The rain had stopped.
Yoshino Junpei walked toward Satozakura High School with his head held low.
A cold badge was pinned against his skin, hidden just inside his collar.
"Will that thing... actually work?"
Junpei muttered to himself. Last night's experience felt like a dream, but the cold sensation beneath his collar served as a constant reminder—it was real.
...
Behind the school building at Satozakura High.
This was a blind spot for the security cameras and the place of Junpei's nightmares.
"Hey, Yoshino."
A flippant, malicious voice rang out.
Junpei's body instinctively stiffened, causing the soda in his hand to tremble.
Ito Shota. The blond-haired delinquent who bullied him for sport was blocking his path with two of his lackeys.
"I heard you've been avoiding us lately?"
Ito exhaled a cloud of smoke and walked up to Junpei with a sneer, patting his cheek.
"What's the matter? Did you think that just because the wound on your forehead healed, you could forget who the boss is around here?"
Junpei remained silent.
"Cat got your tongue?"
Ito grew inexplicably irritated by the silence. Usually, this worm would already be on his knees begging for mercy.
"Those dead-fish eyes of yours are really pissing me off."
The malice in Ito's eyes suddenly flared.
He violently raised his hand and shoved the burning cigarette butt toward Junpei's left eye!
"Since you don't want to look where you're going, then don't look at all!"
*Sizzle—*
Time seemed to freeze at that moment.
Junpei instinctively closed his eyes.
But he didn't dodge.
"AAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!!"
The expected agony never came. Instead, a blood-curdling scream shattered the school's tranquility.
Junpei snapped his eyes open.
The sight before him made his pupils shrink in shock.
He was completely unharmed.
Meanwhile, the arrogant Ito was kneeling on the ground, clutching his right eye and rolling around in excruciating pain.
"My eye! My eye is burning!!"
Blood and fluid seeped through Ito's fingers. His right eye looked as if it had been scorched by an invisible inferno, rapidly swelling and blistering.
The moment the cigarette butt touched Junpei's shield, [SYSTEM: MIRROR OF MALICE REFLECTION] activated.
Double the reflection.
It didn't just block the attack; it returned the pain of the burn to the aggressor twofold.
"Ito-senpai?!"
The two lackey's were stunned. They looked at the unscathed Junpei with terror, as if staring at a monster.
"W-What did you do?!"
Junpei stood there dazed.
He touched his face. No pain.
Then he looked at Ito wailing on the ground.
An unprecedented surge of euphoria rushed to his head.
"It's real..."
Junpei's hands were trembling—shaking with extreme excitement.
"It actually worked!"
"This is... the power Boss talked about!"
He slowly looked down at Ito, the boy who used to make him shake with fear. His gaze had changed.
It was no longer the look of a victim.
"When you were bullying others, did you ever stop to think this day would come?"
Junpei crouched down coldly and slowly poured his entire soda over Ito's head.
The soda flowed over Ito's hands clutching his eye, down his face, head, and neck.
Seeing this, the two lackeys didn't quite understand what was happening but rushed forward to avenge their leader.
The result, naturally, was them collapsing on the ground, clutching their own stomachs.
The three of them scrambled to support one another and fled.
Junpei was left alone in the corner.
He took a deep breath, feeling like a brand-new person.
"Thank you... Boss."
Junpei straightened his collar and turned to walk toward the school gates.
...
The next day.
Following Hayashi En's instructions, Junpei skipped class and headed toward the old movie theater called Kinema.
He bought a ticket for a seat in the back corner.
The movie was a trashy B-list horror flick called Earthworm Man 3.
Under the dim lights, Junpei wasn't watching the screen.
Out of the corner of his eye, he was staring intently at the front row.
Ito Shota and his two lackeys.
They had their feet kicked up on the seats in front of them, making a scene, mocking the film's special effects, and throwing popcorn.
'How disgusting.'
Junpei thought to himself.
Even though Junpei had taught them a lesson yesterday, some people's natures would never change.
"So noisy."
A light, airy voice rang out abruptly in the theater.
It wasn't loud, but it carried a bone-chilling coldness.
Junpei's heart skipped a beat.
'He's here.'
He turned his head.
Sitting not far from Ito was a strange man.
Long grey-blue hair tied in a braid, and his face... was covered in stitches.
Ito clearly didn't realize that the Grim Reaper had arrived.
He turned around with a look of hostility.
"Huh? Who the hell are you? What's it to you if I talk?"
"Keep it up and I'll beat your—"
He didn't finish his sentence.
The stitched-face man stood up.
He was smiling—a smile as innocent as a child's.
"Humans really are so rude."
He raised his hand and lightly patted Ito's shoulder.
"Let's be a little... quieter."
*Squelch—*
There was no scream.
There was no spray of blood.
Junpei watched as Ito's head twisted, expanded, and deformed like dough.
His features mashed together.
His eyeballs bulged.
In an instant, he turned into a giant, hideous lump of flesh.
Then.
*Pop, pop.*
The other two lackeys also twisted instantly, turning into two writhing masses of meat.
The theater fell into deathly silence.
Only the screams from the movie screen continued.
The man looked at his three works on the floor, nodded in satisfaction, and hummed a little tune as he turned toward the exit.
Junpei sat in the darkness, his whole body stiff.
Was he afraid?
Of course. That was inhuman power.
But more than that, it was a soul-deep shiver and... a sense of gratification.
They were dead.
The people who had trampled him into the dirt had been crushed like bugs.
Junpei took a deep breath, suppressing the urge to vomit.
He stood up and rushed out of the theater.
...
The back alley outside the theater.
Puddles had formed on the ground after the rain.
Mahito walked nonchalantly, savoring the sensation from moments ago.
"Transfiguring human souls... they really are too fragile..."
"Wait!"
Rapid footsteps came from behind him.
Mahito stopped and looked back with some surprise.
The boy who had been trembling in the back of the theater?
"Please... wait a moment!"
Junpei caught up, panting, hands on his knees, his face flushed.
Mahito tilted his head, a glimmer of interest flashing in his heterochromatic eyes.
"Oh? You can see me?"
Junpei swallowed hard.
He looked at that terrifying stitched face.
"Those people... just now..."
Junpei pointed toward the theater. His voice shook, but his eyes were locked onto Mahito's.
"Was that you?"
Mahito smiled.
"It was. Because they were too noisy."
He took a step toward Junpei, a malicious test.
"What? Were they your friends? You want revenge?"
"No!"
Junpei blurted out.
He looked up, a twisted but genuine smile appearing on his face.
It wasn't an act; it was his long-suppressed dark side.
"I think..."
"It was beautiful."
"They... deserved to end up like that a long time ago."
Mahito's footsteps paused.
He stared at Junpei for a few seconds before breaking into a laugh.
"Hahahaha!"
"How interesting! Truly interesting!"
Mahito walked up to Junpei as if he had discovered a new toy.
"Young man, your soul... is quite special."
"It's full of hatred, yet so clear."
"Don't you think this world is boring, too?"
"Don't those humans who trample over others get on your nerves?"
Junpei stared at the monster inches away from him.
Fighting the instinct to back away, Junpei nodded.
"Can I... do that too?"
Junpei reached out and pointed toward the theater.
"To have power like yours?"
"Of course."
Mahito narrowed his eyes. He really liked the look in this boy's eyes.
That hunger for power, that loathing for the world.
He was the perfect experimental subject.
"But whether you can learn it depends on your aptitude."
"I really like your eyes."
"As you are now, you're still too weak."
Mahito put his hands behind his back and circled Junpei like a mentor.
"Do you want to learn?"
"Come find me in the sewers here at this time tomorrow."
"I'll teach you... about the soul."
Junpei was stunned.
He seemed a bit lost, but in Mahito's eyes, this dazed state looked like shock at being chosen.
"What? Afraid to come?" Mahito teased.
"I'll be there."
Junpei clenched his fists.
"As long as I can get stronger... I'll go anywhere."
"Very good."
Mahito waved satisfyingly, his body liquefying and slipping through the gaps in a nearby manhole cover.
"Well then, see you tomorrow."
"Interesting boy."
...
Not until Mahito's presence completely vanished...
Did Junpei's legs give out, and he leaned against the wall.
Cold sweat had long since soaked his school uniform.
He had succeeded.
He had successfully infiltrated the monster's inner circle.
'The sewers, huh...'
Junpei stared at the dark manhole cover, a flash of ruthlessness in his eyes.
...
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