“This is hopeless. I’m gonna have to eat all of ’em! You’re good with that, right, Tobi?!” Baku asked, turning his tubelike head with its massive mouth—tailor-made for eating and eating alone.
But Tobi grabbed Baku by his collar and dragged him out into the hallway, slamming the door shut behind them. “N-no!” he said. “You can’t! Not all of them!”
“Huh?! Why the hell not?!”
Just then, Ryuuko gasped. “Ah! The back door!”
It hit Tobi the moment he heard those words. He’d shut the door behind him—but only the classroom’s front door. The sliding door at the back was still wide-open.
“Otogiri?! And Shiratama…?!” a voice rang out.
Tobi looked down the hallway and saw a man in work clothes sprinting in his direction. It was Haizaki, and a weasel was clinging to his left leg. No, not a weasel. It might look like one, but Tobi knew it was actually Haizaki’s zingai. Its name was Olver, if Tobi remembered correctly.
“Stay back, old man!” Monika yelled as she took off running, leaving Ryuuko behind. She was heading toward the back door, probably to close it.
“Monika!” Ryuuko shouted.
A moment later, a cloud of butterflies poured through the classroom’s back door.
“Olver!” Haizaki shouted, still running.
Suddenly, the weasel-like zingai vanished. For a moment, Tobi couldn’t tell where it had gone, but then he noticed Haizaki’s right leg. It was covered in some strange leathery material. Tobi couldn’t identify it, but he knew it wasn’t the fabric of Haizaki’s work clothes. Maybe that was Olver, just in another form.
Haizaki shot forward like a miniature jet engine, blasting past Tobi and Ryuuko to scoop Monika up in his arms.
“Wha—?”
“Otogiri!” Haizaki shouted.
He kicked off the floor with his right leg, hurling himself into a backward jump with Monika still firmly in his grasp. He sailed through the air at an incredible height and speed. Even a world-record holding high-jumper doing the Fosbury flop couldn’t pull off a feat like that. The sheer power of his jump was absurd.
“Bring it on!” Baku roared. He charged straight in as Haizaki retreated, taking a huge bite out of the swarm attacking Monika. The zingai he couldn’t catch in his mouth, he grabbed with his massive hands.
Meanwhile, Tobi circled around the chaos and slammed the door shut. He could feel something from the room beyond. It wasn’t a pulse, but it felt somehow similar—like the door was vibrating. Could it be the zingai butterflies? Were they battering themselves against the door? Looking down the hallway, he saw the front door shuddering, too. Ryuuko was desperately holding it shut.
“B-but what about the people inside?!” Ryuuko shouted. “And Hiiragi! We can’t just leave them!”
“What’s going on?!” Haizaki asked Monika as he landed and took a knee.
“We’ve got a berserk relapse case in there!” Monika yelled back. “Multiple victims! And put me down!” She started squirming, and Haizaki quickly set her on the ground. Her eyes were wide.
“Got it,” said Haizaki. “Tell the higher-ups! They need to know about this—make them issue an evacuation notice! Say there’s been, I don’t know, a gas leak or something! I’ll handle things here!”
“Why would you even—?”
“Because, as of today, I’ve signed on to help investigate the teachers here! Ask the chief for the details!”
“…Wait, you mean Otter’s making a comeback?!”
“Only as an independent contractor. Don’t worry—I’ll try not to hold you back. Now get moving!”
Tobi barely understood a word of Monika and Haizaki’s exchange. His one big takeaway was that Monika was leaving while Haizaki was staying behind. What about him and Ryuuko? What were they supposed to do?
“It’ll be fine! Listen to me,” Haizaki said. He dashed over to the door Tobi was holding closed. “I’ll lure the relapser out of the room. I’ll lead them to… The gym’ll have students in it now, so… One of the multiuse rooms! If the zingai attack anyone, have yours eat them! As long as you leave some, we should be able to avoid the worst-case scenario. Once the relapser and their zingai are out of there, we can help the students inside. Understood?”
Tobi nodded.
“You got it!” Baku replied enthusiastically. He wanted to eat the zingai so badly he could hardly stand it. Surely nobody would blame him if he saved someone in the process?
“Wh-what about me…?!” Ryuuko asked, her voice nearly a scream.
Plenty of students were out in the hallways for afternoon break, and their little uproar was attracting quite a bit of attention. But they didn’t have time to worry about that.
“When I give the signal, let go of the door and get out of here! Just run!” shouted Haizaki. “Three!” He held up three fingers, then folded them one at a time “Two! One! Now!”
The instant Haizaki lowered his pointer finger, Tobi hurled open the classroom’s back door and Haizaki dove inside.
“Stay back, Tobi!” Baku roared.
Tobi took his advice. Ryuuko, meanwhile, was sprinting for the staircase. The front door burst open on its own, and butterflies spewed out from both sides. Each of them was only as big as the tip of Tobi’s thumb, but their numbers were overwhelming.
“Whoooa!” Baku yelped.
For a moment, he reeled back in fright—but only for a moment. An instant later, his tubelike head swelled, his mouth split open, and he dug into the cloud of butterflies. He snatched them up in his jaws directly and grabbed handfuls of them out of the air as he chewed, tossing those into his mouth as well. He couldn’t let himself eat all of them, but considering the sheer number, it was only natural some would escape.
Before long, Haizaki came flying out of the classroom’s front door with Hiiragi in his arms. He propelled himself forward with his Olver-enhanced right leg, kicking off a wall this time instead of the floor. That kick launched him an incredible distance down the hallway, after which he used the floor to take another leap toward the staircase. The whole cloud of black butterflies chased after him, the blue patterns on their wings flashing in and out of sight. They looked like twinkling stars on a pitch-black canvas, as beautiful as they were horrifying. The night sky itself seemed to stream down the hallway, seeking to engulf the fleeing janitor.
“Baku!” Tobi shouted. He’d just taken off after Haizaki when he heard a voice behind him.
“Otogiri…?!”
It sounded like Asamiya, but Tobi didn’t turn around. There was no time. The multiuse classrooms were on the first floor, down a flight of stairs. Haizaki was already headed there, and Tobi felt an urge to go as well…but to what end? What could he even do there? What did he want to do?
Then, just as Haizaki was about to descend the stairs, Tobi saw something strange. He only caught a glimpse, and he couldn’t make out anything clearly, but he’d definitely seen something. It happened when Haizaki used his right leg to kick off the wall, intending to propel himself down to the landing in a single jump. Something had leaped out and grabbed on to his left leg—the unenhanced one. It happened so quickly that Tobi barely even registered it, but he saw something grapple with Haizaki. Not a human, of course. It was too small—maybe half that size.
“Ah…”
Haizaki lost his balance mid-kick. Instead of flying down the staircase as planned, he fell, still holding Hiiragi as he tumbled out of sight. Tobi rushed toward the staircase. Was Haizaki all right? What about Hiiragi?
“M-Mr. Haizaki!” Ryuuko shouted from the staircase.
Rather than following the janitor, she’d gone up a few steps toward the third floor and was looking down on the landing below. And she wasn’t alone—a girl with glasses was nearby, sitting on the ascending staircase’s landing. It was Shizukudani.
Why is she here? Tobi thought briefly, only to abandon the question. This wasn’t the time. Haizaki and Hiiragi came first.
Haizaki was lying on the staircase’s lower landing, clutching Hiiragi firmly in his arms. He’d done his best to protect her as he fell.
Tobi took in a sharp breath, then ducked reflexively. A stream of butterfly zingai flew straight over his head, then began swarming around Haizaki, engulfing him.
“Ugh… Ahh…”
Haizaki was still conscious. Had he hurt himself, or were the butterfly zingai affecting him? He couldn’t seem to stand, and while his Olver-enhanced right leg was still moving, warding off as many of the butterfly zingai as it could, there were simply too many of them. Several had already attached to him and started sucking out his life force, just as they’d done to the students of Class 2-1.
“Tobi!”