window.
Yuichi joined them, looking outside.
From here, the athletic fields were visible. There were tanks rolling in, coming in from the athletic field-side entrance. The students and teachers who’d been having gym class on the field were scattering in their wake.
“Huh? What’s going on here?” a student shouted.
“Are they filming a movie?” another cried.
“Wouldn’t they have told us in advance?”
“You don’t think... terrorists?”
“No, no way. Why would they come after our school? It makes no sense!”
The students all seemed at a loss as to what was going on or what to do.
People got out of the tanks. They were men dressed in black kimonos with shaved heads. In other words, monks. As they watched, a number of the monks moved to block off the entrance.
The classroom was filled with confusion. Suddenly, the door banged open, and everyone went silent. A monk entered. He was carrying a clipboard.
The monks on the ground wouldn’t have been able to get here that fast, so he must have come from somewhere else.
“Okay, everyone! Please return to your seats and raise your hands! Let’s have full cooperation, here!” Hanako barked. It seemed like she was acting out of self-preservation, but in this case, that was probably the right move. There would be no telling what might happen if they broke out in a panic.
The students must have trusted Hanako more or less, as they did as they were told and held up their hands. Yuichi did the same.
“Ah, good to see you all so understanding.” The monk smiled as he walked up to the lectern.
Hanako quickly left the lectern to him and moved to a corner of the classroom.
“As you may know from looking outside, we are attempting to seal off this school. Ah, you’re probably tired from holding up your hands. Feel free to lower them.”
The students did as they were told.
The monk produced an ID from his front pocket and showed it to them. He was probably trying to authenticate his position, but the people in the class had no way of knowing if it was real.
“We’re officers of the peace. That means we work with the police. We deal with very specialized subjects, and we’ve been authorized to come here and deal with a situation in progress by any means necessary.”
He seemed to be trying to be reassure them, but Yuichi wasn’t buying it. He couldn’t be sure he really was with the law. He just looked like a monk in a black kimono with a shaved head.
“A terribly violent armed serial killer is inside the school right now, so we need you to stay in your classroom. As long as you stay in here, you should be safe.”
What’s going on? Is Sis behind this, too? Yuichi thought. At the moment, he had no way of knowing if they were connected. But he had an uneasy feeling about this.
Only one of the monks had come in, but he could sense a number of them out in the hall. He didn’t know why, but it did seem like they were trying to seal the students in their rooms.
Yuichi studied the monk.
He seemed like he knew martial arts, and judging from his center of balance, he was probably hiding a weapon in his kimono’s breast pocket. He was smiling placidly, but it seemed to be no more than a mask; he radiated irritation, as if he’d been tasked with a job he felt was beneath him.
It would be hard to neutralize him from where I am. Though from Takeuchi’s seat, maybe...
Yuichi’s seat was near the back, while Natsuki’s was in the front row. She could probably take him out, but she probably would want to avoid making trouble in front of their classmates.
Well, I don’t want to come off like a freak, either...
Still, Yuichi couldn’t sit back and watch his classmates get hurt, if it came to that.
But even if I beat him, someone else might come in...
Just beating them all might not be that difficult, but the difficulty level would spike with the added factor of having to protect his classmates.
“Excuse me! What about bathroom breaks?” a girl in the first row asked. Yuichi hadn’t talked to her often, but she was a girl named Risa Ayanokoji who appeared to be from a rather wealthy family.
“I’m not taking questions, but I’ll make an exception for this one,” the monk said. “As I said before, our only request is that you do not leave this room.”
“Huh? But then...”