"Kazuma!! Get away from there! The glass is breaking!"
The teacher's voice cut through the chaos, but it was already too late. The wind howled like a dying animal, and the windows rattled so violently that the entire classroom seemed to shake. Papers flew through the air like possessed spirits, and the fluorescent lights flickered with an ominous rhythm that made everyone's shadows dance unnaturally on the walls.
Shintaro, a quiet student who usually kept to himself, stood frozen near the window. His glasses reflected the dark storm clouds outside, but something else caught his attention—something that made his blood turn to ice. In the reflection of his lenses, barely visible through the rain and darkness, was a figure. Tall. Impossibly tall. With a silhouette that seemed to absorb light rather than reflect it.
His eyes widened behind his glasses, pupils dilating with primal fear. The kind of fear that transcends logic and taps directly into the ancient part of the human brain that knows—absolutely knows—when a predator is watching.
"S-sir..." Shintaro's voice came out as a strangled whisper, barely audible over the storm. "There... there is someone outside."
He took an unconscious step backward, his hand trembling as he pointed toward the window with a shaking finger.
"It... it's probably coming into the class..."
The world seemed to slow down.
Time itself stretched like taffy, every second becoming an eternity. Through the cracked glass of the window, everyone could now see it—the creature's arm raising, black and smoke-like, fingers elongating into impossibly sharp points. And then, with a motion too fast for the eye to fully track, it thrust forward.
The spike shot through the air like a bullet, shattering the already-weakened glass into a thousand glittering fragments. Each shard caught the dim light, creating a momentary constellation of deadly beauty. The projectile cut through the storm, through the broken window, directly toward Shintaro's head with lethal precision.
A single drop of sweat rolled down Kazuma's temple.
His body moved before his mind could catch up. Pure instinct. Raw survival reflex honed by dying thirteen times. His legs coiled like springs, and he launched himself forward in a desperate leap. The world blurred around him—the screaming students, the shattering glass, the howling wind—all of it faded into background noise as his entire focus narrowed to a single point: Shintaro.
"MOVE!"
Kazuma's shoulder collided with Shintaro's chest, and both boys went tumbling to the floor in a tangle of limbs. The spike whistled past them—so close that Kazuma felt the displaced air against his cheek, cold and wrong—and embedded itself in the wall behind them with a sickening thunk. The concrete cracked like thunder, spider-web patterns spreading from the impact point.
They hit the ground hard. Pain shot through Kazuma's shoulder and elbow, but he barely registered it. Both of them lay there for a moment, gasping for air, their hearts hammering so hard it felt like their ribs might crack.
Shintaro's voice came out in broken fragments, barely coherent. "W-what... what was that? Aah... haa... haa..." His chest heaved with each breath, and behind his glasses, tears were beginning to form—tears of shock, of terror, of the sudden realization of how close he'd come to death.
But there was no time to process. No time to recover.
Kazuma pushed himself up on shaking arms, his voice exploding from his throat with an urgency that made everyone's heads snap toward him.
"EVERYONE GET OUT OF HERE!"
His words echoed through the classroom like a gunshot. Students who had been frozen in shock suddenly jerked into motion, their survival instincts finally overriding their paralysis.
"THAT STRANGE THING WILL KILL US! HURRY! CLEAR THE CLASS!"
Kazuma's voice was ragged, desperate, each word tumbling over the next in his haste. He turned to the teacher, who stood pale and trembling, clearly overwhelmed by the impossibility of what was happening. Kazuma grabbed the man's arm, his grip tight enough to leave marks.
"Sir! I need your help!" His voice cracked with strain. "We have to empty the classroom now! Please—take all the students to a room with no windows! Underground storage, basement, anything—but away from the windows!"
The teacher blinked, his mind struggling to catch up with the nightmare unfolding around him. Then, like a switch being flipped, his training kicked in. Years of fire drills and emergency procedures suddenly had real purpose.
"O-okay... I understand." He turned to the class, his voice finding strength. "EVERYONE! WITH ME! NOW!"
"Hurry up!" Kazuma's voice rose to almost a scream. "They are coming! I HAVE SEEN THEM!"
The exodus began immediately. The classroom erupted into controlled chaos as students scrambled for the door. Desks were knocked over in the rush, bags abandoned, books scattered across the floor like fallen leaves. The teacher positioned himself at the doorway, trying to maintain some semblance of order as bodies pushed and shoved in their desperation to escape.
"Come on! Hurry! Don't push! In a line!" The teacher's voice competed with the storm and the students' panicked breathing.
Kazuma stood by the door, his eyes constantly darting to the broken window, watching for any sign of movement in the darkness beyond. His hands clenched and unclenched rhythmically, his entire body taut as a bowstring. Every shadow that moved outside made his heart skip a beat. Every sound of wind against glass made him want to scream for everyone to move faster.
One by one, students filed past him. Some were crying. Some were silent with shock. Some couldn't stop shaking. But they were moving, and that was all that mattered.
Kazuma did a mental count as they passed. Twenty-three... twenty-four... twenty-five... His eyes scanned the classroom, checking every corner, every desk. Almost everyone's out. Just a few more. Come on. Come on.
Then he saw her.
At the back of the classroom, near the last bench, a girl was struggling. Her foot had caught on something—a fallen bag strap, maybe, or the leg of an overturned desk. She tugged frantically, her face a mask of terror, but the more she pulled, the more entangled she became. And all around her, through the windows, those shapes were moving closer in the darkness.
"No... no no no..." she whispered to herself, her voice barely audible. "Please... please..."
Kazuma's heart lurched. He was at the door, one hand gripping the frame, ready to slam it shut the moment the last person was through. But this girl—she was too far. Too exposed. And the creatures were so close now that he could see their forms more clearly through the storm, their blue eyes glowing like dying stars.
For a fraction of a second—a terrible, eternal fraction of a second—Kazuma hesitated.
If I go back for her, I might not make it out. We both might die.
But if I don't...
The image of Kento's face flashed through his mind. Pale. Weak. Dying because Kazuma hadn't been fast enough.
Not again. Never again.
"GRAB MY HAND!"
He burst back into the classroom, his footsteps pounding against the floor as he ran toward her. Behind him, he could hear the teacher's shocked voice: "Kazuma! What are you doing! Come back!"
But Kazuma didn't stop. Couldn't stop. His arm extended as he ran, hand outstretched toward the girl. She had finally freed her foot and was scrambling to stand, her eyes locked on his approaching form with desperate hope.
"HURRY! GRAB MY HAND!"
Their fingers were inches apart.
She reached up, her hand stretching toward his, her lips forming words that might have been "thank you" or might have been a prayer.
And then the world exploded into violence.
The window behind her shattered completely, not with the gentle tinkling of broken glass, but with the roar of destruction. Black spikes erupted through the opening like a forest of thorns, each one moving with terrible purpose. The girl's eyes went wide—not with fear, but with surprise. As if she couldn't quite believe what was happening. As if her brain refused to process that this was real.
Three spikes punched through her back simultaneously, their tips erupting from her stomach in a spray of crimson. Her hand, still reaching for Kazuma's, trembled violently. Blood—hot and dark—poured from her mouth, dripping down her chin and splattering onto Kazuma's outstretched palm.
Kazuma froze. His body went rigid, every muscle locked in place. He stood there, arm still extended, as the girl's life drained away in front of him. Her eyes met his—brown eyes, he noticed absently, now dulling with the onset of death—and in them, he saw not accusation, but an apology. As if she was sorry for being too slow. As if her death was somehow her fault.
"Ah..." The sound that escaped her lips was barely human. More of a wet gurgle than a word.
Then her hand dropped.
Her body went limp.
The spikes retracted with sickening efficiency, and she crumpled to the ground like a puppet with cut strings. Blood began pooling beneath her, spreading across the floor in an ever-widening circle, reflecting the flickering lights above like a grotesque mirror.
Kazuma couldn't move. Couldn't breathe. Couldn't think. Blood covered his hand—her blood—still warm, still wet. He stared at it, at the way it dripped between his fingers, and his mind went completely blank.
She's dead.
She was alive five seconds ago.
Now she's dead.
I couldn't save her.
Just like Kento.
I'm always too late.
Always too slow.
Always—
SWOOP! SWOOP! SWOOP!
The sound of incoming projectiles snapped him back to reality. More spikes, dozens of them, shot through the broken windows like a swarm of angry hornets. They filled the air, a deadly rain of black death.
Instinct took over.
Kazuma dropped into a crouch so fast his knees cracked, the spikes whistling over his head so close that several of them sliced through his hair. He could feel their passage, the air pressure making his ears pop. Then he was moving, scrambling on hands and knees, ignoring the broken glass that cut into his palms, ignoring the pain, ignoring everything except the desperate need to survive.
"RUN NOW!"
He exploded through the doorway, his shoulder hitting the frame hard enough to leave a bruise. The teacher grabbed him by the collar and yanked him the rest of the way through, then slammed the door shut with a boom that echoed down the hallway.
For a moment, they just stood there, breathing hard, staring at the closed door as if it might burst open at any second. Through the small window in the door, they could see the classroom beyond—now a scene of destruction, with that girl's body lying still in the center of it all.
The teacher's hands were shaking as he backed away from the door. "L-let's... we have to move forward..."
CORRIDOR — THE CHASE
The group moved through the hallways like a desperate herd, their footsteps creating a thunderous sound that competed with the storm outside. The teacher led them, constantly looking back to make sure no one was falling behind, his face pale but determined.
They had just reached the stairwell when it happened.
BOOM!
The sound was like a bomb going off. A section of the wall—solid concrete and steel—simply exploded inward, chunks of debris flying through the air like shrapnel. Dust billowed out in a choking cloud, and through it, emerging like something from a nightmare, came the creature.
Up close, it was even more terrible than from a distance. Its body seemed to be made of smoke and shadow given quasi-solid form, constantly shifting and undulating in ways that hurt to look at directly. Its eyes—those horrible, glowing blue eyes—fixed on the group with an intelligence that was somehow worse than mere animal hunger. This thing didn't just want to kill. It wanted to hunt. To savor the fear.
For a heartbeat, nobody moved. Students and creature stared at each other across the dusty corridor, separated by perhaps twenty feet of empty space. In that moment of stillness, Kazuma could hear the sound of his own heartbeat in his ears, each thump feeling like it might be his last.
Then the spell broke.
"EVERYONE RUN BACK!"
The teacher's voice cracked like a whip, galvanizing everyone into action. The careful line dissolved into a panicked mob as students turned and fled in the opposite direction. Some tripped over their own feet in their haste. Others crashed into each other. One boy went down hard, and two others fell over him, creating a pile of thrashing limbs.
"GET UP! HURRY!" Kazuma was there instantly, grabbing arms and hauling people to their feet. "Don't stop! Keep moving!"
Behind them, the creature moved. Not rushed. Not panicked. It simply... pursued. Its movements were fluid and unhurried, like a predator that knows its prey has nowhere to go. Each step it took seemed to cover an impossible distance, reality bending slightly around it.
"TOWARD THE STAIRS! HURRY!"
The group hit the stairwell in a wave, bodies pressing against each other as everyone tried to go down at once. The sound of their feet on the metal stairs was deafening—a drumbeat of desperation and fear.
Then came the spikes.
Without warning. Without mercy. The creature didn't even need line of sight. The black projectiles simply erupted from its form and curved through the air like guided missiles. Four students at the rear of the group went down almost simultaneously, impaled before they even knew they were in danger.
A boy collapsed on the stairs, causing a domino effect. Two girls tumbled past him, screaming. An older student tried to stop their fall and got dragged down with them. They hit the landing in a tangle of limbs and pain.
But the survivors didn't stop. Couldn't stop. They leaped over the fallen, sometimes stepping on them in their panic, driven by the most primal of instincts: survive, survive, survive.
Kazuma looked back once—just once—as he descended. The four students who'd been hit lay sprawled across the stairs, blood running down the steps like a river. Their eyes were open. Some were still twitching. But there was nothing he could do. Nothing anyone could do.
I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.
He forced himself to turn away and keep moving.
They burst onto the second floor, the group now noticeably smaller than it had been. Faces were missing. Friends were gone. But there was no time to process it. No time for grief or guilt or shock. Only the next step. Only survival.
SECOND FLOOR — SPLITTING UP
In the chaos of the descent, two girls had separated from the main group. Hinami and Misa—best friends since middle school, always together, finishing each other's sentences and sharing secrets in whispered conversations.
Now they ran hand in hand through an empty corridor, their footsteps echoing in the silence. Misa was pulling Hinami in the opposite direction from where the main group had gone, her grip tight enough to hurt.
"Misa!" Hinami's voice was strained, confused. She tried to slow down, to turn back, but Misa's grip was iron. "What are you doing!? We have to go there! With the teacher!"
"No!" Misa's voice was firm, almost angry in its certainty. She stopped running for a moment and turned to face her friend, her eyes intense. "If you go there, you'll die! Understand?"
She pointed back the way they'd come, where screams still echoed faintly.
"That monster is following them. If we stay with that crowd, we'll die too. It's basic predator behavior—they go after the largest group first."
Hinami's face was a mixture of fear and confusion. "S-so what will we do now?"
Misa took a deep breath, forcing herself to think clearly despite the terror coursing through her veins. Her mind raced through the school's layout, every corridor and exit she'd memorized over years of studying here.
"We'll go down the other stairs." She squeezed Hinami's hand, trying to transfer some of her certainty. "We'll exit through the back gate of the school. Everyone is running toward the main gate—the monsters will focus there too."
She looked directly into her friend's eyes.
"Hinami. Trust me. We'll get out of here alive. Both of us."
Hinami stared at her for a long moment, then slowly nodded. "Okay. I'm with you."
They took off running again, but neither girl noticed the shadows moving on the ceiling above them, or the way the temperature had dropped several degrees in the last few seconds, or the faint sound of something breathing in the darkness behind them.
Because there weren't just creatures on the first floor.
There were more. Many more.
And they were everywhere.
FIRST FLOOR — DESPERATE MEASURES
The remaining students thundered down to the first floor, their numbers diminished but their will to survive burning bright. The hallway here was wider, with multiple classrooms branching off on either side. Other students who'd been in those classes came pouring out, drawn by the noise and the screams, their faces showing the same confusion and terror.
"What's happening!?"
"What was that sound!?"
"Why is everyone running!?"
But there was no time for explanations. The main group just kept moving, and the new students, seeing the blood and the panic, joined the exodus without question. The crowd swelled—forty people, fifty, more—all flowing toward the main exit like a human river.
Kazuma ran near the middle of the pack, his mind racing. The creatures were behind them, he knew. But were they ahead too? What if they'd surrounded the school? What if there was no escape?
Focus. Just focus on the next step. That's all you can control.
He spotted the fire extinguisher mounted on the wall up ahead—a bright red cylinder that might as well have been screaming "USE ME" in his current state of hyperawareness. His eyes darted to the stairwell they'd just come from, where he could hear the distinctive sound of the creature's approach. That same unhurried dhaak... dhaak... dhaak of footsteps that shouldn't exist.
An idea formed. Desperate. Maybe stupid. But possibly their only chance.
"DON'T ANYONE STOP!" he shouted to the group. "IT'S STILL ON THE STAIRS! IT CAN'T SEE YOU! RUN NOW! I'LL DO SOMETHING!"
The teacher shot him a concerned look but didn't stop. The group continued flowing past him like water around a rock. Kazuma pressed himself against the wall, unnoticed in the chaos, and grabbed the fire extinguisher. It was heavier than he'd expected, the metal cold against his palms. His hands were shaking so badly he nearly dropped it.
He positioned himself near the bottom of the stairwell, back pressed against the wall, extinguisher held like a weapon. Or a shield. He wasn't sure which.
Dhaak.
Dhaak.
Dhaak.
The footsteps grew louder. Closer. Each one sending a spike of adrenaline through Kazuma's system. His heart was beating so fast it felt like one continuous vibration in his chest. Sweat poured down his face despite the cold air. His fingers ached from gripping the extinguisher's handle.
Wait for it. Wait for it. Not yet.
The creature appeared at the top of the stairs, its form seeming to materialize from the darkness rather than walk into view. Those blue eyes swept the hallway, finding Kazuma instantly despite his attempt to hide. Its head tilted, almost curious, as if surprised that this prey wasn't running.
NOW!
Kazuma spun around the corner, yanked the pin from the extinguisher, and squeezed the trigger.
PSSSSHHHHHHHHH!
White foam exploded from the nozzle, filling the stairwell in seconds. The creature recoiled—the first time Kazuma had seen it react to anything—its form seeming to break apart and reform in the cloud of suppressant. Kazuma kept the trigger depressed, emptying the entire canister, creating a wall of white that obscured everything.
For a moment, there was silence.
Then the creature's arm punched through the foam—inhumanly long, impossibly fast. Its hand closed around Kazuma's throat like a vice. He felt himself lifted off his feet, his toes scraping uselessly against the floor as he was hoisted into the air.
"Aaaah—"
His vision started to go gray at the edges. The pressure on his windpipe was incredible. His lungs screamed for air they couldn't get. Distantly, through the foam and the panic, he saw movement—another creature emerging through the wall, its form rippling as it transitioned from solid concrete to open air.
No. No no no. Two of them. I can't—
The empty fire extinguisher was still in his hand.
With the last of his strength, Kazuma swung it like a club. The metal cylinder connected with something—he couldn't see what through the foam—and the grip on his throat loosened just enough. He dropped to the floor, gasping, then scrambled to his feet and ran.
Pure survival instinct. No plan. No strategy. Just the animal need to flee.
"TOWARD THE CHANGING ROOM!"
He wasn't sure who shouted it—maybe Shintaro, maybe someone else—but the words penetrated his oxygen-starved brain. Changing room. Solid door. Lockable. Fewer windows.
His legs pumped, carrying him forward even as his vision swam and his lungs burned. Behind him, he could hear the creatures pursuing, their presence like a cold wind against his back. The changing room door loomed ahead, blessedly open, with students pouring through it like water down a drain.
Almost there.
Almost—
His foot hit something slick—blood, probably, or foam from the extinguisher—and he slipped. His ankle rolled, pain shooting up his leg, but he didn't stop. Couldn't stop. He pushed through the pain and threw himself forward in a desperate lunge.
His fingers caught the doorframe.
He pulled himself through.
CHANGING ROOM — TERRIBLE CHOICES
The changing room was chaos. Bodies pressed together in the limited space, everyone trying to get as far from the door as possible. The smell of fear—sharp and acidic—mixed with the usual scent of sweat and disinfectant. Some students were crying. Others had gone silent with shock. A few were praying in whispered voices.
Kazuma stumbled in, his ankle screaming with every step. As he turned to help close the door, he saw a hand grab the edge from outside.
"Save me!"
Tamako's face appeared in the gap, streaked with blood and tears. Matsuda's blood. Her boyfriend's brain matter was still visible on her uniform, dark and grotesque. Her eyes were wild, barely human in their terror.
"I'll die! Please! Please let me in!"
Kazuma grabbed her arm and pulled. She practically fell into the room, collapsing against him, her entire body shaking with the force of her sobs. Behind her, the hallway was a nightmare—more students running, screaming, trying to reach safety.
"GET IN! HURRY!" multiple voices shouted at once.
Bodies pressed forward, trying to squeeze through the doorway. The room was already at capacity, but more kept coming, driven by pure desperation. Students who'd been elsewhere in the school, drawn by the noise, not understanding what was happening but knowing with animal certainty that they needed to be inside, not outside.
Then Gino was there.
Shize's brother. Tall, athletic, with the kind and natural confidence. He grabbed the door handle with both hands, his face set in grim determination.
And he pushed.
Not inward.
Outward.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?" someone screamed.
The students outside, suddenly realizing what was happening, pressed forward with renewed desperation. Hands appeared in the gap, grabbing at the doorframe, at Gino's clothes, at anything they could reach.
"OPEN THE DOOR!"
"PLEASE!"
"LET US IN!"
"I'LL DIE! PLEASE!"
Their voices overlapped, creating a chorus of desperation that would haunt the survivors' dreams for years to come. But Gino's face remained impassive. His muscles strained as he fought against the pressure from the other side, his teeth gritted with effort.
Other students inside moved to help him, some pulled by loyalty, others by the terrible logic of survival. Together, they pushed. The door moved. Inch by inch. Hands were crushed in the gap. Fingers bent at wrong angles. Someone screamed.
Kazuma stood rooted to the spot, his mind refusing to process what he was seeing. Around him, some students had turned away, unable to watch. Others stared in horror. A few openly wept.
SLAM.
The door closed.
The lock clicked.
Silence inside.
But outside...
Outside, the screaming continued. Fists pounded on the door, making it shake in its frame. Palms slapped against the wood, again and again, leaving dark red handprints that slowly slid downward, painting the door in abstract patterns of desperation.
"PLEASE! OPEN IT! OPEN IT!"
"I DON'T WANT TO DIE!"
"PLEASE GOD NO PLEASE—"
Then came the sounds. The wet, tearing sounds. The cut-off screams. The thuds of bodies hitting the floor. And through it all, that terrible breathing—if it could be called breathing—of the creatures as they worked.
It lasted forever.
It lasted thirty seconds.
When silence finally fell, it was absolute. The students inside the changing room stood frozen, barely breathing themselves, as if afraid that any sound might draw the creatures' attention.
On the door, the handprints remained. Some had slid all the way to the floor. Some were smeared where fingers had clawed for purchase. And at the very top, one perfect handprint remained, the fingers spread wide in a gesture that might have been reaching or might have been surrender.
Kazuma stared at that handprint. His mind felt disconnected from his body, floating somewhere above himself, watching this all happen to someone else. Because surely this couldn't be real. Surely this was still just a nightmare. Surely he'd wake up soon.
"Who are you to decide the life of others?"
His voice came out quiet. Flat. Almost emotionless. He turned to look at Gino, who was leaning against the door, breathing hard from the exertion.
"They... they wanted to live."
Kazuma's voice cracked on the last word, and suddenly his eyes were burning with tears. He blinked rapidly, trying to force them back, but they came anyway. Silent tears that tracked down his cheeks, cutting clean paths through the blood and grime on his face.
"They were begging... to get in. For their lives."
Gino straightened slowly, his expression hardening. When he spoke, his voice was cold. Practical. The voice of someone who'd already made his peace with what he'd done.
"And you don't?" He gestured at the crowded room. "Look here. The class is already full. How many could we bring in?"
He took a step toward Kazuma, his presence suddenly oppressive.
"If all of them came in, the monster would attack us. And then none of us would survive. Understand?"
Another step.
"They didn't survive. That was their fate. But we did. Because of me. You are breathing because of me, you ungrateful bastard."
Before Kazuma could respond, Gino's fist connected with his face.
CRACK.
Pain exploded across Kazuma's cheek and nose. His head snapped to the side, blood spraying from his nostril. He staggered backward, his injured ankle giving way, and hit the wall hard. His vision swam with tears and pain, but through it all, he could see Gino's face twisted with anger and something else—guilt, maybe, or fear masked as aggression.
"You bastard! You came here to lecture me!?"
Gino grabbed the front of Kazuma's shirt, pulling him close, their faces inches apart. Kazuma could smell the coffee on Gino's breath, see the tiny burst blood vessels in his eyes.
"I saved lives—I saved YOUR life—and you're accusing me? Blaming me!"
He shoved Kazuma against the wall again, making his head bounce off the concrete.
"Look at yourself first. How good are you, huh? You framed your girlfriend—Mitsuha—so you could escape. Had her sent to juvenile. Put everything on her."
Gino's voice dropped to a cruel whisper, each word carefully chosen to inflict maximum damage.
"And your friend... what was his name... yeah, Kento."
Kazuma's entire body went rigid.
"You didn't reach him in time. He died gasping in the hospital. Alone. Because of you."
Gino leaned in closer, his lips nearly touching Kazuma's ear.
"You think I'm a monster? Look at yourself. How many people have you trapped in your web? How many people died because of you?"
He pulled back, his eyes cold and hard.
"I say we should throw you out too. Because you are a killer. If Kento were here, he wouldn't want a friend like you. Someone who takes their friend's life."
The words hit harder than the punch had. Each syllable was a knife, carefully inserted between Kazuma's ribs, twisted for maximum pain. Because they were true. Weren't they? He had been too late for Kento. He had let Mitsuha take the fall for the festival incident. People around him did die.
Kazuma's hands, which had been hanging limply at his sides, slowly curled into fists. His nails dug into his palms, drawing blood. The pain grounded him, pulled him back from the spiral of guilt and self-loathing that threatened to swallow him whole.
He raised his head slowly, meeting Gino's eyes. And in Kazuma's gaze, there was something new. Something that hadn't been there before. Not rage. Not hatred. Something colder. Something that made Gino unconsciously take a half-step back.
"What?" Gino tried to inject his voice with bravado, but it came out slightly uncertain. "What are you looking at?"
Kazuma's hand moved to his pocket. Slowly. Deliberately. His fingers closed around something there—a pen, forgotten from class, its cap removed at some point. The exposed tip was sharp. Designed to write.
But metal is metal.
And any metal, given sufficient force, can pierce skin.
"Next time..."
Kazuma's voice was barely above a whisper, but in the silent changing room, everyone heard it clearly.
"...before you raise your hand..."
His hand came out of his pocket in a blur of motion. The pen flashed in the fluorescent light. Gino's eyes widened, but he was too slow, too surprised, too complacent in his belief that Kazuma was harmless.
"...think twice."
The pen drove into Gino's shoulder, punching through the fabric of his uniform and into the muscle beneath. It hit bone and stopped, but by then, two inches of metal had disappeared into his flesh.
"AAAAAAAAAAARRRRGGGGHH!"
Gino's scream was primal, a sound of pure animal agony. He staggered backward, his hand going to his shoulder, feeling the pen jutting out of his body. Blood immediately began seeping around the wound, staining his shirt dark crimson.
But Kazuma wasn't done.
The rage that had been building inside him—held back by fear, by shame, by self-loathing—finally broke free. Every death he'd witnessed. Every person he'd failed to save. Every time he'd been too weak, too slow, too late. It all came pouring out in a flood of violence.
He grabbed a metal rod from the coat rack—meant to hang uniforms, now repurposed as a weapon—and swung.
CRACK.
The rod connected with Gino's head, the sound echoing through the room like a gunshot. Gino went down, his legs giving out, but Kazuma followed him down, straddling his chest, one hand grabbing his collar while the other kept swinging the rod.
CRACK. CRACK. CRACK.
Again and again. Methodical. Relentless. Each impact accompanied by the sound of breaking—bone, wood, something. Blood sprayed with each hit, painting the floor, the walls, Kazuma's hands and face.
Students screamed and backed away, pressing themselves against the far walls. No one moved to stop him. Some were too shocked. Others were too scared—of Kazuma, of the creatures outside, of everything that had gone so terribly wrong.
CRACK.
Gino's nose broke, cartilage collapsing with a wet crunch. Blood poured from it, mixing with the blood from the cut above his eye, creating a grotesque mask of crimson.
CRACK.
The rod finally split in half, unable to withstand the force of Kazuma's blows. He threw the pieces aside and used his fists instead, pounding them into Gino's face with mechanical precision. Left. Right. Left. Right. His knuckles split open, his own blood mixing with Gino's, but he didn't stop. Couldn't stop.
Gino had stopped moving. His face was a ruin—nose shattered, one eye swollen completely shut, lips split in multiple places, blood everywhere. He was unconscious, possibly dying, but Kazuma's fists kept falling.
"ENOUGH!"
Hands grabbed Kazuma from behind—Shintaro and another student—pulling him off. He struggled against them for a moment, his body still caught in the violence, but then something inside him just... broke. The adrenaline drained away, leaving only exhaustion and pain.
Kazuma slumped in their grip, his breathing ragged, his entire body shaking. He looked down at his hands—red and swollen, cuts across the knuckles, blood under his nails—and didn't recognize them. Couldn't believe those were his hands. That he'd done that.
Gino lay motionless on the floor, his chest rising and falling in shallow breaths, blood pooling beneath his head.
Kazuma's voice came out hoarse, broken.
"Next time before you raise your hand..."
He looked around the room, at the faces staring at him with fear and shock and something that might have been awe.
"...think twice."
Then his legs gave out, and he sat down hard, his back against the wall, and just breathed. In and out. In and out. Trying to remember how to be human.
Outside, the storm continued to rage, and somewhere in the darkness, the creatures waited.