"Ahhh! Monster! Die!!"
Watching Ikeda's gruesome death, Sato completely broke down.
Overwhelming terror robbed him of his reason. He raised his rifle and frantically pulled the trigger at Ikeda, who was being devoured!
Rat-a-tat-tat!
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"Sato! Stop! He's our teammate!" Kujo roared.
But Sato couldn't hear her at all. When his bullets ran out, he even used his Supernatural Ability!
Several Wind Blades whistled out, directly slicing the half-eaten Ikeda into pieces!
Blood burst through the rain, and chunks of flesh flew everywhere.
"He's dead... He's dead, right? Hahahaha!"
Sato panted heavily, his face twisted in a manic grin.
"Bang!"
Kujo charged forward and kicked the Madman to the ground. She pressed her gun to his forehead, her eyes filled with hatred.
"You bastard! That's enough! Who told you to do that to Ikeda?!"
"Why did you have to desecrate his corpse like that?!"
Kujo had always been secretly in love with that honest, burly man. She never imagined he would die so horribly, without even leaving a whole corpse behind.
"What do you know?!"
Sato snarled, his face twisted. "I was making sure he was dead! Haven't you ever played a game?! What if he turned into a monster?"
"Now, even an invisible monster would die under my Wind Blades!"
Kujo had no answer. She could only stare at the pool of mangled flesh on the ground, her heart twisting in agony.
Meanwhile, Sato struggled back to his feet and wiped the bloody rainwater from his face.
"Come on! The monster's definitely dead! Let's finish the mission and get out of this hellhole!"
Sato turned and headed for the school, as if none of it had happened so long as he didn't look back.
However.
After taking only two steps, he noticed the two women staring at him as if he were already dead.
"What?"
Sato bristled. "Why are you looking at me like that? Did my heroic performance leave you in awe?"
Standing in the rain, he spread his arms with confidence, as though embracing the sky.
"Don't worry! Once we finish this mission, my name will definitely be on tomorrow's rankings!"
"Then Mr. Muraguchi will surely promote me to the new team leader!"
Sato was absolutely confident.
In his mind, this was the position he deserved!
Why should an A-Class Supernatural Ability user work for a C-class loser?
Just because that loser had seniority?
But the next second.
Sato's voice suddenly weakened.
"Hey... What are you two bastards doing? I'm a hero..."
He saw Hoshino timidly raising her gun at him, while Kujo's eyes were full of fear.
Sato instinctively tried to point at them and curse, only to realize he'd lost control of his arms.
He looked down.
His outstretched arms had become nothing but bare white bones!
And that invisible devouring force was crawling from his shoulders toward his neck at terrifying speed!
Fear seized Sato's mind once more.
"Y-Ya... Yamete!!"
"Stop! No! I don't want to die!!"
"Help me! Hoshino! You're a healer! Save me!!"
Sato sobbed, snot and tears streaming down his face as he dragged his ruined body toward Hoshino. All that remained of his arrogant facade was an ugly desperation to survive.
Hoshino was so frightened that her hands trembled. She was about to pull the trigger and put him out of his misery.
"Don't shoot!"
Kujo grabbed Hoshino and dragged her toward the Humvee. "Run! Now!!"
"Bastard!!"
Seeing this, Sato completely snapped.
"Kujo! You wicked woman! You're trying to use me as bait?!"
"You want me to be devoured alive so you can buy time?! Dream on!!"
"I won't let you have your way! Die with me!!"
Sato roared. A second before his neck was bitten through, he opened his mouth and gathered the full force of his storm.
"Vacuum Bullet!!"
Boom!
A highly compressed air bullet shot from his mouth and punched straight through the Humvee's hood!
It exploded against Kujo's thigh just as she was opening the car door to get in!
"Ugh!"
Kujo grunted in pain. Blood poured from her wound, and she dropped to her knees.
The car was wrecked.
Her leg was injured.
"You... you Madman..."
Kujo stared in despair at the smoking engine.
Hoshino hurried to support her. "Kujo, I'll heal you!"
"There's no time!"
Kujo shoved her away and quickly activated the highest-priority emergency signal on her radio.
"No, we don't have time! The car's wrecked. We're going to the school!"
"Why?"
Hoshino asked, confused. "Isn't that just walking into our deaths?"
Kujo didn't answer right away. She clutched her wound, her gaze turning fierce.
Her C-class Supernatural Ability, "Eagle Eye," came with a brief enhancement to her dynamic vision.
Just now, the world around her had slowed in her sight, raindrops included.
Through the light refracted by the droplets hanging in the air,
she had seen the monster's true form!
It was a boy wearing a Black Stand-up Collar School Uniform.
His face was deathly pale.
He hadn't turned invisible. Instead... he was hiding inside a raindrop!
By then, Sato had been devoured completely. Only a skeleton remained, sprawled in the muddy water.
Reflected in Sato's lifeless eyeball was a raindrop.
Inside it, the boy grinned at them, baring a mouth full of fangs.
The next moment.
The boy inside the droplet began shifting from raindrop to raindrop, leaping closer and closer to Hoshino and Kujo!
Twenty meters... fifteen meters... ten meters...
It was a race for their lives. One side meant death, and the other did too.
Kujo kept her eyes on what was behind them.
"Too fast... We won't make it."
She looked at Hoshino, who was supporting her as they ran, and a resolute gleam flashed in her eyes.
"I'm sorry, little Hoshino. You'll have to go on without me."
Kujo suddenly shoved Hoshino toward the Teaching Building ahead!
Then she stayed behind, drew the Katana from her back, and turned to face the curtain of rain.
It wasn't because she was especially compassionate. The pride of her distinguished family made it impossible for her to abandon her dignity as Sato had!
She couldn't use a teammate as a shield.
She didn't want to become a low, despicable, shameless, hypocritical Cherry Blossom Country Person like Sato, either.
Time seemed to slow to a crawl.
The raindrop right before her eyes reflected the monster's greedy face.
And Hoshino's startled expression as she turned around.
Just as Kujo closed her eyes and prepared to die—
Crash!
The second-floor window of the Teaching Building suddenly shattered!
Three throwing knives flashed through the air and pierced the raindrop about to touch Kujo's brow!
The boy inside was forced to shift into another raindrop!
Then he began moving toward Kujo again!
"Clang!"
Immediately after, a White-haired Woman leaped out of the window and landed on the ground.
With one hand she grabbed Kujo, and with the other she seized Hoshino, pulling them through the entrance of the Teaching Building in an instant.
"Bang!"
The iron door slammed shut.
The two women still hadn't processed what had just happened. They sat on the ground,
staring, shaken and still catching their breath, at the beautiful, white-haired young woman with a European face before them.
She had classic Slavic features, coldly beautiful and powerful.
Just then, footsteps sounded from the shadows by the stairs.
A scruffy middle-aged man in an old trench coat emerged.
A freshly lit cigarette dangled from his mouth, its ember flickering in the dim corridor.
The man blew out a smoke ring. His eyes were weathered as he looked at the two hapless visitors from the Cherry Blossom Country, then smiled.
"Hello, you two unlucky souls."
"Welcome to Rose Middle School."
"Are you ready... to face the nightmare that's only just begun?"