The bonfire blazed brightly, crackling, its orange-red light reflecting young faces full of enthusiasm.
Students held hands with each other, forming a large circle. Under the direction of Yumiko and Ebina, they danced a simple and cheerful dance. Laughter and off-key singing mixed into one, heard far into this silent village.
This was a night belonging to the "normies."
Darius stood outside the circle, right at the boundary line between light and darkness. He didn't join that merriment, but moved like a ghost, slowly walking around the outside of the bonfire.
He held a bottle of salt he took from the kitchen. His left hand pinched a handful of white crystals, his mouth muttering, then he scattered it with a strong flick toward the crowd.
"Impurity, begone."
Salt grains flew through the air forming a thin arc nearly invisible, falling onto the bodies of the noisy students without anyone noticing. He walked several more steps, repeating the same movement.
"Return, oh souls."
His steps and movements had a strange rhythm, as if he was leading an ancient sacred purification ceremony.
Hachiman leaned against a tree, observing this scene from afar. The light in his dead fish eyes dimmed further. He felt, compared to the elementary school kids disguised as ghosts in the forest earlier, Darius's current "performance art" had a horror level at least three times higher.
The atmosphere inside the circle reached its peak. After one song ended, people dispersed while panting, their faces flushed red after exercising.
Hayato tidied the hair on his forehead wet with sweat. His eyes searched through the crowd, and finally settled on Yukino sitting alone in the corner.
That girl was still the same as before, hugging that large wooden plank as if embracing her entire world.
Hayato took a deep breath, then walked over with his characteristic perfectly flawless sunny smile.
"Yukinoshita-san, good work earlier."
Yukino lifted her eyelids, glanced at Hayato briefly, but didn't speak.
"The atmosphere here is very good, why not join in?" Hayato extended an invitation. "For the next dance, would you dance with me?"
Instantly the gazes of several female students around immediately focused toward them, full of curiosity and gossip enthusiasm.
Yukino's brows furrowed faintly. Dance? With Hayato? Under everyone's gaze? She couldn't imagine that scene. Just thinking about it already made her feel physically uncomfortable.
Just as she was about to open her mouth to refuse, a figure appeared without warning between her and Hayato.
It was Darius.
He had completed his "purification ceremony" and somehow had already walked there.
"Your hand." Darius didn't look at Hayato, but stared sharply at the hand Hayato extended to Yukino.
"What?" Hayato was stunned.
Darius suddenly raised his hand and gripped Hayato's wrist. His hand was very cold, but its strength was extraordinarily great, like an iron vise.
"Very cold." Darius's tone contained no emotion, like reading an autopsy report. "This is a classic symptom of early zombification changes. Peripheral nerves beginning to die, blood circulation stopping, body temperature rapidly disappearing."
Hayato: "😐"
The surrounding atmosphere instantly froze. The romantic and ambiguous mood that had just been building shattered into pieces by that cold sentence.
"I-I just feel a bit cold." Hayato tried to pull back his hand, but found the opponent's hand completely unmoved.
"No, you're not just merely cold." Darius looked up. The green lens of his night observation device was already raised, but his eyes under the firelight appeared deeper and more mysterious than that lens.
His other hand also held on, two fingers pressing with precision on the pulse at Hayato's wrist.
"Weak pulse, heartbeat below forty times per minute. You're lying."
Darius increased the pressure of his fingers, Hayato's face began to pale.
"The T-Virus inside your body is active. They're remodeling your body, transforming you from a living human into... a walking corpse."
"Let... let go..." Hayato felt his wrist about to be crushed.
"Commander!" Yui ran over anxiously. "Hayama-kun, he..."
"He's mutating." Darius cut off her words, his eyes still locked on Hayato's face. "Don't approach him, very dangerous. His bodily fluids may already have high infectivity."
Hearing that, Yui immediately stepped back two large steps with a frightened expression, while pulling Hachiman nearby to also move away.
Yukino sat in her place, witnessing the absurd scene before her. She saw Hayato in pain, saw Darius giving a serious diagnosis, and saw Yui who fully believed as if facing a great enemy.
Suddenly she felt that the annoyance and rejection she felt earlier just from being invited to dance felt very trivial. Compared to the "Biochemical Crisis" currently happening before her eyes, compared to Hayato's fate about to become a "zombie," the matter of dancing was completely not worth mentioning.
Somehow, her heart actually felt relieved.
"Enough! Darius!"
An angry shout was heard. Shizuka strode over and forcibly separated the two.
"Do you want to break his hand?!"
Darius was pushed back, but he didn't resist. He only stared at his own hand, then looked at Hayato with a gaze full of regret.
"Treatment terminated. The virus in his body will spread faster."
Shizuka was too lazy to respond and held the shoulder of Hayato whose face was deathly pale: "Are you okay, Hayama?"
Hayato held his reddened wrist, shaking his head with feelings still shaken. He didn't dare look at Darius again, let alone approach Yukino. He hurriedly said, "I want to rest," then fled from the bonfire location as if chased by ghosts.
"Darius!" Shizuka turned and stared at him sharply. "I'm warning you, if you dare again—"
"Hiratsuka-sensei." Darius suddenly spoke, cutting off her sentence.
His expression was very calm, but his eyes were very bright. "I heard, on the last day of the joint camp, there's a fireworks festival?"
Shizuka was stunned for a moment by his strange thought process leap: "If so, why?"
"Nothing." The corner of Darius's mouth curved faintly. "I was just thinking that fireworks... are something beautiful."
He turned around, leisurely walking back into the shadows of the west building, leaving a group of people exchanging glances behind him.
Yukino gripped the wooden plank in her hand, staring at Darius's disappearing back, then looked down at herself. Suddenly she felt, tonight's night wind didn't seem that cold anymore.
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