"Ow!"
Yoshida Ayumi startled. Once she had steadied herself, she followed the hand that had supported her and saw someone who looked vaguely familiar.
This was... the high school's school physician?
Though he was wearing a face mask, his hair color and glasses were easy to recognize. Come to think of it, why was he wearing a face mask? Had he Got Sick?
As she stood there in confusion, the hand supporting her quietly withdrew. In its place came an anxious cry of "Ayumi!" Mouri Ran squeezed through the crowd and appeared before her.
Seeing that the little girl who had fallen was standing there unharmed, Mouri Ran breathed a sigh of relief and patted her head. "Next time you take a train this crowded, make sure you stand somewhere with an armrest, understand?"
"Okay!" Yoshida Ayumi was about to mention that the Doctor had helped her when her gaze suddenly shifted. Not far behind Mouri Ran, she saw a face trembling in pain.
—It was not just his expression that shook. The scruffy, middle-aged man soon began convulsing all over. He opened his mouth wide in agony, then collapsed with a thud, quickly vanishing amid the crowd's legs.
Yoshida Ayumi jumped in fright. "What happened to that uncle?!"
Mouri Ran turned back in confusion, but saw no one.
Just then, the train arrived at a station. The passengers surged toward the doors and poured out. The once-crowded carriage quickly became empty.
And like reefs exposed by the ebbing tide, a plump corpse appeared on the floor before everyone.
—That bearded, hot-tempered "Nova Team superfan" lay crookedly on the ground like a punctured Balloon. Blood bubbled from the wound in his abdomen, spreading into a pool of blood beneath him.
Beside him, a bloodstained dagger and its matching sheath had