The next day, Shiine went to school as usual, carrying inside her bag the cup with the grim reaper. After she arrived, she went to her classroom to look for Takakura.
Takakura was already there, chatting with some friends at her desk. Shiine then stepped back out into the hallway.
She walked down the hall a bit before taking the plastic cup out of her bag. Facing the wall and shielding the cup from view with her body, she opened the lid a crack and peeked inside. The grim reaper was still in there, and it still had the photo of Takakura in its skull. All exactly as it had been the day before.
“Okay, go for it!” Shiine whispered, and opened the lid all the way.
The grim reaper silently floated out of the cup and down the hall, with Shiine following a few steps behind. It didn’t fly very fast, and as long as she kept up a brisk pace, she was in no danger of losing sight of it. At first, she was worried about how the other students might react to this spooky visitor, but nobody seemed to notice it. She must have been the only one who could see it.
Before long, they arrived at Shiine’s classroom. Once inside, the grim reaper made a beeline straight for Takakura. Hovering in the air just behind her, it raised its scythe and brought it down in one swift movement.
Fwish!
The scythe’s blade seemed to pass right through Takakura’s body. It did the job, though.
Takakura stopped talking mid-sentence and slumped down in her chair like a puppet whose strings had been cut. She then toppled to the floor, and the students near her screamed.
“Eek!”
“What happened?”
“Hey, are you okay?”
Concerned classmates began to flock around Takakura, their voices getting louder and louder.
“No way!”
“She’s not breathing!”
More and more people joined the scene, screams of shock and panic mixing together into one big whirlpool of chaos. Shiine stood at the edge of the group, trying to look surprised and concerned. Which she was, to be honest, but not in the way people might have thought.
Right in the middle of the crowd, visible only to Shiine, was the little grim reaper floating over Takakura’s body. She watched it fade until it disappeared completely, like a sandcastle washed away by the tide.
The Instant Grim Reaper had done its job.
Wow… She’s really dead.
Shiine let out a sigh. A small one so nobody around her would notice, but one packed with deep relief.
Takakura was dead. The witness to Shiine’s crime was gone. She was safe.
That grim reaper may have been instantaneous, but it was the real deal. Imagine being able to make anyone I want disappear for just a hundred yen! Talk about a lucky find!
She was thrilled. An Instant Grim Reaper—what an amazing product. And what luck that she’d just happened to find her way to that vending machine that day. She almost started humming a happy tune but caught herself and tried to pass it off as a sneeze.
Ambulance sirens could be heard from outside now, and they were getting closer. Someone must have called them. Too bad it was too late. The grim reaper had already reaped its victim’s soul. Sitting down at her desk, Shiine brought her hands together in a gesture of thanks.
But just as she did…
“Oh, it’s okay! She’s awake!” yelled one of the students kneeling by Takakura.
Shiine could hardly believe her ears. That couldn’t be right. Takakura hadn’t even been breathing a minute ago. The grim reaper had fulfilled its duty and disappeared. So why…?
She got up and pushed her way through the crowd.
It was true. Takakura had opened her eyes and was sitting up.
“Huh? What happened to me…?” Takakura mumbled, a dazed look on her face.
What the heck was going on? Takakura had come back to life? How? Why? Was that Instant Grim Reaper defective?
Shiine slipped out of the crowd, grabbed her bag, and retreated to the hall. Once she was far enough away that no one would see her, she took out the black plastic cup again. Examining the lid closely, she realized there was some very fine print on it that she hadn’t noticed the day before:
※Please note that this Instant Grim Reaper’s curse will last for only three minutes.
Her shoulders slumped in disappointment. What was the point of killing someone for just three minutes? She should have known it was too good to be true, especially for only a hundred yen…
But wait… That means…!
With a surge of hope, she remembered something. At the vending machine the previous day, there’d been two Instant Grim Reapers on sale. She hadn’t even considered buying the other one at the time because of the price. But what if that other one…?
That’s got to be it. If this one can curse someone for only three minutes, maybe there’s others that are different. Like the ten-thousand-yen one that was next to it. And if it costs that much, I’ll bet it does a better job than this weenie hundred-yen one…
Sure, it was expensive. So what? She’d killed Takakura once and experienced the peace of mind that it brought her. She wouldn’t give up on that now. She couldn’t.
✦ ✦ ✦
The next day after school, Shiine hurried home to get some money, then made her way back to the vending machine. Just like before, the display window showed two almost identical black plastic cups: The one on the right was one hundred yen, and the one on the left was ten thousand yen.
She stood on tiptoe and pressed her face right up to the glass to get a better view. That was when she noticed something—the window was clearer than it had been the day prior. Someone must have come along and cleaned it. The griminess was gone, and she could clearly read the writing on the left cup’s lid:
When “instant” just isn’t enough—a hardcore reaper for hardcore customers!
The silver lettering sparkled like a sharpened scythe against the lid’s black background. There was another message, too, one that stood out a lot better than the one on the cheaper cup:
※Please note that this Instant Grim Reaper’s curse will last for one hundred years.
Shiine inserted a ten-thousand-yen bill into the machine and pressed the button. There was a clatter as the cup fell into the drawer. She fished it out and held it firmly in her hands, taking comfort in the gleaming silver letters on the lid.
“A hardcore reaper… I wonder if you make it the same way as the cheaper one.”
She turned the cup to one side and read the instructions.
✦ ✦ ✦
◇Instant Grim Reaper Instructions◇
❶ Open the lid and check that the cup contains one (1) skull.
❷ Remove the skull and place a photo of the person you wish to curse face up at the bottom of the cup. Place the skull on top of this photo.
❸ Fill the cup with hot water to the line indicated.
❹ Close the lid and wait one hundred years before reopening.
★ You will now have your very own grim reaper who will lay a deadly curse on your intended victim! ★