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.