Chapter 8 — She’s Probably Just Sitting at Home Eating Potato Chips or Something
Of course, they couldn’t leave the girl lying on the bed without taking any precautions. After instructing the staff not to enter the room, they placed a number of security cameras inside to watch it. The cameras were the ones created by Ryousuke Miyanaga, the man they had just killed. Thanks to running on internal batteries, they would still work for a while, according to Mokomoko.
“But what’s the point?” asked Tomochika.
After finishing their work, they were now back on the city streets, walking towards the palace. The current ordeal had been successfully resolved.
I will continue to observe them, of course, Mokomoko responded casually, although Tomochika wasn’t sure how likely that was. She wasn’t an expert on communications technology by any stretch, but she felt like tapping into cameras was on a completely different level than finding the source of a signal or acting as a relay for one.
Don’t look down on the Dannoura family! Something like decoding an MPEG is child’s play! I can even process video streams in real time!
“I’m starting to wonder what a guardian spirit is actually supposed to be,” Tomochika muttered, rapidly losing the energy to keep up the back-and-forth.
“You seem to have a lot more influence on the real world than I thought,” Yogiri commented, his interest piqued.
Yes, even back home I could exercise considerable control. There were plenty of things that I could access remotely through the Internet. I could even manipulate smart appliances to cause all sorts of bizarre phenomena!
“Wait, so all that weird stuff happening around the house was because of you?!”
“Why, though?” asked Yogiri.
Well...hmm...honestly, because it was funny to watch them be scared... Mokomoko answered the straightforward question hesitantly.
“That’s awful! What are you, a sadist or something?!”
Well, I thought if I caused enough strange incidents, people would begin to think the Dannoura family had the ability to curse others.
“Okay, let’s put Mokomoko’s weirdness aside for now,” Tomochika sighed, exasperated.
As disrespectful as always! Mokomoko seemed disheartened by her descendant’s behavior, but Tomochika ignored her.
“So, uhh, you said you would kill anyone who could reproduce items like that Ryousuke guy, but did you mean it?”It may have sounded like she was criticizing him, but that wasn’t what she was getting at. She was curious about what kind of relationship Yogiri had with this Enju person to make him feel the need to go to such extremes.
“The Enju-types shouldn’t be used anymore. I want her to be able to rest, forever.”
Yogiri’s expression was filled with such nostalgic longing as he spoke that it made Tomochika pause. She had never seen him look like that before. Who was this girl who could provoke such a response from him? When had they met, and what was their relationship now? Just how close were they? And what had happened to her?
As curious as she was, it didn’t feel like something she should ask about. She could probably get an answer if she tried, but she wasn’t sure she should go there. Judging from Yogiri’s words and actions, this Enju had died some time ago. If the girl were still alive, Tomochika didn’t see the point of making robots based on her. Ultimately, she felt that it wasn’t her place to stick her nose in.
“Are you okay, Dannoura? You’ve got quite a look on your face.”
“Is that any way to talk to a girl? Umm, no, it’s nothing. I’ve just got a lot on my mind.” Now that she thought about it, she did have her arms crossed and a deep frown on her face.
“Are you misunderstanding something?”
“Misunderstanding what?”
“You don’t think Enju is dead, do you?”
“Uhh, is she not?”
“I’m pretty sure she’s doing great. She’s probably sitting at home eating potato chips or something.”
“What?!” Tomochika shouted, her assumptions shattered. “What was all that talk about letting her rest, then?! Of course I’d get the wrong idea!”
“I just meant the robots. Having a robot that looks like you wandering around without you knowing would be weird, wouldn’t it?”
“Well, yeah, but...” Tomochika still couldn’t accept it. If the real girl was alive, who cared what happened to the robots?
“It’s just something I decided for myself. I guess it might not mean much in this world, though.”
“Well, if she’s fine, that’s good. Being attacked by a dead person wouldn’t feel all that great.” Tomochika mumbled the second half of what she was saying so that Yogiri wouldn’t hear it.
During their conversation, they had made it back to the palace. Without warning, Yogiri grabbed Tomochika and pulled her backwards. Having grown used to it at this point, she quietly let him yank her towards him. There was always some specific reason for it when Yogiri acted this way.
With a loud roar, the scenery before their eyes was suddenly annihilated. The walls of the palace, the cityscape around them, the people walking by, all gone in the blink of an eye. Everything that had been there moments before had been wiped cleanly away.
Untangling herself from her companion, Tomochika looked around. The destruction was quite a bit more limited than she’d originally thought. It only stretched in a straight line for about a hundred meters, heading southwest from the palace all the way to the city wall. The walls, made by the legendary High Wizard, were said to be able to withstand any attack, so they were still intact, but the damage to the city immediately around them was immense.
Someone is here.
Looking at where the destruction had seemed to come from, Tomochika could see a single person. It was a girl wearing the same school uniform as their own, but one who absolutely shouldn’t have been there — who shouldn’t have even been alive.
Ayaka Shinozaki. They’d heard she was attacking their classmates, but after seeing her corpse with their own eyes back on the bus, Tomochika had pictured her more as a ghost or something.
“Well, I know ghosts are real now, so I can’t say it’s impossible, but...she’s actually alive, isn’t she? Wait, is her right arm missing?!”
From the elbow down, there was nothing. It seemed like a horrific injury, but Ayaka didn’t look particularly concerned.
She isn’t a ghost at all. She has a real body.
“I’m surprised you can see anything right now,” Yogiri said, squinting.
“So, Shinozaki did this?”
Judging from the situation, it seems highly likely, but...what do you plan on doing?
“Oh, so that’s Shinozaki. I definitely saw her dead on the bus. It doesn’t seem like she was targeting us just now, so I guess we’ll see what she wants.”
Having noticed their presence, the girl was now walking towards them.
“Are you sure about that? If that’s actually Shinozaki, she’s been attacking everyone in the class.”
“I don’t think I have a right to stop her.”
Tomochika couldn’t help but agree. The two of them had been left behind as bait just like her, and even worse, Ayaka had actually been killed because of it. Tomochika had decided to forgive her classmates for their betrayal, but she couldn’t expect Ayaka to do the same.
“Even though she’s done this much damage to the city?”
“That’s a problem for Shinozaki and the city to solve, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know if I’d go that far...” Tomochika could understand the desire for revenge, but she couldn’t accept Ayaka hurting so many unrelated people to get it. She felt like they had to stop her somehow.
It doesn’t seem like she plans on attacking us.
They didn’t know exactly what her goal was, but at the very least, she wasn’t gunning for them personally, and she looked quite calm. So Tomochika figured they should at least hear her out.
Rewinding time to shortly before the pair ran into Ayaka:
Although Ayaka’s primary objective was to take revenge, it wasn’t like she was spending every waking moment obsessing over it. She now had the power of a dragon, but her base body was human, so she still had the needs of one. She needed rest, so she relied on the dragon cults.
There were a number of such cults near the city. Ayaka would go there to sleep, then return to the capital when the mood struck her. Today, once again, she was looking down at the city from the sky.
Do you plan on continuing with this? I don’t particularly mind you taking revenge, but shouldn’t you get it over with soon? a voice called out from inside her own head. It was one of the other units again. She had completely lost track of which unit was which at this point. I understand that you’re doing it one at a time to terrify them, but you can’t deny it’s getting to be a bit of a pain.
No, it’s best not to let our guard down. We don’t know what kind of powers they have. Dealing with them one at a time is best.
“Taking them too lightly and getting killed in the process would never happen. But it doesn’t seem like any of them are particularly afraid of me yet.”
It doesn’t seem like there’s anyone left in the class who can match us in strength.
Even so, we cannot underestimate the Sage’s Gift. There is still the possibility of someone having a power beyond our ability to predict.
“In general, I’ll take them out one at a time. If things seem manageable, I’ll take down a few all at once. How does that sound?”
I approve. One by one the units in her head sounded off in agreement, but Ayaka didn’t really see the point. Still, if it made them feel better, that was fine with her. Hearing them complain all the time would only give her a headache. She needed to exact her revenge, and she didn’t have time for all that internal struggle.
Someone is coming outside.
Ayaka looked down at the ground. Within the palace, someone was emerging from the mansion reserved for the Sage candidates.
“Dragon Sense.”
Her expanded sense of vision was able to see that the figure was Yuugo Izumida. She had no idea what sort of person he was. She barely even remembered his name. He was of that little interest to her, which meant that he was from an unimportant family, wasn’t particularly attractive, and had no real talent for school or sports. He was truly someone who didn’t matter to her at all. But regardless of his value, or lack thereof, he was still a target and she couldn’t just let him go.
Leaving the mansion behind, he headed for a garden within the palace grounds. It was a magnificent, calculated arrangement of water and greenery, making for a beautiful sight. Completely alone, he wandered around, seemingly without a goal.
“Seems like he’s not really doing anything.”
Is he just out for a walk? Perhaps it’s not my place to say, but it seems fairly dangerous to meander around alone when you don’t know if you’ll be attacked.
“I doubt it’s carelessness.”
Their eyes met. Yuugo was looking directly at Ayaka. His gaze was clearly confrontational, so there was no doubt that he could see her.
It’s like he’s challenging us.
What should we do?
“What else is there to do? He’s alone, and he’s one of our targets, so we can’t just let him go.”
Using her invisible wings, Ayaka descended. Yuugo simply stood there and watched her. She recognized the possibility of it being a trap, but that seemed to be a pointless fear. Even as she touched down, no one sprang up to challenge her.
“Honestly, I don’t know much about you,” Ayaka said curtly by way of greeting.
“That’s what I figured. But I guess you’re going to kill me anyway?”
“Yes. No exceptions. That said, I realize it’s pointless to ask, but what are you doing out here?”
“We’re getting sick of being hunted all the time. If we don’t do something about it, we won’t be able to go out into the city, will we?”
He seemed extremely confident. He knew that Ayaka had already killed some of his classmates, but he gave no impression of being afraid of her.
He seems to be quite sure of himself.
“So?” When it came to confidence, everyone she had killed so far had had plenty of it. Without fighting him, she wouldn’t know why he was acting so cocky.
“Dragon Claw.”
As Yuugo casually approached her, Ayaka waved a hand at him. The invisible claws stretching from her fingers easily cut him in two. Or at least that’s what should have happened, but it didn’t feel like she had struck anything at all. Rather than the sensation of cleaving through flesh, she felt pain instead. And as that pain registered in her right elbow, she saw her own arm flying through the air.
What?! He managed to cut through Dragon Scale?!
While the unit in her head was panicking, Ayaka calmly jumped back. At some point, Yuugo had taken out a short blade resembling a kitchen knife. It seemed like an odd choice of weapon. It wasn’t very useful for combat, and there were plenty of things that were better suited to the job.
“Didn’t you tell me that Dragon Scale was invincible?”
“My class is Cook. I can slice and dice any ingredients!”
Ayaka had been speaking to the units in her head, but Yuugo answered instead.
“Aren’t you interpreting that skill a bit broadly?”
This is bad. He appears to have a special advantage against dragons.
“Well, I thought it all seemed too easy.”
This time, Ayaka approached first. Yuugo swung his knife again, but she dodged it, throwing another Dragon Claw at him. She had seen his previous attack coming, but had figured moving aside was pointless. Now that she understood his ability, she made a point to stay light on her feet.
This time, she felt her attack bite into him, carving him into pieces. At the same instant, she jumped forward, sensing another attack from behind.
“Is that a Cook skill too?” she asked, turning to see Yuugo standing behind her. Although his carved-up remains were falling to the ground behind her, another Yuugo was now standing there, knife in hand.
“Of course. It takes a number of people to cook multiple things at once, after all.”
“If that kind of explanation is good enough, you can pretty much do whatever you want, can’t you?” she sighed in complaint at the absurd explanation.
Using her Dragon Sense to check out the area, she made a map of the space around her in the back of her mind. One hundred and fifty-eight. That was the number of Yuugos surrounding her.
“Don’t bother trying to run, by the way. I know the exact placement of all my ingredients like the back of my hand.” Yuugo seemed fully assured of his victory. He must have felt he couldn’t lose with this many copies of himself as backup.
Ayaka decided on her next move quickly. Taking a large step away, she stretched her left hand forward and began to gather energy in it. She would destroy the scattered Yuugos with a single shot. It would require a bit of time to charge up, which left a small opening for him to attack, but he didn’t hurry to respond. He didn’t seem to know what she was doing.
“Dragon Breath.” With a flash of light, the maximum strength, maximum size breath attack incinerated everything in front of her. All that was left now was empty space.
I thought we weren’t going to get unrelated people involved?
“That’s going to have to be on a case-by-case basis, don’t you think?” She had no intention of catching others up in her attack if she could help it, but worrying about it to the point of failing to get her revenge seemed unnecessary.
All instances of Yuugo Izumida within range of our senses have been erased.
“It looks like someone’s still there.”
The Dragon Breath strike had left an enormous, burned-out scar stretching across part of the city. But a short distance away, Ayaka could see someone else through the smoke.
Tomochika felt a little strange. From up close, the person moving in front of her was definitely Ayaka Shinozaki. The fact that she was alive was a bit hard for her to believe.
“Uhh, long time no see, I guess?” she called out nervously. Ayaka was responsible for killing a number of their classmates and had just blown away a huge chunk of the city. She felt it was better to be safe than sorry, but she wasn’t sure how to go about doing that.
“Yes, I guess I last saw you when I died on the bus.”
“That’s not funny, is it? Umm, is it true that you’re the one attacking the rest of the class?” If she was, talking casually here in the open probably wasn’t entirely appropriate. Tomochika hadn’t done anything to Ayaka personally, but she had no idea how her former classmate felt about her.
“That’s right. Don’t you think it’s dangerous to be out walking alone?”
“Alone?” Tomochika echoed, glancing to her side. Yogiri stood there with a blank look on his face.
“Don’t worry, I don’t have a grudge against you. I just wanted to tell you that. So please don’t get in my way. I have no plans to kill you, but if you get caught up in an attack by accident, I’m not going to stop for that. I think it would be better if you just got far away from the others.”
“Uh, yeah, okay.”
Having said her piece, Ayaka launched herself into the air and took flight, quickly disappearing from view.
It makes sense that she couldn’t see me, but did she not notice Yogiri either?
“Seems like it. Is he that hard to notice?”
Yogiri was still wearing his school uniform. Even if Ayaka hadn’t recognized his face, she should have realized he was one of their classmates, especially since he was standing right beside Tomochika.
“She didn’t even look at me. Honestly, I’m a little hurt.”
It was no secret that Yogiri had never been very social with their classmates, but being completely ignored still wasn’t the best feeling. He seemed genuinely unhappy about it.
“But...she should know that you’re here, shouldn’t she?”
Tomochika remembered them specifically talking about Yogiri while he’d been sleeping in the back of the bus back at the time. Whether Ayaka was ignoring him on purpose, or had truly overlooked him entirely, was hardly a major point of concern, but Tomochika still found it somewhat curious.
No Comments Yet
Post a new comment
Register or Login