Those who fly too close to the sun eventually fall down.
“That bitch…” Iroha and Miyuki were leaving school together again. That was what Ayumu saw as she muttered to herself. She used to be the undisputed beauty in class, and that popularity hadn’t faded. She was soone Iroha liked at so point, soone out of her reach, and soone who caused her to retreat into her shell.
“What? What did you see?” Behind her was another girl. One of the many who seed to live just to please her. “Ughh… It’s those two… They’re off again in their own little world, huh?”
“Like, it’s her fault for transferring so close to sumr vacation. She should have waited. Of course she’s not gonna fit in.” A second girl spoke up, causing yet another girl to respond.
“The other two are even worse. Carol and Katja, right? But they’re kinda weird, so I’m not so sure. Right, Ayumu?”
The brown-haired girl didn’t respond right away. She turned her back and walked away from the window. “*Sighh…* Whatever you say. I couldn’t care less.” She waved dismissively. “Let’s do karaoke again today. I can’t with anything else right now.”
After getting on a bus, Miyuki and I went south towards the coast. We got off in a denser part of the city. It wasn’t the densest, like to the east, where we took Ririna, but it was denser than the places we usually frequented.
It’s around here that a lot of people co to have fun. Maybe a little more to the west along the coast. There’s a massive water park at so point that goes crazy during the sumr with lots of shops and other things around. Actually, maybe it’s been going crazy already. I know a lot of people don’t wait till sumr to go for a swim.
But we weren’t going quite that far south or west. We stopped in the still sowhat normal part of Three Records, where work got done and people were found not roaming around. Our normal.
“So… Don’t you have anything to say?” I poked Miyuki with my elbow as we walked side by side. “I really wouldn’t mind an explanation. Soone’s gonna die? Wanna take a look? That’s not the best way to make an invitation, you know?”
“Ahahaha!” Miyuki wiggled playfully. “But you don’t even care, right? You ca with
even without
saying anything. You’re so cute, Iroha.”
“I see… The program for today is teasing while keeping
in the dark. Very funny…” I’ll get my revenge at so point… “*Sigh…* But seriously, soone’s gonna die? Since when can you see things like that?”
Miyuki grinned. “What? Now you’re complaining about the future I see? Would you prefer
to ask about your latest girlfriend? The fourth one? Or do you count
in and call her the fifth?”
“Wha- what?! You even know about that?!” How the hell did she find out about Sarasa? She’s becoming a pro at ssing with .
Miyuki laughed at my reaction, but I just ignored her. “What I ant was, why would you bring this to ? I don’t wanna be an, but lots of people die every day. I didn’t know we were in the business of saving random people. Is that really us?”
“Geez… Do you really think I would tell you this for no reason? It’s the cause. If you don’t do sothing, a monster’s gonna kill soone. If I rember correctly, preventing that is supposed to be your job, isn’t it?”
“A monster?! There’s a monster in the city?” I feel a bit silly for not taking her seriously now.
“Yep! It’s right here!” Miyuki stopped and gestured towards a nearby building. It looked like a small museum or an art gallery squeezed between two big apartnt buildings. ‘Indefinitely closed for maintenance’ appeared written on a sign hanging from the door.
“There’s a monster in there? Well, with that sign there, I can believe it. But it’s closed.”
“Yeah… The truth is, soone was already attacked. There’s an institution that deals with things like this, but they’re all busy. So for now, they shut it down.” Miyuki walked with a leisurely pace as she explained. She must be referring to the PSF… Miyuki turned around with a playful look. “So let’s go inside.”
“Huh? You wanna trespass? That’s a cri.”
“No… Getting caught is a cri.” Great… Now she fancies herself a law expert…
“Do you really think it’s that simple? These places have caras inside.” Seriously, she’s a bit too unhinged sotis.
“Not a problem, Iroha. They wanna keep monsters a secret, so they shut off the caras. Sothing about minimizing the creation of physical evidence.” She put on a silly, manly voice like she was quoting soone. “No need to break any doors either. We can get in through the roof, so pick
up and get scaling.”
“You’re surprisingly well inford for this…” Suspiciously so… I approached her to grab her but stopped. “Wait, you’re coming too? I thought you were deathly afraid of monsters.”
“Was that what I said?” She tilted her head. “The last thing I want is to go to a world that’s filled with monsters. That’s what I said. This just feels like a haunted house. No big deal. Besides…” Miyuki leaned forward and took a few steps forward, looking at
with puppy eyes. “No matter what happens, you’ll protect , won’t you?”
Guhh… She’s too cute… “Alright… Just hold on.” I swept her off her feet, and she squealed before wrapping her arms around my neck. Seriously? I tried to look away and carried her into the alley.
…
“Should be this one…” With a slow creak, a door opened into the gallery. We stepped inside after descending multiple sets of stairs and finding the right floor.
“It’s dark in here… Don’t they have any windows here?” Miyuki took a look around in the darkness. There was so light near the stairs, so we weren’t completely blind. But as soon as the door closed, that would be gone. And the door was one of those that liked closing automatically.
“I can light up the place. Give
a second.” I took out my phone and turned on the flashlight. The door behind us closed, and a picture in front of us with a red river painted on it got lit up.
“This is exciting, Iroha… It’s my first ti doing anything like this…” Miyuki had a phone too, so she held hers up like . She went off exploring on her own, and I followed behind her. I took an extra step forward. By her side, actually. I gotta stick close to her. “Wanna do sothing naughty?”
“…” Yes…? “You can be a little more serious, you know? Isn’t there a monster around?”
“I dunno… Maybe I lied just to bring you sowhere dark.”
“You’re joking…”
“Ahahahahahaha! I am… There should be a monster here, but I don’t really know where. The place is not that big, so we should find it just by taking a look around.” Is that so…? I let out a sigh, and we started exploring.
I kept my guard up for both of us, so we didn’t talk much. This was an art gallery, so naturally, there were paintings hanging on every wall. They weren’t the only thing around, as there were display stands with vases, pots, and even a few statues. The only thing we hadn’t seen was a monster.
“We’re almost back to the beginning. Have you seen any-?” Suddenly, Miyuki’s light turned off. “Miyuki?!”
“Oops… I accidentally turned it off… Sorry, Iroha, ahahaha… Can you give
so light?” Seriously? She fiddled with her phone and quickly turned the light on again. “We’re back!” She almost gave
a heart attack, yet she’s laughing… At least nothing happened…
We finally looked up and illuminated the path ahead of us. There, was a statue of a green, goofy-looking creature with two legs, and two heads and jagged jaws. “You gotta be more careful… We almost bumped into a statue…”
“Iroha…” Miyuki’s face went pale. “I don’t think that’s a statue…”
“Huh?”
*Thump thump thump!* The next mont, the creature rushed forward.
“KYAAAAH!!” Miyuki started running right away. Sothing so big moving all of a sudden startled
and caused
to stumble. What a fucking jumpscare…
“Wha- what the hell is that?!” I asked in a daze while running beside her. We gotta find sowhere to hide and wait for it to pass… Is there a locker sowhere?
“More like, what the hell are you doing?” Miyuki panted exasperatedly. “Why are you running with
instead of fighting it?”
Oh, right… This isn’t a horror ga. Burst Dash!
I jumped off a nearby wall to land a kick on the monster. It didn’t do any damage, but it stopped the charge. I passed the phone to my left hand and extended my sword. It doesn’t seem that strong…
“Whew… Finally… I was getting tired of running…”
“Sorry… I’ll handle things from here. Don’t get too close.”
The monster looked like a two-headed dinosaur on two legs and with no arms. The heads were connected through long necks, and I couldn’t see anything like eyes on the monster. The skin, too, seed to lack details.
I was close enough for its heads to reach . Jaws opened wide and lunged forward to try and bite . Once, twice… It wasn’t too fast, and I dodged them both.
“There!” I followed the second dodge with a hit to one of the necks and wounded it quite easily. It’s pretty weak. I can probably finish it right away.
I was too close to get bitten again, so the monster flailed with one of its heads to knock
away. I was easily able to block, then Slash Flurry! A thick cut appeared on its neck, and one of the heads fell to the floor with a wet thump.
“Grooooarh!” Losing one of the heads caused the monster to stagger and let out a roar.
Now, is it going to try to regrow its head? Do I need to cut off the other before it can do that? I didn’t have ti to test out my theory as the monster charged forward, biting multiple tis in a blind rage. Well… I guess I can just get this over with… Heart Piercer! My sword pierced its neck again. “And now…” Slash Flurry! I rapidly twisted my blade, and the second head hit the floor right after.
The monster stopped moving and fell down. Looks like it’s dead… Seeing the monster down, Miyuki approached, and we both looked down at the body.
“Phase 2?”
“Shut up! Don’t even joke about that!” I managed to stop the monster from even going near her, so Miyuki’s fine. But isn’t she enjoying this way too much? “Shouldn’t you be at least a bit more scared?”
“Why? You said you’d protect .” Huh…? Fair enough…
“Well… The monster’s dead, so the death you saw shouldn’t happen anymore, right?” Miyuki nodded. “What do we do now then? Can we just leave, or should we clean this up sohow?”
Before Miyuki could suggest anything, the monster’s body started glowing. We were completely blinded, then heard a piece of wood hit the floor. When our vision returned, the body of the monster was gone, and in its place was a painting.
“No way… This is just like…” The lizard in the cruise ship… It turned into a mirror after it died… It’s not exactly the sa, but…
The painting had abstract art on it. There was a green spot that kinda looked like the monster I fought if I squinted hard enough… Did the monster co from the painting?
“Uhmm… Is that normal, Iroha? Did the monster turn into a painting?” Miyuki tilted her head.
“I don’t think so…” It’s not the first ti, but I don’t know what to make of it…
“Either way, if it’s just a painting, we can leave it behind, can’t we? Let’s leave.”
“Yeah… Before sothing happens…” The painting might contain so information, but I don’t know if I can just take it… I’ll keep it in mind, though.
…
We left the gallery, went up the stairs, and returned to the freeing rooftop. “Feels good to see so light again…” Miyuki walked around freely, savoring the small breeze from the rooftop.
“Ahahaha… It really does.”
“We did a good deed today, didn’t we, Iroha?” Miyuki stretched with a pleased look on her face… A good deed, huh?
“You an trespassing?”
Reviews
All reviews (0)