The screams in the street had already merged into a continuous din.
"Aaah! Help!"
"Fire! Why did everything suddenly catch fire?!"
"Run! Get out of here!"
Pedestrians scattered in every direction like a disturbed colony of ants.
Some fell and were trampled by those behind them. Others lost their shoes but had no time to pick them up, sprinting barefoot away from the blaze.
Those who had caught fire rolled and struggled on the ground, their screams growing weaker and weaker.
The smell of burning skin and clothing spread through the waves of heat.
But what truly escalated the chaos was what some of them could see.
"Ah!"
"It's them again..."
"It's... it's those monsters!"
A young man fell to the ground, pointing toward where Jogo, Mahito, and Hanami stood, his finger trembling violently.
"They're over there! They're right over there!"
The people beside him looked where he pointed but saw nothing.
"Monsters?"
"What are you talking about? Who's there?"
"You idiot!"
"Can't you see them?! How can you not see something that big?!"
The young man's voice shot up an octave, filled with terror that bordered on a breakdown.
"It's... its head is smoking!"
"There's something covered in strips of cloth beside it, and another... another one with stitches on its face."
He never finished.
He was already scrambling backward, burying himself in the fleeing crowd.
Jogo glanced that way, watching the figure who could see him disappear into the crowd, the curve of his lips unchanged.
But he did not attack again.
Because he had already caught sight of something farther away out of the corner of his eye.
Behind the glass storefront of a shop across the street.
A figure was sitting by the window.
The shop's sign read "Doraemon Collaboration Dorayaki."
Someone was sitting there.
He