Suddenly, Hiiragi’s long black hair seemed to rise up into the air. Tobi had to blink and look again before he realized it wasn’t her hair at all, but a cloud of small black butterflies with blue patterns on their wings. They weren’t real butterflies, though—they were zingai. They’d been roosting in Hiiragi’s hair and had all taken flight at once. She’d had two the last time Tobi saw her, but now she had more than twice that number.
“Are you even listening?!” Hiiragi shouted. “Stop being nice to me! Stop paying attention to me! I’m telling you to just leave me alone…!”
Her voice cracked at the end, then failed entirely. The two girls standing nearby both backed away. Her rage seemed to have shocked and overwhelmed them. They couldn’t see the butterfly zingai swooping toward them. If they could, they probably would have run. There were more butterflies than Toby could count—and their numbers were still growing. They were splitting apart, one butterfly becoming two, then four as they swarmed around the girls.
After letting out quiet, feeble groans, the girls both fell to the floor. Butterfly zingai covered their faces and the exposed skin on their necks and hands. Tobi, Ryuuko, and Monika could see what was happening, but the other students weren’t getting the full picture. Anyone who couldn’t see zingai would think their classmates had just passed out at random. A few students shouted, while others stood up. One boy even ran over to the fallen girls.
Hiiragi turned to look at him. Her eyes seemed hollow—like a pair of deep, dark holes.
An instant later, the butterfly zingai left the girls and surged toward the boy instead. Their movement was slow, like a butterfly’s, but they swarmed him in an instant. One after another, they landed on his cheek, then his nose, then his chin.
“Mnghhh…” The boy groaned, tottered, then fell on his backside, slamming his head into a nearby desk in the process. He let out a sharp grunt, and his eyes rolled back in his head as he collapsed to the floor.
Tobi heard Monika mutter something. He couldn’t make it out clearly, but she’d definitely said the word berserk.
“Oh, hell! Tobi…!” Baku shouted. He’d started thrashing—but Tobi hesitated. What was he supposed to do in this situation?
“Hiiragi!” Ryuuko called out as she stepped into the classroom. Tobi was about to tell her to stop—but before he had the chance, Hiiragi shot Ryuuko a piercing glare. Her expression was so horribly twisted, it almost looked like her face itself had begun to distort. Her dark, hole-like eyes weren’t so much looking at Ryuuko as trying to swallow her.
Then came the butterfly zingai. At first, it was just one of them, but that one split to form two, then four. They were still multiplying. A second later, they doubled to eight, then sixteen.
Monika grabbed Ryuuko’s arm and pulled hard. “We’re getting out of here!” she said.
“Too late for that!” Baku shouted.
He’s right, thought Tobi. It was too late to run. Tobi loosened his grip on Baku’s strap. He wouldn’t try to stop him. In fact, he’d do the opposite.
“Do it…!”
“All right…!”
Baku separated from Tobi’s back and leaped into the classroom in front of Ryuuko and Monika. He stood on his own two legs, his back to Tobi and the others. He had a pair of arms now, each of which ended in a massive four-fingered hand. For some reason, there was an eye on the back of each one. His head was oddly cylindrical, and he wore a long cloak-like garment made from the same material as his backpack form.
Ryuuko gasped.
“He transformed…,” Monika whispered.
“Ahhh…!”
Baku’s tubelike head seemed to swell as a massive, gaping mouth opened up in its center. He lashed forward, devouring the sixteen zingai butterflies surging toward him in a series of gnashing bites.
“Mmmh…!” Baku said, patting his midsection with his enormous hands. “That was barely even a snack!”
“H-he… He ate them,” said Monika. She’d been pulling Ryuuko away only moments before, but now it looked more like she was clinging to her. Ryuuko’s mouth was hanging open, like she wanted to say something. But whatever it was, she wasn’t able to choke it out.
“Hah, hah, hah…!”
Hiiragi had started gasping for breath. She was hyperventilating badly. She bent over and clasped her hands to her ears. She couldn’t see her own zingai—but could she feel something when one of them was eaten?
The butterflies were zingai. They were just doing what all zingai did: protecting their master. Tobi didn’t know what had made Hiiragi feel so threatened, but her zingai had chosen to eliminate her friends and classmates in response—and then, several of them were eaten. A much larger threat had just appeared on the scene.
“Hah, hah, hah, hah, hah…!”
The zingai that had gathered on the two fallen girls and the boy who’d hit his head surged explosively into the air. They began to spread, filling the classroom. The other students were deeply confused. A commotion was rapidly building—and then the butterflies fell upon them. Students began collapsing to the floor, one after another.
Tobi assumed the zingai butterflies fed on people instead of nectar. They were absorbing some sort of life force from the students, and as they fed, they multiplied. More and more butterflies filled the room, splitting and duplicating en masse. And that wasn’t all—wriggling caterpillar-like creatures had begun to crawl out from Hiiragi’s hair. No sooner had they emerged than they began to transform, finally molting and turning into yet more butterflies. How many could there be? Tobi had long ago lost count.